On Monday night I finished Dead Space and I'm currently on my 2nd playthrough. (That for me is pretty rare, I don't often play a game more than once). I can honestly say, this is the best game I've played in quite some time and it currently gets my vote for Game of the Year 2008. If you've been living under a rock for the past few months, Dead Space is a survival horror game that takes place on a stranded spacecraft. You play as an engineer, Isaac Clarke, who is part of a rescue team sent to investigate a distress signal received by the USG Ishimura, which is a mining ship stuck in orbit over the planet Aegis 7. When you dock with the Ishimura you soon realize that things have gone horribly wrong and you spend the game fending off necromorphs while trying to figure out what the hell happened as you try and get the Ishimura up and running again.
This game is all about atmosphere. The mood, the look, the sounds, the ambience, the lighting, the interface and the graphics all come together in perfect harmony to suck you in and creep the hell out of you. This game isn't the "jump out and scare you" type of game, it's just creepy all around. If I had to compare the creepyness to another game, it would be most like Silent Hill. The sounds, music and lighting are what scare you, not monsters jumping out in front of you, although that does happen every once in awhile.
Dead Space does a great job of engrossing you in its world. Once you start up a game, you are never taken out of the world and always feel like a part of it. While there are menus in the game, they appear in the game itself. Your health bar and stasis bar are on Isaac's back. Your inventory screen, map screen and objective screens are all projected holographically by Isaac in the game. Messages from crew members will be projected in front of Isaac in the game itself. You always feel like a part of the game this way. It may seem a little weird at first, but you will quickly get used to it. I absolutely love it and it really adds to the experience.
I am always on edge while playing Dead Space and the sound is the main reason for this. You are constantly hearing strange noises while walking around the Ishimura and you always think somethings going to be around the next corner. The sound in this game is perfection. It's hard to explain sound effects in text, but you will hear rumblings in the distance, moans, screams, whispers, objects rattling and the walls creaking. The music itself also adds to the fear. It is often subtle ambience, but when a necromorph appears the music gets much louder and heightens the tension. The sound and music are really something you have to experience for yourself. I recommend you turn the volume way, way up. If Dead Space wins any awards at all, at the very least it should win an award for best sound design. It is that good.
The graphics are some of the best I've ever seen and probably the best I've experienced on my HDTV that was purchased this past summer. I highly recommend playing this game on a large TV if you have the ability to do so.
The creatures themselves are like a cross between the abominations in John Carpenter's The Thing, and the nightmarish things in Silent Hill. They are all extremely creepy and they scare the shit out of you when you see one coming straight for you. That's right, these things run, they don't always walk. They are not zombies or parasites, rather alien in origin. One unique thing about the creatures in Dead Space is that you can't kill them easily by just blowing their heads off, or just shooting in their direction. The quickest way to kill them is to sever their limbs. Shoot off a leg, shoot off an arm, and they go down much easier. There are some exceptions to this rule though. A few of the tougher enemies will punish you if you don't shoot in the right area. I won't spoil the fun, but just keep an eye out.
You may have heard some of the negative comments about Dead Space, but I think they are all horse shit. Some people have said the game is nothing more than Resident Evil 4 but in space. Whoever says this is an idiot and should be shot in the kneecaps. It is nothing like Resident Evil. Just because it is a survival horror type game and uses a similar over the shoulder camera view doesn't mean its a Resident Evil clone. Clearly these people aren't even paying attention to the game they are playing. Or they haven't even played it themselves. Other people have said Dead Space uses inventory management and lack of ammo to add to the tension. Inventory can become an issue, this is true, but I don't think it adds to the tension. If anything, running out of ammo in a firefight and spending precious seconds reloading your weapon are what really causes the tension.
Inventory can become an issue if you aren't playing the game right. In Dead Space you can carry around up to 4 weapons at a time. What will happen if you do this, is that you will begin to pick up ammo for the 1 or 2 weapons you aren't using when you really need ammo for the ones you do like using. You will naturally find a couple weapons that you like and carry a couple extra for emergency purposes. I had this issue at first, but I have a solution: I decided to carry around only 3 weapons. 2 main ones and then 1 for emergencies. Later in the game, I found I was getting tons of drops for the 1 weapon I didn't like to use much. That extra ammo fills up space I could be using for other things. Then I decided to just carry 2 weapons around (my 2 upgraded ones). This completely solved the problem and I never again had an issue with inventory management.
Aside from this one minor problem, there is nothing negative I can say about this game. Overall the game is fantastic. It's as close to perfection as you can get. I've had an absolute blast playing this game and I highly recommend it to everyone. I feel like this is 2008's BioShock, only Dead Space is suffering by being released around the time when other huge sequels are coming out like Saints Row 2, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Resistance 2, Gears of Wars 2 and several others. BioShock did it right by releasing in August when you weren't being barraged by dozens of other AAA titles. Its a shame really, because this game deserves as much attention as those other games are receiving, if not more so. Do yourself a favor and check this game out.
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