Waiting for Dead SPace 2: Dead Spacer
Fuck you, Silent Hill!
The set up for Dead Space initially feels like that of Resident Evil 4, in that you’re a lone guy in the middle of a shitty horror situation, and the camera is set up over your shoulder. Both are horror games, but that’s where most of the similarities stop. Because this game clearly takes place in space, on a ship called the Ishimura, and the instance where Resident Evil takes the series into space is the moment where it becomes Dino Crisis 3 (Dinosaurs in space…can’t fail). Don’t get me wrong, I love the Resident Evil series (not the movies, though), especially RE: 4, but Dead Space is fucking scary. This game is easily the most terrifying thing I’ve experienced in probably ten years, games, films, or otherwise (and I attend an art school where people LARP).
The game sets the tonality and atmosphere immediately, and unlike other games, it never lets up. The atmosphere of the game stays consistently scary for most of the game; the only change comes when the game increases in terrorizing the player. This is something other games struggle to do constantly, but more often than not, they fail.
As far as the graphics are concerned, the game looks fantastic. Sure, the people don’t look amazing, but everything else in the game looks grotesquely beautiful. The game is dark for the most part, so they could easily hide the things that look terrible, but it’s not necessary. The game looks great, and the lighting strengthens the atmosphere in some of the best and unique ways I’ve ever seen in my history of playing video games. The creature designs aren’t the most unique, or original looking monsters out there, they’re actually hideously reminiscent of those found in John Carpenter’s The Thing. Don’t mistake this for a negative draw to the game, it’s really not. Although, some of the designs are kind of awful (those not evocative of The Thing) take for instance the weirdass baby monsters with missile firing tentacles. Also note: these are not babies of other monsters, but actual infants that were on the Ishimura. But this is one of the very few instances where the designs are flawed, or lame. Quite often the game gives you this amazing sense of scale (see also: inferiority), some of these monsters are fucking huge. HUGE. And those fuckers are smart. If you’re firing at a Necromorph (the monsters) who’s at the end of a corridor, and it can get into a vent, it will. This might not seem like a big deal, but the monster will follow that vent to an opening nearest you, avoiding getting dismembered by you while it’s in the vent shaft, then try to claw at you and rip you apart.
The result of vents.
The sound design in this game deserves a large portion of the credit for why this game is so fucking scary. Without the music (or lack thereof), and eerie sound effects, this game could come off as another in a long line of action games. The sound is one of the set pieces that set this game in the genre of survival horror to the highest caliber. While roaming the chambers and corridors of the Ishimura, the music has a tendency to fade, and all you hear is the distant pings and metallic clangs of the ship, or something moving in the ship. The sound of claws scurrying through ventilation shafts becomes all too familiar the further you venture into the game.
At this point in the review, it should be obvious that I think you should buy it, but I want to take this paragraph and spoil something absurdly awesome to you. There’s a plethora of animations and different ways you can die in the game, but one will always stay very close to my heart. While low on health, I was limping back to a save spot, or to the end of the level, but the corridor I had previously gone through had repopulated with these weird ground level creatures. My head was promptly removed, and this tentacle thing slid its feelers into my neck stump, and its head replaced mine. It essentially was piloting my dead body. Awesome.
There’s very few reasons why you shouldn’t own this game if you have a 360, or a PS3. Some of those reasons might be that you don’t have the cash, but maybe you will eventually. Forgo the urge to buy soda or food and snag a copy of this game. Did you know you can survive for several weeks on just water? The only other reason that you shouldn’t own this game already is that you’re either a pussy, or an old person. Or a baby. Obviously babies shouldn’t be making high cost purchasing decisions. So, are you a wuss or something? I’m not scared (a little scared).
