Review: Dead Space

Developer: Visceral Games

Publisher: EA

Platform: PS3

Game Completion: ~11hrs

     Here's a game I had been avoiding for some time. To me, everything I had seen about it seemed to scream "GENERIC ACTION/HORROR SPACE SHOOTER" and thusly I treated it with a fair amount of indifference. That is, until a co-worker showed up with it one day, basically thrust it into my hands and said "play this, you won't regret it". For anyone who has played Dead Space, needless to say, he was totally right.  

You tend to listen to video game suggestions when you work in a place like this....

   In Dead Space, you play as a futuristic space engineer named Isaac Clark who finds himself trapped on a mining spaceship infested with "necromorphs" (see: futuristic space zombie). Throughout the game, the player takes on a diverse and disgusting range of these creatures with the help of some nifty, futuristic space guns (lets just assume from hereon out that everything about the game might as well be prefaced with the words "futuristic" and "space") which the player acquires and can pick and choose to upgrade as he progresses. Aside from the story and setting, however, the first thing that really stands out is the incredible UI employed here by developer Visceral Games.

   I don't think I would be far off in saying that the manner in which the heads up display and menus have been implemented in Dead Space is one of the best and most unique I have ever seen. Instead of a traditional menu screen, all logbooks, inventory and maps can be accessed via a hologram that projects (beautifully) from your main character's chest, all within real game time. Your character's health and special ability meters are displayed directly on the back of his suit and, perhaps the most genius implementation of all, a laser projection system on Isaac's palm that, with the press of a button, shows the player the path to the next objective.

So simple, yet so...fucking...brilliant.

     As far as atmosphere is concerned, Dead Space pretty much nails it on the head. There is nary a moment that there aren't some sort of ominous scratching and creaking metal sounds suggesting that danger is constantly present in every direction. Play this in the dark with a few candles lit and a booming surround sound system (or even some decent headphones) and you can truly feel like you're right there with our pal Isaac, about to be eviscerated by one of the hordes of monsters infesting the ship. This isn't necessarily a Silent Hill 2 kind of contemplative horror atmosphere, one that bogs you down and creeps you out, staying with you long after the power has been turned off. These are more "Mountain Dew" style scare tactics, extreme and in your face and "we're gonna jump out and scare the shit out of you right NOW and we're gonna do it LOUD", but in the best possible way.

As a reference, this would be scary in the WORST possible way...

     When all is said and done, if you're looking for a damned good next gen fun fright fest, you can't go wrong with Dead Space. It controls like a dream, it looks absolutely stunning and never really lets up for a minute. All this on top of a halfway decent story and an unreliable main character who remains compelling even though we never see his face or hear his voice (way to learn well from the Samus Aran school of futuristic space game character design). If you've got a PS3, this is another big recommendation, trust me, it's one of those games that will make you really glad you own one.

Graphics: 9/10

Gameplay: 8/10

Replayablity: 7/10

The whole Shebang: 8/10

M's Watchability Rating:  8/10

What can I say about 'Dead Space'...... HOLY F@CKING SHIT, you are scary. It's not so much the way the creatures look or how they move, but the fact that you can't always see them, that they just spring from the floors, walls and ceilings to either engage or just pass along to another section that made my skin constantly crawl. It's basically 'Event Horizon' the videogame, but it is for the most part well executed. The palm map thingy is genius and I can not believe more game haven't used this before! No mater how long it was between game play, all he had to do was "palm it" and there we were off to our next objective. No scrolling thru the map or objectives screens or going to a walk-through to remember what it was you just did and now what you're supposed to do, just "bleep" and there was your blue light-cycle-like path guiding you forward. The plot and protagonist are convincing and give enough away that by the end of it you know you're a good guy and the bad guys were crazy. Now, the part that was annoying (which reduced my rating) was every once and a while there would be an onslaught of enemies and no matter how much ammo we had it wasn't enough or if we didn't have enough ammo, not enough was provided causing several play throughs. This was my major problem with the first 'Uncharted'. Why make it so the gamer can't either buy enough ammo (cause yeah, if you enter the shop and get hurt, you are immediately kicked out of the shop) or the little pod like creatures with the spikey-upright tail won't give you any ammo but if you get to close to the person on the wall whose's birthing the damned things he screams so loud your head explodes... What is the point of areas where you have too many enemies?? Yeah, it ups the gaming level, makes you feel like Rambo when you've finally killed every last one of them, but when you just want to get through the room, sometimes too much, is too much. Overall I'm excited to see how the sequel turns out, but I just hope there isn't as much enemy overload. As a voyeur, I like to watch the plot progress, not just mindless fire-fight after mindless fire-fight... There's a reason we don't play 'Halo'.