Dead Space

The Good
I lurves me some survival horror. I've always clung on to the Silent Hill series and I have dabbled with Resident Evil . However, RE has been rather sickly lately. Don't get me wrong, Resident Evil 4 was a decent Third person shooter, but honestly, it lacked any true horror. I roll my eyes when people call it one of the scariest games ever. To me, true survival horror is a dead art. Then Dead Space came along.

What attracted me to Dead Space was its setting. As a movie buff, I love it when games can successfully give tribute to good movies. Dead Space does an awesome job giving tribute to 3 classic films: Ridley Scott's tense and famous "ALIEN," Andrei Tarkovosky's psychological answer to 2010, "Solyaris," and last but definitely not least, John Carpenter's sick & twisted "The Thing." What elements does Dead Space take from these films and pay tribute, you ask? Well, it has the creepy isolation of Alien and the feeling of dread being stalked by a monster much deadlier than yourself. It takes plot elements from Solyaris, concerning the space setting, the dead wife, and crew dying in strange mannerisms involving hallucinations. And from The Thing, it takes the monsters. The Thing had some f**ed up and very twisted baddies, and Dead Space's nasties resemble The Thing in many ways and their venereal horror approach is also similar. The game pays tribute, it doesn't rip off, and I respect that.

The story is simple, at least it starts off simple anyways: You are Isaac Clark (I see what you did there, devs >_>), an engineer sent with a small crew to answer a distress beacon from a mining ship known as the Ishimura. Naturally, it hits the fan and you are separated from your crew by a strange not-quite-alien not-quite-human monster known simply as "Necromorphs" (For those who don't speak Latin, this literally means "Dead Shape" or "Shape of Death" if you want to interpret it a different way. Clever, it suits them perfectly.) and you must survive. While this set up is fairly cliche and retreaded, what makes the plot compelling and interesting is the backstory and history of it all. There's a fascinating and deep backstory to the Ishimura, and what happened on this ship prior to your arrival. There's a lot interesting going on, and its easy to see why they gave the game companion pieces to make this backstory richer. The concurrent plot does get more interesting as it moves on as well. Isaac's chase for his wife is eerie and yet interesting, and pays a bit of tribute to Solyaris in its psychological elements. However, a certain element of this plotline ruins it... More on that later.

The graphics are awe inspiring at times. The detail is awesome, and chills will go down your spine whenever you look out into space and view planets, stars, eclipses and more. The detail is also used against you as well, but that's par for the course in horror games. The necromorphs truly do live up to the name of "Dead Shape" and are disgusting and scary. They tap a primal element and a fear that has always plagued me: Sub-humanity. To elaborate, sub-humanity is when a monster in a game/movie/comic/etc. is so twisted that it could pass as one of the filthiest alien creatures discovered, but in truth it was once human, and an echo of that humanity can be seen. When I encounter creatures like this, something so inhuman but containing small parts of the human form disturbs me and my skin crawls. The necromorphs are easily one of the most disturbing of these kinds of monsters, the more twisted they get, the creepier they are mostly because of their faces which look tormented and distressingly human. The amount of detail put into them is great, and all the other characters look great and there are some amazing special effects.

The sound design, as one would expect is one of the most important elements of the game, and the developers delivered. The game sounds freaky, and the various "types" of necromorph continue that same path of sub-humanity, emitting sounds that both sound human and yet utterly alien. Sometimes during shrieks you'll think you heard the last of the creatures humanity crying or even talking. The atmosphere is laid down by two things: The soundscape and the immersion. The game is one of the most immersive horror titles ever made, and will make you its bitch. It will never let you go, and it drags you through the game by your throat and always keep you in. You really feel like you are on the Ishimura, and much like System Shock 2 the fear here is that you are isolated alone on a ship full of ghosts, monsters, and only one human with questionable motifs to keep you company. The eerie soundscape is awesome, always providing scary sounds emanating from different parts of the ship and even around the dreaded corners. It doesn't do this game's excellent soundscape justice to use speakers, grab your stereo headphones and crank it up.

The gameplay is much like Resident Evil 4. In fact, its almost exact although in some ways improved. For one... YOU CAN MOVE WHILE AIMING. That was one of the things I hated most about RE4, why the hell can't you move while aiming? Thankfully, you can do that here. The combat also has a unique hook that works well: 'Strategic Dismemberment.' Y'see, there's only way to kill these bastards and that is to deprive them of their limbs (Although a word of warning: DO NOT TAKE OFF THE HEAD. I know its instinct to aim for the head, but this only makes them stronger.) and the way this is implemented is very well done. The term "strategic" is a proper way of describing it, because the games physics are so well done. Take off a bipedal creatures leg, and it will stumble to the ground giving you ample time to finish it as it desperately crawls. Take off the tail of the creatures I like to call scorpion-men, and they will do less damage. As you can guess, the game is pretty gory; but for once the gore actually makes the game scarier. As I said, taking off the head of a monster is not a good idea. One time I was in the vacuum of space and naturally, you can't hear much in a vacuum. A scorpion-man leaped at me and I took off its arm, its head, and gave it a big blast to the stomach. As his blood eerily floated through the zero gravity, I turned away thinking he was dead, but then I heard a soft growl in the vacuum and looked around expecting a new monster, but turned around and saw the headless, one armed creature crawling with its one arm towards me and I about crapped my pants there. Gameplay is great, and it works quite well and uses a tried and true formula but truthfully improves it.

