Dead Space reinvents a genre and creates an experience gamers have never before had.
- Real physics and application of science
- Realistic control movements and timing
- Scary as hades
- While game is difficult, it is also fair
- Variety of enemies and bosses
- Weapons are modified engineering tools
Cons:
- Difficulty will scare away some gamers
- Zero gravity navigation
- Repetitive Missions
- They really came up with 12 things that could possibly go wrong on a broken, infested ship
- Scary as hades
- Limited ammo in Normal and Hard modes
In the not so distant future, mankind is quickly running out of resources and looks to other planets for valuable resources and alien technology. Giant ships built for engineering and extraction of resources (Planet Crackers) orbit the planets and support the mining colonies set up to extract rare and valuable substances on the planets. However, one ship named the USG Ishimura has recently lost all contact with the federation commander of these ships. A team of engineers and rescue workers dispatch to uncover what happened to the ship while piecing together the mystery of the distress calls and videos that all end abruptly and with screams.
While Isaac Clarke pines over videos from his love interest Nicole, the rest of the team is busy at work trying to locate and dock the rescue vessel on the Ishimura. This is done while determining if there are any survivors on what appears to be a standard protocol operation. The team soon finds the Ishimura in orbit with no power, lights, or defenses enabled to protect the inhabitants from hardships like meteor showers, zero gravity, and unsympathetic vacuums. Upon docking, the crew straps on their RIG (Resource Integration Gear) suits and dispatch into the USG Ishimura to solve these problems and find out what happened to the crew.
Upon exiting your vessel, you will experience one of the most intense introductions of gameplay I have ever witnessed. The scene sets the tone and pace for the rest of the game and will establish the game's intent. Dead Space is meant to shock, startle, and scare you from beginning to the staggering end. The game is broken up into chapters, with each worst case scenario occurring one after another. From the air being polluted to some giant mass blocking up the food containment, you alone will be forced to solve the entire spectrum of problems experienced. The RIG suit does have a map integrated into it, and by clicking the R3 button you will have a laser light guide you to your next objective. This proves to be more useful than the map, unless you are looking for a store, bench, or save point.
While I played through the first round on Easy, the game does not prove to be easy for a number of reasons. Even with the difficulty on the lowest level, you will still die and be forced to perform some trial and error exercises. You will die a number of times through your first play, with some of the untimely ends occurring in inopportune and surprising times in the story and gameplay. In fact, most players should play the first round in "Easy" to get accustomed to the new style of gameplay and the pace and accuracy necessary to cut down the antagonists of the game. This advice comes after trying to get through the "normal" difficulty, soon realizing this goal would be better achieved with upgraded weaponry and engineering duds.
After beating the game on Easy, you can carry your equipment and supplies forward in the Game 1: Round 2 function. All of Isaac's weapons, armor, and upgrades are intact and the game starts over at the beginning of the game. There are also challenging trophies such as the "One Gun" trophy, which challenges you to use the handgun equivalent the whole way through the game.
The game has all of the basic controls and schematics for upgrading weapons and purchasing supplies with the use of credits (money) and nodes (electronic expansion slots used for weapon and item upgrades). The interesting perspective utilized by Dead Space is that all of the weapons (sans the Pulse Rifle) are engineering tools and typical technologies utilized by the crew. These would be common in the ship's stores even when not defending against extremely hostile and sadistic life forms. This perspective adds a more genuine feel to the game than most survival horror setups. This crew did not show up to wage a survival battle against the necromorphs, but Isaac is simply adapting the tools they have on hand to survive what appears to be a mass genocide of the colony and supporting ship.
The distinguishing new feature Dead Space provides to the genre requires you to strategically dismember the necromorphs. This replaces the almost twenty year old formula of unloading mass amounts of blades, ammo, explosives, payloads, and welding energy into their hideously deformed bodies. No, that formula results in an easy survival horror game as we all know from previous games and series.
These necromorph creatures are best handled through the use of high temperature energy and blades to sever limbs, causing them excruciating pain and dealing double (or triple damage) as they scream and wail in ear-piercing pain and anger. Once grounded and stunned, you can run over to the mangled body and stomp the remains until the body splits apart into a number of bloody pieces. This may be the most satisfying part of the game... at least to this reviewer.
The character and enemy models are superbly (and grotesquely) detailed and move in a way that you would imagine. The human animations appear to have used some high detail motion capturing technology, while the various necromorphs adopt a combination of George Romero's zombie movements and Zack Snyder's remake of "Dawn of the Dead," starring the quick zombies. Even the enemies that move slowly will worry with the detailed sounds and moans they mutter, forcing you to proceed with caution until you encounter them. These sound effects accompany great voice acting, sound, and background music to further set the tone of the game. Dead Space is a game that should be experienced in surround sound 5.1 or greater.
You will also find some great animations as the various necromorphs try to rip off Isaac's various body parts or eat his face, unless you push the correct buttons with extreme vigor. These animations and reactions are some of the best animations in this generation and should be experienced either on purpose or through normal gameplay.
Despite the overall great execution of the game, everyone will find faults in any game with Dead Space being no exception. The difficulty on Normal will irk some casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike. While I am not above playing a game on Easy, this is something a few gamers I know will not tolerate - and they will fall victim to a frustrating first play through using a completely new system and what some describe as horrible controls.
The frame rate and smoothness of the game will drop at times, causing lag when you are in a high texture environment or with a lot of fast moving enemies. While you usually do not realize the lag, there are a couple of areas that are easily recognized and actually adversely affect the gameplay and experience.
On top of the lag, when a lot of enemies (or even a single one) are close you can "shoot through" them with most weapons. This results in the loss of valuable ammo and heavy damage being taken depending on the enemy that sneaks in close to Isaac. The "shoot-through" can also occur at medium or long distances, forcing you to engage some of the most deadly enemies at close range to accurately dismember them. This inevitably causes the player to take heavy damage, soaking up the medi-paks used for healing.
Dead Space is an astounding game the reinvents the genre. While not as refined or technical as survival horror games like Resident Evil 4, the towering amounts of tension coupled with murky environments create an atmosphere never experienced before in a game. The dark design urges you to play without lights being illuminated in the same room. Playing this game in the dark with surround sound only augment the overly disturbing nature of the game. You will progress 90% of the time by walking cautiously through the game despite having a "run" option available. Running will only be used when it is necessary to flee hastily from some type of necromorph that cannot be killed by your tools of engineering. Even when you know a boss battle is coming, the scale and sheer distress will still overcome you enough to raise your heart rate until you die or defeat the boss.
This may be the first game that delivers on the ridiculous marketing monikers or tag lines associated with most games. Dead Space's tag line is located on the back cover and reads "There's no help coming" in digital, pale yellow, all capital, and bolded letters. You could not describe the overall feeling of the game in a single sentence any better. In a world where there seems to be teams of people working together, you are always alone and no one comes to your aid no matter to circumstance. All of these things make Dead Space a game that should not be missed for fans of survival horror games, horror movies, or extremely atmospheric media in general. If Capcom and Konami are taking notes for their franchises, this is how the genre should be done going forward (not like Resident Evil 5).