Dead Space

The Good
It is seemingly as if they took all my favourite scary games and mashed them together into one piece of bloody perfection.

The Graphics of Mass Effect? Check. The same style of interior semblance as Doom 3? Check. Audio and Video logs as story progression from Resident Evil and Doom 3? Check. The same fantastic camera angle and controls of Resident Evil 4? Check. Gruesome blood and guts enemies like those in The Thing? Check. Enemies that don't "just die," like those in The Thing? Check. * Shop and upgrades from Resident Evil 4? Check. *Just enough originality to make one damn good game? Check.

Suffice to say while playing this game, I feel like someone read my mind and made a game out of it.

The atmosphere is just perfect. It looks extremely similar to the environments found in Doom 3, however the over the shoulder camera and controls lifted from Resident Evil 4 make for much more genuine scares. Additionally the enemies aren't your typical "Bang. You're dead" type. Very much like the video game adaptation of The Thing, you must finish off the enemy otherwise they might just get right back up and eat your face. Where as in The Thing players had to weaken and then torch the creatures, Dead Space is slightly less tedious in that you must "creatively dismember" the bad guys to kill them.

Speaking of atmosphere, this is a no-HUD game. Your only indication of your life status is the spine on the back of your suit. Very immersive. Speaking of immersion, the audio is just perfect in this game. Creepy sounds coming from vents, subtle creaks to keep you on your toes. It all works perfectly to really bring you into the experience. On top of that the audio effects for things like machinery on the ship is top notch. The muffled audio during space walks is also a nice touch.

The storyline is great. Told through text, audio and video logs found throughout the game it tells a compelling story that makes you actually want to seek out the documents.Top notch voice acting brings it home as one of the most cinematic games to date.

Finally, Dead Space offers some great customization. If you can suspend your disbelief at the arbitrary shops throughout the ship then you're in for some great fun. Your EV suit is fully customizable and upgradable. In addition your inventory can be expanded, weapons upgraded and certain items combined, adding a good strategy element.

The Bad
Nothing really. It's clear most, if not all of Dead Space was inspired by prior games. However it's done so extremely well that I can forgive it.

The Bottom Line
A coming together of some of the best games in the horror genre make for one excellent game. If you liked any of the games I mentioned, or just plain like scary games, then check this one out for sure.

The Good
Good character-design.

Inventory is pretty clever.

Good scares are actually pretty common in this game.

You always know where to go.

The Bad
All enemies are killed in exactly the same way.

Chapters drag on for way too long.

Plot is not interesting in the slightest.

Level-design is very monotone.

Very little challenge.

The Bottom Line
Story

The story starts off with engineer Isaac on a spaceship with a small crew. The ship has been send to check up on a so-called planet-cracker vessel whose communication went completely silent. It doesn't take very long to realize that it's not just an unplugged telephone causing the trouble, as the ship has been infected with a mysterious alien race and most of the crew has been killed already. Isaac gets separated from his pals and has to find a way to escape the Ishimura (as the ship is called) with his life in tact, along the way he is also looking for his wife who was stationed at the ship.

It sounds like a pretty good setup and the Alien franchise has proven to us before that been trapped on a spaceship with alien lifeforms is frightening as all hell. The story itself is not very fantastic, but it does a good job at putting our hero in the worst places imaginable and is thus sufficient. My only gripe lies with the ever-so-important pacing, which is very bad in this title. There are a total of twelve chapters, but I stopped caring around the fifth, simply because each level drags on for eternities and just keeps getting longer and longer with every second. Every time you think you're done with a chapter, some plot-event demands you to travel halfway across the sector again to fix some broken computer or do some other engineer business.

I also briefly mentioned the side-story involving Isaac's missing wife, which might have seemed a bit too relevant to skim over. The intro features a brief message from her, but then it's not brought up again for almost half the game. It's a shame, because with such little narrative, it becomes even more obvious that most of the game consists of running through the same metal corridors for long amounts of time.

Gameplay

Since Isaac is an engineer, he is naturally not very familiar with the working of guns. What he does know, however, is how to use sharp objects and that's fortunate since the alien lifeforms are full of limps. This is what makes the combat in this game work, unlike a Resident Evil or Left 4 Dead, enemies can't just be killed by regular gunfire. The most effective way is to cut off their limbs, since that not only kills them faster, but also makes sure that they are less effective when they are brought back to life by some other foe. The combat also feels gratifying because of the great impact each weapon has, it genuinely feels like you have a power-tool in your hands and are mowing through fleshy foes.

