If there are two genres I truly love it is science fiction and horror. Also if there is one thing I really love it is video games, so therefore I had to admit I was more than a little thrilled when I heard about Dead Space which was a sci fi horror video game. It became a sort of hybrid of all the things I like. A very small handful of people might recall that my first ever review here was of the prequel anime -sort of- movie Dead Space: Downfall. So I guess along the lines I decided to target the actual game so here I am with Dead Space: The actual game.
One thing that was clear going in with Dead Space was that developer EA had very clearly decided to present this game with an 'eye for the cinematic' meaning of course that everything about Dead Space's presentation is entirely focussed on feeling as much like a movie as possible. The opening for instance gives the impression of something similar to Event Horizon wherein it begins with a message the main character (Isaac Clarke) recieved from his girlfriend Nicole. It is then quickly revealed that Isaac is on board a small space shuttle moving over to a much larger ship called the USG ISHIMURA of which they are on a mission to repair. After a bumpy landing the team soon discovers that the ship is overrun with hideous alien monsters that are formed from corpses of the former crew of the Ishimura. these creatures are called Necromorphs. Isaac soon finds himself seperated from his team and is alone having to desperatley fight off the hordes, repair the ship and locate his girlfriend. Along the way he will run into some spectacularly huge monsters, run afoul of unfriendly scientists and become entrenched in a relgieous conspiracy that may hold the key to the true answers behind the infection, largely revolved around an alien artifact called 'the Red Marker'.
This should be an amazing premise for a story, sadly while it is fairly intriguing throughout the whole game I found myself wishing that there was a little more. They try to play the 'sympathetic creepy' mood wherein the character has a loved one that is their primary motivation but at the same time they get haunted by the very same loved one and it feels sinister. This is something I think was mastered best in Silent Hill and while having Isaac never speak means the immersion is at it's best, this also means that his interactions with his beloved are somewhat lacking. Other than that though it is a fairly decent set up, riddled with sci fi horror cliche but like my Mass Effect review implied I kind of like that... just in small doses. This is a major issue for Dead Space however as at points it goes so over the top in it's attempts to scare you that it often goes too far. Also the pacing is really off in this game as you get hurled right into an attack in the first few minutes on the ship without any mystery or stillness. So yeah... detract one point. I also detest jumpout scares so that's detracting a few other points for that.
Dead Space functions very similar to your standard survival horror title... or at least your standard since Resident Evil 4's over the shoulder view. The same mechanics and controls are there from most games with that viewpoint. However two things that set the shooting aspect apart from Dead Space are:
1. That rather than guns, you use mining equipment like cutters, buzzsaws and the like
2. The enemies do not simply 'die' after a few shots.
The latter is actually one thing I must applaud the developers for, because you can't simply 'kill' these monsters you instead must dismember them. Using your weapons you must take down each arm and leg cut them piece by piece. Not only is this very fun to do (watching one leap at you only to stumple when he looses his legs has this wierd charm) it also screams creativity and helps set it apart from other shooters out there. Because limbs are much less obvious targets when most games DEMAND you give headshots, Dead Space offers this alternative and I like it. Dead Space also features a time slowing mechanic and a telekenis feature, both of which can be used for puzzle solving and combat, they are woven in well enough I suppose but aren't insanely unique.
Also one other thing that differes Dead Space from the rest is that all the essential information is not a hud but rather in the visuals, your health is displayed by a blue neon tube on your back and when you pull up a menu it appears hologramatically in front of you. I don't know how to feel about this, it's interesting yet also kinda gimmicky. Finally while it dos offer you an in-game map, they chose to make it have a '3D layout' so it was confusing as hell. Fortunatley there is a button press sequence (pressing down on the right analog stick) that will slow a path leading to where you have to go. So fuck the map, I wish it was that easy in real life... lost? Push the analog stick, the path will be shown.
The last two features worth mentioning is the vacuum and Zero Gravity mechanics. Okay the first one is literally just a time limit that gives you barely enough time to move around helping pump the adrenaline or frustrate you beyond belief.... one of the two anyway.
The other however (Zero Gravity) is much more interesting. Throughout the game you will enter segments where you are given no gravity and therefore can leap from wall to wall all over the place. This usually happens when you have to repair some part of the ship that you otherwise couldn't do. It is very confusing an disorienting at points but at the same time it is very well done and although some of these sections caused me to rip my hair out in frustrartion (more on that later) overall they were okay... even though there was that bad part where I kept accidentally sucking myself out into the vacuum of space.
