I should say from the start that I've never really been much of a fan of horror games. The idea of not wanting to go into the next room in case you get attacked has always seemed like the antithesis of gaming to me, and they often try to cover up sluggish controls or wooden level disign by claiming that you're meant to feel helpless or some rot. I tell you this so that when I say that Dead Space is a good game, you know it's done something to impress me.
Let's start from the top. I began on easy (because I'm a wuss) and sat through the opening cutscene. The protagonist, Issac Clarke, was sat on a small shuttle along with an experianced captain, a bitchy scientist, and two random guards who were most likely called Cannon and Fodder. It should be noted that the graphics are extremely good, not the best I've seen, but something to be proud of. The voice acting is just as good, as is the overall feel of weight to the world. From where I sat, everything looked solid and believable, something I was sure would soon be exploited by the game to scare the pants off me. Almost as if the game was trying to prove me right, I was soon in a seperate room to my companions where things got bloody and a spiked fleshy monstrosity was chasing my unarmed heiney down a short corridor to an elevator and my first gun, the Plasma Cutter.
Much has been said of the combat system, where dismemberment is the key instead of the standard headshot, and on the whole it works rather well. Chopping off limbs soon becomes natural and you'll quickly learn to avoid aiming for the body, as well as to keep the Plasma Cutter horizontal to lop off the necromorph's legs in an emergency. There is an element of randomness to it though; sometimes you'll have to slice all an attacker's body parts off to stop it, but sometimes a single stray bodyshot will kill one outright. Also, once you get into the rythm of it, it can become tedious to take out a large group, rather than the terrifying near-death struggle it was probably meant to be. But none of this can detract from the fact that it is fun, especially in the zero-G sections, which I'll get to later.
Along with your collection of weapons and tools are two special abilities, Stasis and Kinesis. Stasis slows down enemies and moving machinery, allowing you to avoid or destroy whatever you have zapped. While you might use it occasionally against the tougher Necros, it is predominantly designed for puzzles, getting through certain doors, or a couple of bosses. This is mainly because you can only use it a limited number of times before you need to recharge at a wall mounted unit or with one of the many items you will pick up on your travels. It's partner, Kinesis, has no charge bar and can be used freely, a plus offset by the fact that it is next to useless in combat. Used to pick up and move items in the game world, your most common use for it will be to smash the crates lying around the place and grab health and ammo that you're too lazy to run to. Again, appart from the puzzles that crop up from time to time, you'll barely use it.
I've just realised I'm four paragraphs in and I haven't even touched on the horror aspect of the game. It must be said that the majority of the scares is just something jumping out and yelling "Boo" which feels like a very cheap trick. Occasionally it's effective (at one point I jumped so hard I accidentally fired my gun) but overall you're going to feel cheated. What the game does do well though, is suspense and playing on a gamer's innate paranoia. You know how when you're looking down a corridor in a game and can spot all the potential threats? Small holes, vents, windows, loose floor tiles, and any corpses that could get up have your gun barrel aimed at them as you pass. In Dead Space you can go down several corridors in a row littered with these markers without fighting a single thing. For each one you clear, you're even more sure that the next one will result in a fight,making you more and more tense, until eventually the sound of a spanner hitting the deck somewhere out of sight will throw you into a full blown panic. The fact that you'll backtrack through these corridors several times just makes it worse, and even though these moments are rare, they're one of the crowning achievements of the game.
Speaking of backtracking, you'll have to go back and forth between areas repeatedly. While going back to a place you've explored and spotting slight differences from the last time you came (a picture missing, furniture rearranged, etc) can be effective, it's the reasons for haveing to do so that are disappointing. You need to collect three of Z to open door Y, which leads you to objective X, but then something happens to system W, so you need to go to section V and kill creature U before T can happen. It's a simple way for the designer to extend the game beyond it's normal lifespan, and one that is very obvious about half way through. A lot of these diversions take you through a zero-gravity section though, and considering how incredible they are, I'm willing to forgive the game on this front.