Besides fighting your way through enemies, Isaac also has to do a lot of running around. Since this is a horror game, much of the emphasis lies on building atmosphere. This is however handicapped by the fact that all enemies are very weak. You might be shocked when an enemy jumps through a vent in front of you, but one good shot at their tentacles will stun them and a second shot will break them completely. All enemies succumb to this tactic: just aim for whatever limbs you see and cut them off. This eventually resulted in me still using the starting pistol several hours into the game and all the fancy tools in the shop just went completely by me.

The rest of the gameplay is very basic: missions consist of Isaac running around an area of the Ishimura looking for items to open up a path or a way to fix some broken systems. It's nice that it sorta sticks with the whole Engineering gag, but the events lack any sort of fun-factor. Sometimes you have to do a short puzzle, but the mechanics usually limit this to either picking something up or slowing it down, since that is all Isaac can really do. Sometimes you're in zero-gravity getting absolutely lost, but not in an engaging or interesting way and at other times you have to do little mini-games to progress, but these all control like absolute shit.

Presentation

The first hour or so was really frightening for me, since I had to run away from fucked-up monstrosities with no means of defense. Even when I found the pistol, it seemed very weak to me and I refrained from exploring too much. The sighing and breathing I heard coming from the other side of walls kept me on edge and, dang it, I was having a load of fun. As described in the Gameplay section of the review, though, it wasn't meant to last. When I realized just how feeble enemies were it sucked all the horror from the presentation and the few times the game did present me with a new foe, I could just freeze it with stasis and fire away at whatever obvious weak-spot we were using this time around.

When frightening the player no longer works, then trying to amaze them with jaw-dropping scenery is a good road to take. This should not be too difficult in practice, since we are already in space anyway. Just show us some awesome stars, planets and spaceships and you should be good. However, the game rarely goes outside and when it does, the view is often too limited to allow any kind of sightseeing. You also can't breath, which is quite logical when you think about it. A real waste, but at least the gory presentation during combat makes up for some of it. I just love the sounds of limbs been cut off...

Replay-value

Not recommended. The game is pretty long and lack the variety needed to justify a second run through it. You could make it a big interesting by using different weapons than before, picking a higher difficulty or taking different routes in the upgrade trees, but it's definitely limited to the fans only.

Verdict

I couldn't be bothered to make it to the end of Dead Space, simply because the pacing is just so bad. Spending hours tracking through various similarly-looking hallways with little to no combat or narrative to keep you engaged is pretty boring. It could have worked if the atmosphere they were trying to present worked well with the enemies they used, but it really doesn't work. It's like greeting your new neighbor every day, the first few times are interesting and you might feel the need to strike up a conversation, but after a few days you are just going to say "hi" and mozy along to work. That's my relationship with the necromorphs in a nutshell, except the greeting is a saw-blade.

If you are easier to scare than me, then the atmosphere might really get to you and if that happens, then I can recommend it to you. Ask yourself just how easily you lose yourself in a horrifying setpiece (a Silent Hill, perhaps) and you will know whether or not you should get this game.

The Good
The sheer amount of atmosphere.This is a labour of love, showing dedication in every pixel and every frame.The surroundings are awesome, its very interesting to see how a dedicated team can create such a dense setting and atmosphere although the game plays on a spaceship.Its claustrophobic, shocking, awesome. The game plays great (much better than for example Too Human), sounds terrifying, looks fantastic and will keep you at the edge of the seat.

The Bad
There are one, two scenes which can be a bit too hard the first 10 times You try it, but if You keep at it or play with friends, this really doesn't detract too much from the experience.Oh, and it borrows a lot from SYSTEM SHOCK 2, but You could call it an homage because it's so well done.

The Bottom Line
DEAD SPACE is a dream come true for fans of games like The Thing, Alien, Hellraiser, Event Horizon and such.It truly captures the atmosphere of such survival horror settings and keeps You in awe almost during its total lifetime.My compliments to the developers, as this is one of the rare gems where its very, very hard to find any flaws.The environments are totally convincing, the enemies totally challenging and terrifying, the story is very well told, the sound alone makes this all stand out.Although the story is not new and borrows a lot from the classic SYSTEM SHOCK 2, it retells this kind of story in an entertaining way.