Dead Space is visually at least quite impressive. Many people have pointed out that the dull grey-brown industrial look has already been done before in Event Horizon and Aliens but the way I see it, it was copied because it worked. Dead Space has some great visuals, lighting looks like real lights flickering, blood actually flows like blood would (as a guy who hunts the prostitutes who are trapped in an alley, I know what that looks like), the same goes for the suspended liquid and indeed all objects in the zero gravity sections. The monsters in Dead Space are hieous yet amazing to look at, they are hideous monsters but they both look amazing and their animations are very realistic making them feel almost like they could be real. In fact Dead Space presents the monsters so well I wonder if there might not actually be alien micro organisms with this effect somewhere out there.
Dead Space also boasts moderatley strong acting and a both firm and sloppy script (firm with some parts, sloppy when it gets too melodramatic). The music though is a hit an miss, while the theme of hauntingness (not a word) is present with the remix of 'Twinkle twinkle little star' done very creepily... other themes are way too obvious and when they play the same orchestral shriek every time a monster shows up... well it starts to get obnoxious not scary.
Before I wrap this review up I would like to note the many issues I have with this game so as to balance this out. First of all whoever decided to make that Asteroid turret so bloody difficult and tiresomely long deserves nothing less then to have his balls punched out so hard they pierce his lungs. Also some of the puzzles ask for quick responses and have instant death as a penalty for failure... which is where you can truly appreciate the clunkiness of the controls. Also the worst enemy in Dead Space and possibly worst enemy for any video game since the dawn of video games is the Guardian, a wall mounted screaming enemy that resembles the cacooned people from the alien movies. It screams at you and launches small seed pods that all shoot at once and they NEVER STOP COMING. The only way to kill one of these is to get close and if you get close they can hit you with one hit and it'll be enough to kill you and send you back. They are really unbearable to fight.
I've said it before and I'll most likely say it again (whether you want me to or not) Dead Space is a mixed bag. The dismemberment, atmosphere, story (a bit) and monsters are nice fresh and fun, while the puzzles, story (a bit) and timed challenges are all painful and frustrating. I would rate it an 8.6 personally, but this is really up to you the reader.
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One thing that was clear going in with Dead Space was that developer EA had very clearly decided to present this game with an 'eye for the cinematic' meaning of course that everything about Dead Space's presentation is entirely focussed on feeling as much like a movie as possible. The opening for instance gives the impression of something similar to Event Horizon wherein it begins with a message the main character (Isaac Clarke) recieved from his girlfriend Nicole. It is then quickly revealed that Isaac is on board a small space shuttle moving over to a much larger ship called the USG ISHIMURA of which they are on a mission to repair. After a bumpy landing the team soon discovers that the ship is overrun with hideous alien monsters that are formed from corpses of the former crew of the Ishimura. these creatures are called Necromorphs. Isaac soon finds himself seperated from his team and is alone having to desperatley fight off the hordes, repair the ship and locate his girlfriend. Along the way he will run into some spectacularly huge monsters, run afoul of unfriendly scientists and become entrenched in a relgieous conspiracy that may hold the key to the true answers behind the infection, largely revolved around an alien artifact called 'the Red Marker'.
This should be an amazing premise for a story, sadly while it is fairly intriguing throughout the whole game I found myself wishing that there was a little more. They try to play the 'sympathetic creepy' mood wherein the character has a loved one that is their primary motivation but at the same time they get haunted by the very same loved one and it feels sinister. This is something I think was mastered best in Silent Hill and while having Isaac never speak means the immersion is at it's best, this also means that his interactions with his beloved are somewhat lacking. Other than that though it is a fairly decent set up, riddled with sci fi horror cliche but like my Mass Effect review implied I kind of like that... just in small doses. This is a major issue for Dead Space however as at points it goes so over the top in it's attempts to scare you that it often goes too far. Also the pacing is really off in this game as you get hurled right into an attack in the first few minutes on the ship without any mystery or stillness. So yeah... detract one point. I also detest jumpout scares so that's detracting a few other points for that.
