[Games] Dead Space

[Soulghast]

Author: Thanatos
Original Thread: Dead Space

Dead Space

DEAD SPACE

Synopsis

Dead Space is a recently released Sci-Fi horror shooter for the PS3, the Xbox 360, and the PC. Set in the future, the entire plot revolves around the Ishimura, a planet cracker that breaks apart dead planets for use as raw minerals.

However, all is not as it seems, as it turns out that an infestation of some sort has taken over the Ishimura, causing panic and the entire ship to shut down. Responding to a distress signal, the crew of the USG Kellion arrives to repair their communication transponder, or so they think. Things turn for the worse, and the Kellion’s crew must try to survive on the Ishimura.

You play as Isaac Clarke, the Kellion’s onboard engineer. Armed with only your mining and engineering tools, you must fight your way through the alien infestation that is taking the dead corpses of your crewmembers and turning them into hunter-killer hybrids known as Necromorphs, as well as trying to find a way off the ship.

Gameplay

At its heart, Dead Space is a sci-fi horror shooter, mixed in with a few RPG elements. These RPG elements come in the way of upgrading your armor and weaponry, as well as inventory micromanagement, but everything else is purely located in the survival horror category.

Ambience is everything in a horror game, and to this degree, Dead Space performs remarkably. The characters you deal with, of what few there are, are believable, showing not only their good sides, but their petty shortcomings as well.

There is music in the game, although this comes in two flavors: ambience and combat. The combat melodies consists of quick sharp strings, designed to work in tandem with the player’s adrenaline spikes whenever a Necromorph is encountered, whereas the ambience music might simply consist of silence, or it may have some disharmonic strings in a minor key playing in the background, obviously working on the player’s sense of uneasiness and claustrophobia.

If you don’t like claustrophobia, prepare to feel VERY uneasy with Dead Space. Located on a mining ship, the corridors are very tight, with often very little wiggle room to avoid something, should a Necromorph pop out and attack you.

Being the crude fleshy assimilations of your former comrades, the Necromorphs aren’t the smartest of creatures. Their main weapon against you is fear, and they know this, often opting to ambush you if at all possible. However, if all else is unavailable, they have no qualms about just plain rushing you, while you try to kill them as quickly as possible.

Another interesting point to the game is that of using your weaponry to kill the undead ghoulies and ghastlies you encounter. Again, as Isaac is armed only with the mining tools of his trade, which are designed to cut through rock, you’ll find that you need to often improvise with your weapons with the creatures you encounter.

This is involved in the shearing of limbs. The Necromophs are humans mutated beyond belief, often growing extra limbs, claws, or just plain bulk. Shooting at their torsos only makes them angry. Instead, the trick to killing them is to shear off their limbs, wherever they may be. Keep doing it until they die – there is no other rule.

Isaac does have melee capabilities, although they are pathetically weak against the Necromorphs, and should only be used as a pushing back maneuver, or as a last ditch resort. Isaac can also stomp on any item or monster on the ground that is still alive.

The scares come often, but not always at the moment you’ll expect. Dead Space tries to step away from all the normal clichés of signifying when a monster is going to pop out and attack you, and it does this quite well. While some areas seem a dead giveaway, others will simply surprise you, when a room that honestly seems safe suddenly bursts open with three or four Necromorphs looking for a warm body to feed on.

Graphics

The graphics are quite decent for Dead Space. The ship looks convincingly sterile and dead, the Necromorphs are quite disgusting looking, and their behavior is quite realistic.

That being said, I do wish the graphics would be better for the PC. While totally blowing away anything the PS3 and the 360 could possibly offer in the graphics department, the game still suffers from some low-resolution textures, mostly on a variety of walls and such. However, this is a minor quibble, as you don’t notice this most of the time.

Screenshots

Here are some screenshots taken by me throughout the game to give you a feel of what it’s like to play the game. Keep in mind that these are all taken at my native resolution of 1920*1400, so you may do a fair bit of scrolling. The graphics you see is the game running with everything as high as it can possibly go. Hey, if you like a picture, it might even become your wallpaper or something, I don’t know.

Here’s Isaac, our brave hero:

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Here’s a few screenshots, showing what it’s like to play the game, and what the environments are like:

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However, if you ever get lost, you have a nice little guidance laser beacon to help you out:

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You receive communications via comlink:

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All of your menus are in real time, meaning Isaac sees what you’re seeing:

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You can also upgrade your equipment at a bench, by putting in power nodes you find along the way:

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A moment with another living person is a rare sight indeed:

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Necomorphs also come in all shapes and sizes. Here’s a baby transformed:

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And others are simply behemoths:

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… but they’re no match against a good flame:

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… unless they’re even bigger than that:

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Never stay in one place when fighting the Necromorphs, or else they WILL ambush you:

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… which is why you need to shear off their limbs:

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However, when in doubt, crush ‘em:

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Final Thoughts

Dead Space is a return to what sci-fi horror games used to be: dark, uneasy, claustrophobic, and tense. Think of System Shock 2, but with only hybrids and no SHODAN. Think of it as a Hiigaran alone on a ship infected with the Beast. Regardless of what analogy you would like to explain the game as, think of it as good. I honestly haven’t had a good sci-fi horror game for a long, long time, and I’m glad Dead Space has arrived.

Story: A
Gameplay: A
Graphics: B+
Sound/Ambience: A
Overall: A

This is definitely one game you want to play in the dark, alone, and with the speakers turned up to the max.