Dead Space (View comments)
Posted by: Nikolas Mason
Survival horror has long been a favourite genre of mine, from Silent Hill to Resident Evil, and several lesser-known games in between. So naturally Dead Space from EA caught my attention. The game puts you in the shoes of Isaac Clarke, an engineer in the distant future for a space mining ship. Communications with the ship USG Ishimura have been lost, and it’s up to Isaac and his ship’s crew to fix the problem. However, once on board, things turn out to be much worse than just a technical malfunction.
With your ship destroyed and most of your crew dead, it’s up to you to restore power to the Ishimura and escape. In order to do so, however, you must fight your way through the massive ship, fighting what’s left of the crew, who have been transformed by an alien life form into Necromophs – nightmarish monsters whom the only way to kill is to dismember them.
Doing so is by no means easy, but Dead Space is, to put it simply: awesome. The controls are easy to get used to, the battles aren’t overly frustrating, but definitely not overly easy either, and the story takes roughly ten to twelve hours to complete. Throughout the course of the game, more of the story develops, and it is quite interesting.
Graphics wise, Dead Space is beautiful. All of the locations are unique from one another, and the ships architecture is really well designed. Running with all specs maxed out on my MacBook Pro, the game looked great. Not only was the lighting almost perfect, but also the level of detail put into everything was outstanding. The monsters were disturbing, and most of the levels were grotesque and gave me a sense of unease, which after the let down that was Silent Hill Homecoming, was a very welcome feeling.
One thing I really liked about Dead Space was its heads up display. Gone are the days where health and ammo count are static on your screen, but rather they are built into your suit and weapons. Your health bar runs down Isaac’s back, an oxygen counter is on the back of your helmet, and your ammo is displayed on your gun as you aim. It gives the game a much more immersive feeling.
Ammo and health are not overly abundant, but there is no shortage, making this game rather easy to get through without dying very often, if at all. Even experienced gamers should find it challenging to survive some parts, but replaying them was never something I would complain about.
To be honest, there was hardly anything I didn’t like about this game. At times I’d get lost, but it wouldn’t be long before I’d make it back on track, and there were a few moments where the enemies seemed to completely overwhelm me, but again, playing back through those parts wasn’t too bad, especially once I had a strategy planned out.
The best part about Dead Space isn’t the zero gravity moments, the suit upgrades, or the architecture, but the simple fact that this game actually had a lot of good scares. Some parts were really intense, while others were just extremely startling. All in all, I give Dead Space a 5 out of 5.
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