The boss fights are epic, especially the one in zero gravity. The final boss is also incredible, and its one of those moments where you freeze, stare in wonderment as something massive appears, and go "WHAT THE HOLY F*** IS THAT!?!?!?" before running in fear and cowering behind a box. The boss fights are satisfying and awesome.

The game successfully pulls off monster closets, something games rarely can do. There are a couple times that the closets get predictable, but the game does a better job than most at keeping them relatively well hidden and the thick atmosphere will almost always make you jump.

The necromorphs are very fleshed out, each "specie" of necromorph is unique, has a unique AI, habits, and style. This makes them feel 3-Dimensional and real, which of course, also makes them scarier. There are no two species of necromorph alike, and this also makes the 'strategic dismemberment' even more interesting because you have to learn the biology of each specie, its weak point, and have to learn how to take each one down properly in unique manners.

The Bad
The story, as compelling as it is is lacking one crucial element: A protagonist. Sure, you control Isaac Clarke but he never says a word save for some notes in his journal between levels. You never even see his face save for a few seconds at the beginning. This means that his lost wife and the twists it takes lacks true emotion or power. You can't identify with Isaac, and that means you could care less that he's looking for his wife. The games story is told so well that you will still feel emotion for his wife and get interested, but it still lacks the true emotional and psychological impact it could've had thanks to the fact that Isaac has no character whatsoever. This makes what would've been an excellent story very lacking. Its still a great story, but this ruins some of the things the developers were trying to do.

The graphics may be great, but the game does suffer from an extreme case of "Browninitis." Browninitis is a disease that was present in the Quake games, but not truly severe until Doom 3. Since then, almost every shooter and horror game has contracted Browninitis. Symptoms include muddy textures, lack of any decoration and colour beyond brown and brownish gray, and can make even the best graphics look bland at times. Dead Space has a nearly fatal case of Browninitis. It's so disappointing that the otherwise beautiful graphics didn't get handled with more care and artistic flair. The ships environments are depressingly monotonous and it doesn't help that a few missions have you backtracking.

The final cut-scene is stock, cliche, and stupid as hell. It is a majour buzz kill for what could've been the only scene where Isaac actually shows his face and shows true emotion.

Although the game is scary, there are times that it uses scare tactics that don't really work and sometimes the weapons you can get are a little too powerful and you don't always feel as vulnerable as you should; although you can just choose to stick to other weapons if you feel too powerful.

Puzzles and horror games go hand in hand. Apparently Dead Space didn't get the memo. While there are a couple good puzzles, for the most part puzzles are repeated and aren't really "puzzles" because you've already solved them time and time again. It would've been nice to have a few more puzzles to keep the brain juices flowing as well as the adrenaline.

There are moments where the voice acting and dialogue can get hammy. While the voice acting is fairly good, particularly on the logs you find around the ship, sometimes your supporting cast overact or even underact.

Another flaw with the story is that there are too many questions even after finding ALL of the logs (Yes, I replayed just to find them ALL because I wanted some answers), reading the comics, and seeing that stupid animated movie. None of them answer one of my biggest questions: What the hell is the marker? and although we get that the marker is holy to the religion of Unitology, WHY is it holy to them? What are the Unitologists principles? Why did the Necromorphs come with the marker, when the game suggests that they proved there was no alien or bacterial life on the planet they found it on? What was that one Unitologist with the beard babbling about? If the necromorph is a polymorphic parasite from another planet, why was that bearded Unitologist guy creating a new species of them? Why did he have control over it? And that's just the first few questions I have. There's a lot that needs to be explained, and these questions sometimes open up plot holes that are going to take a lot of work to fill.

The Bottom Line
Dead Space is a great start for what could be a great series, it is one of the first true survival horror games in years, even if the action at times does walk into RE4 territory and makes the game a little less scary than it could've been. The incredible atmosphere, great story, scary monsters and set pieces will keep you on your seat and despite the fact that the story is incomplete without any true emotion or connection with the main character, the story carries weight and has a lot of potential in it. Its a flawed gem, but a gem is still a gem no matter how flawed. Its worth checking out if you are a survival horror fan.