Dead Space

Moby ID: 37332
Xbox 360 Specs
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Description official descriptions

The starship USG Ishimura sends out a distress signal to the Concordance Extraction Corporation during a mining operation on the planet Aegis VII. Another ship is sent to investigate the causes of the signal; however, as it attempts to dock with the Ishimura, it crashes into it because of a system malfunction. The crew is attacked by terrifying monsters. Only three people survive, among them an engineer named Isaac Clarke. It looks like the ship is barely able to sustain its existence, many of its systems critically damaged. Isaac is the only one who would know how to fix them, and his two companions send him on a mission to find out a way to bring things back to normal and discover the truth behind the horrible events.

Dead Space is a third-person sci-fi shooter with elements of survival horror. Controlling Isaac, the player explores the ship, fighting reanimated corpses known as Necromorphs. Combat heavily relies on the so-called "strategic dismemberment", which forces the player to cut off limbs or parts of the Necromorphs to defeat them. Wounding a particular part of the Necromorph's body may either allow the player to kill it, make it change attack patterns, or even become more dangerous.

Many of the weapons in the game are improvised mining tools, such as a rotary saw, a plasma cutter, a hydrazine torch used as a flamethrower, and others. All the weapons feature a secondary fire mode; for example, the plasma cutter can be rotated to cut off vertical limbs more efficiently. Isaac can also use special abilities, allowing him to slow down enemies or pick up and throw items from a distance. A few sections in the game have Isaac float in a zero-gravity environment. Ammo and tools can be found during exploration or purchased in automatic shops available on the ship. Workbenches can be used to upgrade Isaac's weapons and armor.

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Credits (Xbox 360 version)

603 People (439 developers, 164 thanks) · View all

Executive Producer
Senior Development Director
Creative Director
Art Director
Production Designer
Audio Director
Design Development Director
Level Design Lead
Senior Gameplay Designer
Senior Level Designer
Level Designers
Additional Design
Lead Engineer
Lead Gameplay Engineer
Senior Gameplay Engineering
Gameplay Engineering
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 88% (based on 121 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 185 ratings with 7 reviews)

In space, nobody can hear you yawn...

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.

Windows · by Asinine (957) · 2013

In space, no one can hear you scream

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.

Xbox 360 · by Emmanuel Henne (23) · 2008

EA shows they're still capable of original thinking.

The Good
You're a member of a repair crew that's tasked to rescue the mining ship U.S.G. Ishimura. Upon arrival you're greeted by some unwelcome visitors, which quickly devolves into a butcher's yard of body parts.

This is an over-the-shoulder 3rd person shooter, and you get to re-learn one of the basic rules of the genre: Head shots don't mean ANYTHING. In order to take down your enemies, you have to dismember them. The aliens have one objective: perpetuate themselves and spread. In order to do this, they have to kill humans, and then 'repurpose' their bodies. The Flood from Halo are a close analogy in this regard.

EA has done something new with the weapons and equipment, which is to allow you to upgrade them with power nodes. In one playthrough you can typically upgrade your suit and two weapons, so choose what you want to power up wisely.

Also new to Dead Space is how they handled Zero-G environments. A 360 degree battlefield takes some getting used to, and it's definitely well implemented.

The aliens themselves are suitably creepy, and do very well to convey the impression of more than just a bug hunt.

The Bad
I wish it could have been longer. There are 12 acts, and once you know what you're doing these acts take an average of 45 mins - 1 hour to complete. Also there's limited replayability incentive after you've completed the game. It took me two passes on Normal and one on Impossible to unlock all 1000 achievement points. 40 hours isn't too bad for a game, but damnit, this was fun. I wanted more!

The Bottom Line
Aliens meets Resident Evil.

Xbox 360 · by Sir Razorback (5) · 2009

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Limited time free offer from Origin Rwolf (22739) Apr 1, 2014
Should I go on? Slug Camargo (583) May 15, 2009
Wii version coming soon. Big John WV (26954) Mar 23, 2009
QUERY: Dead Space demo... ending... And Wan Mar 1, 2009
Add New Game Group bobthewookiee (73) Feb 15, 2009

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Dead Space appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Air filtration room bug

Unfortunately, each platform the game was released (PS3, XBox 360, Windows) on, features the same, occasionally reproduced critical bug. In the 6th Chapter, where you are trying to pass the furnaces in the Air Filtration room, the control panels near the locked doors, which you should shoot out, are absent, and there is absolutely no way to proceed in the game. The exact steps to reproduce this bug are still unknown. No fixes exist at the moment of this trivia contribution, but a solution to avoid this bad situation does exist.

Just save your game in the very beginning of each chapter while you are in the tram, and keep it until you finish the chapter. If the bug occurs, just reload your save game and walk through the chapter from the very beginning once more. Just go to the problematic place as fast as possible and examine whether it is the same or not. Do it until the control panels appear, and you'll be able to get along.

Chapters (Spoiler!)

When put together, the first letter of each chapter's name spells out NICOLE IS DEAD.

Development

At first the game was developed for the original Xbox.

Inspiration

Producers admittedly reported to having drawn inspiration from cult-movies like The Thing, Alien and Event Horizon, as well as from successful videogames like Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

Prequel

Some of the characters that appear or are mentioned in the game also appear in the animated prequel Downfall, which depicts the outbreak of the Necromorphs on the Ishimura.

References

  • Isaac Clarke, the main character of the game, is named after science fiction writers Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.
  • Unitology, the fictional religion that plays a large part in the series' storyline, appears to be vaguely inspired by the Church of Scientology.

Awards

  • GAME British Academy Video Games Awards
    • 2009 - Original Score Award
  • GamePro
    • February 209 (Issue #245) - Xbox 360 Game of the Year 2008
  • GamePro (Germany)
    • February 26, 2009 - Best Console Action-Adventure in 2008 (Readers' Vote)
  • GameSpy
    • 2008 – #8 Xbox 360 Game of the Year
    • 2008 – #9 PS3 Game of the Year
    • 2008 – Best Audio of the Year

Information also contributed by Mark Ennis, PCGamer77, POMAH, Sciere and sgtcook

Analytics

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Related Games

Dead Space: Extraction
Released 2009 on Wii, PlayStation 3
Dead Space 2
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Dead Space Pack
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Dead Space: Ignition
Released 2010 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Dead Space 3
Released 2013 on Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Dead Space: Obsidian Suit
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Dead Space: Pedestrian Pack
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Dead Space: Elite Suit
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Dead Space: Obsidian Pack
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by BinaryDragon.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, Sciere, Niccolò Mineo, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added November 4, 2008. Last modified March 11, 2024.