I have always taken some pride in my sense of direction in games, but this zero-G stuff did even my head in. If you're not paying complete attention it's easy to become disorientated, and god help you if you're in combat. Some of those scything monstrosities were hard to hit in the first place, but if they're flying through the air you might have some trouble, especially if there are a couple more coming up behind you. At one point you're going through a long pipe that's twisting all over the place, and I doubt anyone could keep track of which way used to be down. Zero-G boss fights are a missed opportunity though; there's only one that I can remember, and all you really did in it was circle-strafe, except the circle was vertical.
Sometimes you'll come across sections set in a vacuum where you'll have to rely on a limited amount of air, which you can replenish with items or at wall mounted containers. Once you upgrade your suit you can last just over two minutes at a time, more than enough for most sections, but the other part of being in a vacuum is the lack of sound. Once you realise that you can't hear things coming up behind you, you dearly miss the scream of enemies that used to warn you of an unseen attacker (and fill you with dread to boot).
I feel I should wrap it up here by touching on a few final topics. The seamless integration of the HUD into the world is brilliant, keeping you immersed instead of providing you with magical floating health bars. The fact that there even is a health bar is a nice touch when most games merely blur the corners of the screen until you hide in a corner for a while. Being able to buy items from a store slightly ruins it though. If that's how everyone on board got their supplies, I'm not suprised half their guts are hanging from the rafters. Most of the characters and their names are forgettable, and the only reason I remember Issac's is because everyone kept telling him to do stuff. I felt that the final boss was anticlimactic, although that may have just been the difficulty I was playing at. The final few seconds of the end cinematic was an extreme "Wait, what?" moment, but not in a good way. I won't ruin it for you, but you'll know what I mean when you see it. Using power nodes to open certain locked doors to storage rooms is a good idea in concept, but there's no risk when you can buy them from the store. You pay 10,000 credits for each, make sure you have one on you at all times, and you get at least 15,000 credits worth of items from each one you open. If some of them were empty or just contained enemies, perhaps randomised each play through, it would at least make you think about it. As it is, it just makes you feel a little more confidant.
Is Dead Space a perfect game? No. It has it's flaws, but it also has shining moments that make you glad to have played it. It shies just short of excellence, but it is still an extremely enjoyable game, and one that I would recommend if you want to dip a foot into the genre. Just be careful it isn't bitten off...
Let's start from the top. I began on easy (because I'm a wuss) and sat through the opening cutscene. The protagonist, Issac Clarke, was sat on a small shuttle along with an experianced captain, a bitchy scientist, and two random guards who were most likely called Cannon and Fodder. It should be noted that the graphics are extremely good, not the best I've seen, but something to be proud of. The voice acting is just as good, as is the overall feel of weight to the world. From where I sat, everything looked solid and believable, something I was sure would soon be exploited by the game to scare the pants off me. Almost as if the game was trying to prove me right, I was soon in a seperate room to my companions where things got bloody and a spiked fleshy monstrosity was chasing my unarmed heiney down a short corridor to an elevator and my first gun, the Plasma Cutter.
Much has been said of the combat system, where dismemberment is the key instead of the standard headshot, and on the whole it works rather well. Chopping off limbs soon becomes natural and you'll quickly learn to avoid aiming for the body, as well as to keep the Plasma Cutter horizontal to lop off the necromorph's legs in an emergency. There is an element of randomness to it though; sometimes you'll have to slice all an attacker's body parts off to stop it, but sometimes a single stray bodyshot will kill one outright. Also, once you get into the rythm of it, it can become tedious to take out a large group, rather than the terrifying near-death struggle it was probably meant to be. But none of this can detract from the fact that it is fun, especially in the zero-G sections, which I'll get to later.
Along with your collection of weapons and tools are two special abilities, Stasis and Kinesis. Stasis slows down enemies and moving machinery, allowing you to avoid or destroy whatever you have zapped. While you might use it occasionally against the tougher Necros, it is predominantly designed for puzzles, getting through certain doors, or a couple of bosses. This is mainly because you can only use it a limited number of times before you need to recharge at a wall mounted unit or with one of the many items you will pick up on your travels. It's partner, Kinesis, has no charge bar and can be used freely, a plus offset by the fact that it is next to useless in combat. Used to pick up and move items in the game world, your most common use for it will be to smash the crates lying around the place and grab health and ammo that you're too lazy to run to. Again, appart from the puzzles that crop up from time to time, you'll barely use it.
