Dead Space Review (360)

Aliens and Chainsaws what can go wrong?

With recent brilliant Horror titles such as Resident Evil 4 on the Wii and Left 4 Dead EA’s Dead Space has a lot to live up to, and seeing as how it’s bringing a whole new sci-fi element to the table it’s going to have to be something special to draw us away from the usual horror fan’s daily intake of Zombies, Shotguns and innocent Teenage Girls.

You play as Isaac Clarke, a Systems Engineer sent on a routine mission to fix up an intergalactic mining ship known as The USG Ishimura after it loses communications with home base, unfortunately things go a wee bit Pete Tong after you and your crew are forced to crash land and become stranded on board the Ishimura along with its dead crew and a horde of vicious aliens.
Now Isaac, being a systems engineer and all, has never had any military combat training, and this shows at the start of the game as he helplessly watches half his crew get slaughtered before legging it and cowering in a lift. Fortunately this is overcome as he uses various items of mining machinery to his advantage to ward off enemies, such as the Plasma Cutter and cult classic: The Flamethrower. Isaac can also put his engineering skills to good use by upgrading his weaponry with the use of handy workbenches and power nodes that are scattered throughout the game’s 12 chapters. In fact most pieces of equipment in the game can be upgraded in some way, from all of Isaac’s weaponry, to his spacesuit as well as his Stasis and Kinesis Modules that can slow down objects and enemies and pick them up and throw them respectively.

Dead Space’s gameplay is incredibly good, and doesn’t set out the same way as many other horror games in the hope that it can give you a cheap scare. Instead it provides a balance of intense shooter sequences broken up by the occasional mechanical hazard that must be overcome through clever use of the aforementioned Stasis and Kinesis Modules. This being said, I did find that some parts of the game while playing through the game on its ‘medium’ difficulty were a bit easy. This is especially true for the boss fights, none of which really posed much of a challenge as they all provided the same ‘shoot the weak spot’ tactic, not only this but it was the same bloody weak spot on every boss.
Although don’t let this detract from the game, after all if you want a challenge you can always set the game to hard, and the game also has an unlockable ‘impossible’ setting which could take you some time to complete and provides a nice 150 Gamerscore when you do.

The combat system isn’t as much something that you have to get used to, as much as it is something that you have to be gradually de-sensitised to. The enemies you face off against in

if you want a challenge you can always set the game to hard, and the game also has an unlockable ‘impossible’ setting

Dead Space can take more than a few hits to the chest before they go down, meaning that the easiest way for you to deal with them and to conserve precious ammo is to detach their arms, legs and anything else that hangs off them until they finally give up on dragging their legless chassis of a self menacingly towards you and actually die. This might sound horribly sadistic. And it is! But it also certainly adds tension to the game as you carefully take aim at the screaming alien thing sprinting towards you waving scythes in the air…. But seriously. This game will mess you up.

The Graphics of the game are somewhat wonderful, both from a gore and detail perspective. The detail on Isaac himself is wonderful and the way the appearance of both his suit and weapons subtly change as they are upgraded instead of being over exaggerated is actually quite refreshing over the way a lot of other games approach the idea, his animations also work well and I found myself watching most of the holographic videos facing Isaac instead of from behind him just so I could see his reactions to what happens, and despite not being able to see his face the nods and shakes of the head are all you need to add depth to his character.
The locations are also brilliantly presented, from the dusty mining shafts and blood bathed hallways to the lush green agricultural deck and white walls of the medical deck, you really get a sense of what the Ishimura was like as a place to work and live before everyone was brutally cut up and turned into evil killer aliens. These also look good by the way, with limbs and multiple heads often sprouting out from surreal parts of their body, and have some brilliant animations – I’m sure it wasn’t the developers desired reaction but I found myself laughing out loud the first time I saw one performing what appeared to be a ballet down the hallway flailing its arms in the air making weird high pitched noises, In fact most of the noises the aliens make are freaking hilarious but still manage to send a chill down your spine especially the moans of the dreaded wall beast.

The game’s HUD is also presented extremely well, with all the essential information being incorporated directly onto Isaac’s gear. Health and Stasis energy are shown by bars on his back and your remaining air and ammo are shown through holograms on the actual pieces of equipment as they are being used. This works excellently as it gives some extra space for watching your back for aliens and just generally keeps the screen from looking cluttered from information.

The music in the game does its job exceedingly well and succeeds in making you poo everywhere every time something jumps out at you, and half the time there’s nothing there. It’s the kind of soundtrack that will probably mess you up for a week or two if you tried playing the game at night with the lights off.

Overall I would say that Dead Space is a must have for any fan of the Survival / Horror genre or any up and coming sadist looking for a cheap laugh. Essentially it has everything you want from a good Thriller: A gripping story, Tense and fast paced action and lots, and lots of blood. I’m sure the Dead Space will live on as a franchise for many years to come.