Dead Space

Review

Survival Horror is a tricky genre for game developers to get into. A game is both scary and memorable or it's a joke and gets discarded. With the horror of Resident Evil and Silent Hill, there aren't many horror games which has been maded. Thanks to EA Redwood studios is out to change this by throwing in a new contender to the mix, a brand new IP which promised to scare the living crap out of us, and also Dead Space delivers that and more. Dead Space starts off by putting you in the rather heavy shoes of Isaac Clark, who is engineer and who's been sent along with a team to respond to a distress signal aboard of USG Ishimura Planet Cracker,which is a giant ship that cracks planets and mines, all possible materials out of them for the prosperity of the mankind. After a rather bumpy entrance, once you get inside the ship, it becomes evident that getting out won't be so easy at all. It won't be 15 minutes in game until you are already running for your life as an alien life form that mutates human dead bodies, the Necromorphs, are out to get you and your crew that came with you and won't rest until all of you are dead. While Event Horizon and Aliens will prove otherwise, space is a somewhat strange place to convey a horror story in, but Dead Space arranges it all in very interesting ways, using the void of space to intensify the scare factor. By being alone in a dead ship in the middle of the dark reaches of space gives the game a claustrophobic feel.

Much of the horror in Dead Space comes from being alone. The ship may have once been a prime, but when you arrive, it's nothing but metallic hallways drenched in blood and crawling with corpses. The ship itself may become your wors nightmare. Walking down hallways that takes you deeper and deeper into the ship will make you feel constrained and the claustrophobia will be unnerving. To make matters worse, or rather better in the eyes of a horror fanatic, sound plays a role of its own to scare you out. You'll be bombarded by strange, guttural sounds that scare the soul out of the players. Sometimes you'll be following a noise down a corridor, only to find nothing as you turn the corner. Sometimes the noise will indeed lead to an enemy encounter, and many times there will be no noise to signal the encounter, as it'll spring on you in the middle of dead silence, and since you'll never know for sure when something is or isn't going to happen, you'll always be tense and on your toes. All of these factors are combined with the story to make Dead Space a truelly unique survival horror experience.

The story has a slow start, as the first missions. You will have on a fetch quest to get the basic functions of the ship, like the tram service that will take you to the different parts of the ship, up and running. The game is chapter based and the starting missions have the same structure: follow the instructions on what to fix or get, come back to the tram station and move to the next section. This structure will start changing as you go along the story, with many plot and twists to keep you engaged throughout and immersing you until you reach one of the most satisfying conclusions you have ever experienced on a game.

Looks like another factor that makes the game stand out from the pack, and Dead Space is one beautiful game. The graphics are beautiful and everything looks sharp and polished. The initial sequence in which the front windows of the ship open and you see the floating rocks of the destroyed planet, glistening by the sun that makes the backdrop, it is incredibly amazing and memorable. The zero gravity segments are equally impressive, with floating corpses and debris which show the great particle effects. It looks even better when gravity is turned back and it all plops to the floor. While the outside settings are wondrous the interior of the ship, is not bad to look at either, looking futuristic. Many sections of the ship have a distinct artistic feel of futuristic "Goth." The game runs all this without a hitch as well, with no noticeable frame rate drops and a smooth experience throughout.

The controls are comfortable and familiar, primarily because of their resemblance to the controls of Resident Evil 4. Aiming feels accurate and while moving and controlling the camera, it feels like a little cumbersome at first, you'll soon get the hang of it and move around with no problems.Your life is represented by a green vial that's on your spine and that goes from green to red as you are nearing death and from the beginning of the game once you are in Isaacs perspective, you'll never leave that spot, as cut scenes are either in game or by watching holographic window panes which have either audio or video logs. The inventory screen is tied up into this too.The way you manage your inventory is also very unique. There are no huds in the game.You will never leave the game screen to manage your inventory and a holographic screen will pop up infront of Isaac for you to manage your items. It means that it's all in real time which makes managing while in battle really hard.Thankfully, there is a button mapped to use health items so there is no frustration in the real time management.

The weapons in the game feel unique as well, because they aren't weapons per set, but mining tools. The cutter, a mining tool for cutting stone in specific shapes will act as your main weapon. As the game progresses you'll get more weapons which include a rifle and a flamethrower. Instead of aiming for the head, you'll need to cut off their limbs, legs are first to slow him down preferably and the whole set for the kill. Boss fights take from this dismemberment mechanic.You'll be using these weapons against vicious and taking them down takes strategy.You'll also have some tools at your disposal that won't neccessery kill the enemies but stall them and help you out. These items will be very useful of your survival and you'll use them to solve the puzzles in the game.The Stasis will slow down the enemies which will help you deal with them better and the kinesis will work as a gravity gun, pulling things towards you and letting you shoot them back at enemies.

Electronic Arts Redwood studios has managed to make one of the most memorable games in gaming and this is partly due from how different it is from other games. The game will take you somewhere along 10-15 hours but there is reason to return to a new game in which you keep all your nodes and weapons and get a new super suit if you can afford it. From the way the sound works to scare you, the settings to the game-play that has you taking down the enemies in ways never before seen, it is all a very unique experience.Trophies will keep the perfectionists busy as they require more than a couple of play-throughs to earn that coveted platinum trophy. As it stands, if you are a fan of survival horror you own it to yourself to experience this game.

Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Designers: Glen Schofield (producer), Bret Robbins
Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows
Release date: October 28, 2008
Genres: Third-person shooter, Survival horror, Action
Modes: Single-player
Media: Blu-ray Disc, DVD

System Requirments:

# Processor Speed: 2.8GHz

# Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista

# System Memory: 1GB RAM

# Hard Drive Space: 7GB

# Video: 256MB DirectX 9.0-compatible NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or ATI Radeon X1600 Pro video card with Shader 3.0 support

# Drive: DVD-ROM

Pictures:

Trailer:

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