Dead Space functions very similar to your standard survival horror title... or at least your standard since Resident Evil 4's over the shoulder view. The same mechanics and controls are there from most games with that viewpoint. However two things that set the shooting aspect apart from Dead Space are:
1. That rather than guns, you use mining equipment like cutters, buzzsaws and the like
2. The enemies do not simply 'die' after a few shots.
The latter is actually one thing I must applaud the developers for, because you can't simply 'kill' these monsters you instead must dismember them. Using your weapons you must take down each arm and leg cut them piece by piece. Not only is this very fun to do (watching one leap at you only to stumple when he looses his legs has this wierd charm) it also screams creativity and helps set it apart from other shooters out there. Because limbs are much less obvious targets when most games DEMAND you give headshots, Dead Space offers this alternative and I like it. Dead Space also features a time slowing mechanic and a telekenis feature, both of which can be used for puzzle solving and combat, they are woven in well enough I suppose but aren't insanely unique.
Also one other thing that differes Dead Space from the rest is that all the essential information is not a hud but rather in the visuals, your health is displayed by a blue neon tube on your back and when you pull up a menu it appears hologramatically in front of you. I don't know how to feel about this, it's interesting yet also kinda gimmicky. Finally while it dos offer you an in-game map, they chose to make it have a '3D layout' so it was confusing as hell. Fortunatley there is a button press sequence (pressing down on the right analog stick) that will slow a path leading to where you have to go. So fuck the map, I wish it was that easy in real life... lost? Push the analog stick, the path will be shown.
The last two features worth mentioning is the vacuum and Zero Gravity mechanics. Okay the first one is literally just a time limit that gives you barely enough time to move around helping pump the adrenaline or frustrate you beyond belief.... one of the two anyway.
The other however (Zero Gravity) is much more interesting. Throughout the game you will enter segments where you are given no gravity and therefore can leap from wall to wall all over the place. This usually happens when you have to repair some part of the ship that you otherwise couldn't do. It is very confusing an disorienting at points but at the same time it is very well done and although some of these sections caused me to rip my hair out in frustrartion (more on that later) overall they were okay... even though there was that bad part where I kept accidentally sucking myself out into the vacuum of space.
Dead Space is visually at least quite impressive. Many people have pointed out that the dull grey-brown industrial look has already been done before in Event Horizon and Aliens but the way I see it, it was copied because it worked. Dead Space has some great visuals, lighting looks like real lights flickering, blood actually flows like blood would (as a guy who hunts the prostitutes who are trapped in an alley, I know what that looks like), the same goes for the suspended liquid and indeed all objects in the zero gravity sections. The monsters in Dead Space are hieous yet amazing to look at, they are hideous monsters but they both look amazing and their animations are very realistic making them feel almost like they could be real. In fact Dead Space presents the monsters so well I wonder if there might not actually be alien micro organisms with this effect somewhere out there.
Dead Space also boasts moderatley strong acting and a both firm and sloppy script (firm with some parts, sloppy when it gets too melodramatic). The music though is a hit an miss, while the theme of hauntingness (not a word) is present with the remix of 'Twinkle twinkle little star' done very creepily... other themes are way too obvious and when they play the same orchestral shriek every time a monster shows up... well it starts to get obnoxious not scary.
Before I wrap this review up I would like to note the many issues I have with this game so as to balance this out. First of all whoever decided to make that Asteroid turret so bloody difficult and tiresomely long deserves nothing less then to have his balls punched out so hard they pierce his lungs. Also some of the puzzles ask for quick responses and have instant death as a penalty for failure... which is where you can truly appreciate the clunkiness of the controls. Also the worst enemy in Dead Space and possibly worst enemy for any video game since the dawn of video games is the Guardian, a wall mounted screaming enemy that resembles the cacooned people from the alien movies. It screams at you and launches small seed pods that all shoot at once and they NEVER STOP COMING. The only way to kill one of these is to get close and if you get close they can hit you with one hit and it'll be enough to kill you and send you back. They are really unbearable to fight.
I've said it before and I'll most likely say it again (whether you want me to or not) Dead Space is a mixed bag. The dismemberment, atmosphere, story (a bit) and monsters are nice fresh and fun, while the puzzles, story (a bit) and timed challenges are all painful and frustrating. I would rate it an 8.6 personally, but this is really up to you the reader.
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