Game Review: Dead Space – A Good Sci-Fi Horror Never Dies
So Many Ways to Splat Things!
Due to you being on a mining ship, not a combat vessel, there’s only a few real guns to be found in the game: the aptly named Pulse Rifle and maybe the Flamethrower. The rest of the ‘weapons’ are actually mining equipment, designed for cutting through rock.
These include plasma cutters, buzz saws, concussion pistons, and explosive charges. Each one comes with a secondary fire and its own degree of usefulness. They can also be upgraded at work stations, much like your suit.
Interestingly, the creators have added an element of choice here; you won’t ever have enough power nodes to upgrade all your weapons on the first play through. Instead, you’ll need to choose your favourite two or three, and focus on them. A clever idea, I thought, as it makes you pay far more attention to your weapons abilities then you normally would.
Another issue is ammo. You need to conserve it. The game will try to keep you supplied by making various lockers searchable, depending on what weapons you’re carrying, but there’s never enough to be completely trigger happy. You’ve only got so much storage space, so you’ll have to decide if you want to take more weapons, each with its own slot-hogging ammo, or fewer weapons, but with larger supplies of stuff to shoot at the enemy.
Personally I found all the weapons to be a lot of fun, and some of the bigger tools can be quite devastating when fully upgraded. Unlike your common pistol or shotgun, everything in this game really has some power behind it. Pulling the trigger will nearly always reward you with a loud expulsion, a messy impact, and a body jarring shockwave. Nothing like watching the Kinesis Piston blast an enemy to pieces… mmmm chunks.
The Goopy, The Bloated, and the Undulating
Dead Space sports an impressive assortment of enemies… there’s your standard humanoid ones with giant spiked arms. A smaller, legless kind that slithers around using their tails. You get tiny worms; tall ones that break into pieces; a weird stingray critter that spreads the parasites into corpses; and ones with a massive, elongated arm. The biggest and baddest are the massive Brutes, that can literally pound you into the floor. All mutate over time into stronger, faster forms to ensure you’re always challenged.
In regards to the enemy combat, Dead Space shines. While it’s entirely possible to kill them by shooting their main bodies, it will take five times the amount of ammo (and won’t slow them down one bit) compared to if you blow off the limbs. Isaac can’t handle a massive amount of punishment, so keeping enemies at bay is always a priority.
This makes dismembering appendages vital, and means you’re required to stay calm, controlled, and aim far more precisely then if you were just going for body shots. Some critters have lots of parts to shoot off, some won’t, so identifying which bits to aim for on a new enemy can be a challenge just in itself. It brings a whole new level of tension to a genre they usually revolves around head shots. Genius.
I’ll also offer a little advice: it pays to “pulverise” corpses. Taking that extra second to stomp on a downed monster will not only reward you with an shower of gore, but also ensure they won’t be getting back up to chew your kneecaps off. Better safe then disembowelled, right?
Oh, and did I mention that you’ll be fighting babies in this game? Yup, that’s right. Nasty, mutated, tentacle waving babies. If you’re still recovering from the horror of Doom 3′s “Cherubs”, prepare to be disturbed all over again. Brilliant stuff.
The Bigger They Are, The Easier They Eat You
Dead Space has some epic bosses. Huge, epic bosses. And all have their own unique ways of being killed. Sometimes conventional means just won’t cut it, and you’ll need to look closer if you want to find a weakness to exploit. Might take a few goes depending on your difficulty setting, but most can be conquered with practice.
As cool as they are, however, the bosses also represent one of the games only design flaws. See, most are fought from a distance, meaning if you’ve focused on upgrading close quarters weapons for most of the game, you could be in trouble. The last boss in particular can only be hurt by long range weaponry, so if you unknowingly went in with short range gear, he would be impossible to beat. Not the best planning there on the developers part.
It’s a very odd issue, and I don’t know why they left it that way. Luckily the save point is close by, so you could always go back and pick appropriate weapons, but still… it’s a big risk. I wonder how many people were caught out by it and just gave up in fury? Hopefully not many.