I've just realised I'm four paragraphs in and I haven't even touched on the horror aspect of the game. It must be said that the majority of the scares is just something jumping out and yelling "Boo" which feels like a very cheap trick. Occasionally it's effective (at one point I jumped so hard I accidentally fired my gun) but overall you're going to feel cheated. What the game does do well though, is suspense and playing on a gamer's innate paranoia. You know how when you're looking down a corridor in a game and can spot all the potential threats? Small holes, vents, windows, loose floor tiles, and any corpses that could get up have your gun barrel aimed at them as you pass. In Dead Space you can go down several corridors in a row littered with these markers without fighting a single thing. For each one you clear, you're even more sure that the next one will result in a fight,making you more and more tense, until eventually the sound of a spanner hitting the deck somewhere out of sight will throw you into a full blown panic. The fact that you'll backtrack through these corridors several times just makes it worse, and even though these moments are rare, they're one of the crowning achievements of the game.
Speaking of backtracking, you'll have to go back and forth between areas repeatedly. While going back to a place you've explored and spotting slight differences from the last time you came (a picture missing, furniture rearranged, etc) can be effective, it's the reasons for haveing to do so that are disappointing. You need to collect three of Z to open door Y, which leads you to objective X, but then something happens to system W, so you need to go to section V and kill creature U before T can happen. It's a simple way for the designer to extend the game beyond it's normal lifespan, and one that is very obvious about half way through. A lot of these diversions take you through a zero-gravity section though, and considering how incredible they are, I'm willing to forgive the game on this front.
I have always taken some pride in my sense of direction in games, but this zero-G stuff did even my head in. If you're not paying complete attention it's easy to become disorientated, and god help you if you're in combat. Some of those scything monstrosities were hard to hit in the first place, but if they're flying through the air you might have some trouble, especially if there are a couple more coming up behind you. At one point you're going through a long pipe that's twisting all over the place, and I doubt anyone could keep track of which way used to be down. Zero-G boss fights are a missed opportunity though; there's only one that I can remember, and all you really did in it was circle-strafe, except the circle was vertical.
Sometimes you'll come across sections set in a vacuum where you'll have to rely on a limited amount of air, which you can replenish with items or at wall mounted containers. Once you upgrade your suit you can last just over two minutes at a time, more than enough for most sections, but the other part of being in a vacuum is the lack of sound. Once you realise that you can't hear things coming up behind you, you dearly miss the scream of enemies that used to warn you of an unseen attacker (and fill you with dread to boot).
I feel I should wrap it up here by touching on a few final topics. The seamless integration of the HUD into the world is brilliant, keeping you immersed instead of providing you with magical floating health bars. The fact that there even is a health bar is a nice touch when most games merely blur the corners of the screen until you hide in a corner for a while. Being able to buy items from a store slightly ruins it though. If that's how everyone on board got their supplies, I'm not suprised half their guts are hanging from the rafters. Most of the characters and their names are forgettable, and the only reason I remember Issac's is because everyone kept telling him to do stuff. I felt that the final boss was anticlimactic, although that may have just been the difficulty I was playing at. The final few seconds of the end cinematic was an extreme "Wait, what?" moment, but not in a good way. I won't ruin it for you, but you'll know what I mean when you see it. Using power nodes to open certain locked doors to storage rooms is a good idea in concept, but there's no risk when you can buy them from the store. You pay 10,000 credits for each, make sure you have one on you at all times, and you get at least 15,000 credits worth of items from each one you open. If some of them were empty or just contained enemies, perhaps randomised each play through, it would at least make you think about it. As it is, it just makes you feel a little more confidant.
Is Dead Space a perfect game? No. It has it's flaws, but it also has shining moments that make you glad to have played it. It shies just short of excellence, but it is still an extremely enjoyable game, and one that I would recommend if you want to dip a foot into the genre. Just be careful it isn't bitten off...