Friends Come and Friends Go
Dead Space starts off with a small cast… and, not surprisingly, it very quickly gets smaller.
Of the five people that come on the repair ship, only three make it past the opening level. After that, you’re all split up across the Ishimura, forced to communicate through holo-vid and struggle for survival.
Though he’s the leading man, we know very little about Isaac himself. He’s a mute enigma, aside from his grunts and screams of panic. We know he has a girlfriend, Nicole, who also happens to be on the mining vessel, and finding her is a side mission he hopes to achieve. Nicole herself appears occasionally in odd holo-messages, and her story unravels bit by bit.
Kendra is a technology specialist, and was supposed to help you fix the relay. Instead, she becomes your main guide, staying put in a terminal room where she can tell you what parts of the ship need fixing and how. Her counter part, Zach, is a senior security officer, and focuses more on searching the ship, finding out what happened and helping you solve problems.
As an added twist, no one likes each other very much. All three of you seem to share an uneasy tension; everyone has their own secret agendas and things they’re not divulging. Holo-conversations between Kendra and Zach get pretty heated, to the point where you’re not sure if you can trust either of them. But in the end, what choice to you have?
Later in the game, the cast grows further, as you discover some of the Ishamura crew members actually survived. Dr. Mercer, a mad religious nut, seems intent on helping the parasites spread, and worships them like a god. He hinders your movements and mocks you over the intercom every chance he gets. He even goes as far as to slaughter the remaining crew himself. But thankfully, not everyone is insane; Dr. Kyne also contacts you with his advice on stopping the alien plague. He does what he can, though really it’s just nice to hear a friendly voice.
All characters have their own stories which are fleshed out within text, video and voice recordings, and the acting is just superb. A small, but worthwhile cast.
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little ARRGHHHH!!
As with all horror games, sound is the most important factor in sustaining tension and atmosphere. Dead Space fulfills those requirements and more.
Levels are filled with ambient sounds, like growls, groans, creaks, dripping, static, hisses, and screams of the insane. One level even features an unfindable crew member singing the freakiest version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” you will ever hear.
Music picks up on occasions, mostly battle scenes, and when it does its boisterous, dramatic and suitable. But the best moments are undoubtedly idle times, where, if you find a really quiet place, you can hear a woman’s voice whispering about the condition of the ship. Spooky.
Usually you’ll only have the comforting sound of Isaac’s heavy boots and measured breathing to keep you company… at least until something jumps out and tries to bite your head off. Thankfully, enemies will mark their arrival with an excited growl, so you’ll have at least a few seconds to spin around and look for them.
There are also the various video and voice recordings lying around, which you can stop and listen to at any time. These provide story info as well as great atmosphere, and holograms will quickly fade out if an enemy attacks while you’re watching them.
And to top it all off, the voice acting is some of the best I’ve heard, as mentioned earlier. Thank god. The way each character says their lines sounds so genuine, it really adds a lot to the sense of urgency in the game.
The Only Bugs You See Are the Ones You Kill
That’s right. No bugs. Not one.
I’m not kidding. This game is the most polished, pristine and bug free game I’ve come across since Max Payne 2. I never had it crash, freeze, or even lower its frame rate during my entire playtime. Well, if you want one thing: occasionally the limb of an enemy will get stuck in the environment and rattle a little. But that’s it. Certainly not major.
Final Verdict
Is thankfully, wholly positive. Dead Space is a well made, enthralling horror with some truly epic moments. At between 13 and 20 hours game time (depending on difficulty), this is definitely one to pick up and place with pride among your collection. But, like with with most games, it’s a little hard to sum it all up with a simple number at the end. So instead, the rating will be based on the level of enjoyment I got out of it.
Dead Space – Sci-Fi Horror perfection!
Enjoyment Rating – 9/10
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I never really gave this game a chance. I guess is time to pick it up again.