Dead Space

Dead Space, one of the most surprisingly succesful games of 2008. Virtually no hype was centered around Isaac Clarke's perils among the Ishimura and when it finally came to be, it blew the critics and survival horror fanatics away in a giant stream of blood n dismembered limps.

Dead Space is far from revolutionary and in fact isn't all that unique either, but it still manages to give players an incredibly horrorific journey with its gameplay managing to hit perfection with how its all executed.

It is, deep down, a 3rd person survival horror game similair to the likes of Resident Evil 4. But unlike its said inspiration it gives you tight corridors and alot of eerie noises to be severly creeped out by. Its certaintly still leaning to the action side of survival horror, but it has alot more 'survival' based gameplay than RE4.

So then, as Isaac Clarke, you and a small team are sent to the mining ship Ishimura, to make some repairs due to a lost contact. Arriving onboard theres already plenty of worry and the team are already aware something bad has happened to this ship.
Soon enough your split from what remains of your team and left to fend for yourself against the monstrosities that lurk all over the newly formed Ghost Ship.

The enemies you'll come across are the Necromorphs, distubing creatures that are somewhat humanoids but with alot of demented ''extras'' to make you sure there certaintly not friendly. Necromorphs were once human and its evident of that with the victims face still there, somewhere. With razor sharp talons and a very aggresive AI, the necromorphs are certaintly a foe to be remembered.
To make sure of that, Dead Space has a rather unique take on killing the foes you'll constantly come up against. Long gone is the ''shoot em in the head'' tactic and now to make best use of your limited ammo you must instead aim at the limps of the necromorphs to put them down. Killing them is still possible with enough razor blades and plasma shots to the torso and head but it won't leave you with much ammo afterwards if you try for a kill like that.

The weapons of gorey destruction you have in Dead Space is surprisingly varied too. You'll initially come across your trusty Plasma Cutter, which is say the equivalent to the games handgun. Thats not to underestimate it however, as it could very well possibiley last you to the very end. Still though to rival up things you'll have your Razor cutter which can shoot a temporary razor in mid air and for you to simply walk it through whatever.
You'll have your Force Gun which acts as your shotgun of sorts which it shooting a mass of...well force at your enemies.
Then theirs still the predictable assault rifle and flamethrower, but overall theres a nice amount of weaponry to give you a few different ways of taking down the hordes of necromorph, all of which can be upgraded too.

The upgrading system in Dead Space is down to making a chain through a sort of circuit board. For each weapon, your own armor and some other ects. you will place NODES into spots to be able to upgrade your said weapon or whatever in a number of different aspects from reload speed to ammo capacity. However sometimes there'll be some empty NODE slots that don't give you anything besides carrying on the path to another upgrade. That way theres a few different routes you can take to eventually upgrade your weapons to max. Its definatley a intricate idea that will have you thinking before you use your NODES.

The weapon variety is strong, but it does seem only for the variety alone. As said before, it is very possible for you be able to get through on just one weapon. You are able to equip 4 weapons at a time mind you, so you'll possibley at least have 4 weapons to play with, but some will seem unecessary and only for abit more fun factor. Not a huge predicament, and afterall could add some replay value to play through with a different set too.

Throughout your travels among the ishimura, you'll not only be slaughtering necromorphs in a bunch of delightful ways, but also engage in some puzzles, commonly associated with the kinesis and stasis modules you'll pick up. The kinesis is what it sounds like, te ability to pick up objects and move at will. The stasis is able to slow down the enemies or even machinery usually, however you may only use stasis so often without you needing more energy, which is usually conviently placed whenever a puzzle requires stasis to solve. Kinesis however is unlimited but not quite as effective in battles as the stasis.

Using those tow you'll have to hurl boulders, slow down malfunctioning doors and plenty of other actions to help you further the game. It plays a significant part in the game and is frankly a great way to break up the pace from the alien slayage and in fact can be rather fun.
Sometimes you'll also have the extra worry of doing both puzzles and combat in a 'Vacuum or even zero gravity or even both. The Vacuum is enacted when their is a link to outside space, thus oxygen is unavailable. In this state you'll have a limited amount of air to breathe but again like the stasis, theres usually an oxygen replenisher located nearby.
Zero Gravity is just what it is, playing through in zero gravity. Though that doesn't mean you'll be able to float all over the space. Instead thanks to Isaac's boots you may perform gravity jumps were you can jump from one place to another, allowing you say to reach the ceiling or anywhere in fact when zero-G is enabled.

With so much going on at times, with you in a vacuum, jumping around in Zero-G trying to kinesis shoot some radioactive matter out of the ship, all the while with necromorphs choming at Isaac's boots it can be very intense indeed, sometimes a little frustrating maybe, but more often than not it all adds to the survival horror fun.

How this all sounds is very effective. When simply traversing through the ship, you'll hear a few things, all varieing at times from where about you are. You'll always hear the loud steps of Isaac's boots but also you may come across some random roars from the larger species of necromorphs. Theres hardly ever any theme music, but the silence works all the better for setting one creepy atmosphere with you always wondering just 'when' this thing is going to jump out. The vacuum though will alter things greatly, having everything muffled almost like you yourself are listening through Isaac's ears. Instead though Isaac himself with be amplified with his own breathing being the only tune you'll find yourself listening to.
The Necromorphs themselves too all have their own appropiatley unnerving crys and shreiks. The small little baby like necromorph and their quick fired screech should always send a shiver down your spine. The standard necromorphs and their frantic wails as they charge at you will also give you a good dose of fear and panic.
All the more so do your weapons sound as powerful and loud as they should. The squilching of the body parts as you stomp on them to Isaac's own crys of pain all sound efficient and from what I can assume, exactly how they should sound.

The voice acting too is of very good quality, strangely enough Isaac himself is a silent protagonist, which is certainlty rather dated but it didn't cause any serious harm to the story but did of course limit his character development incredibly. Hammond and Kendra however, the other two main characters, more than make up for it with plenty of dialogue and all of it performed brilliantly.

The story however isn't quite as succesful. Its enjoyable at least and has plenty of different less notable story elements that were left explored, the main story and its twists espeically nearing the end would of already been figured out. Not to say its not somewhat effective at the end mind you, but its not entirely unexpected.

How long the game will last you depends. For one its not a very long, took me under 10 hours to complete and considerably shorter on my next runs through, sometimes clocking at around 6 hours. But thats not to stop you from playing through again, theres plenty of audio dairies you may have missed, different weapons to possibily try out and still just tons of addictive gameplay to go through all over again. An easy and accessible list of trophies are available also that alone should take around three runs through.

So your stay in the Ishimura will only last as long as you make it, it could very well become one of your favourite games of 2008, otherwise at least a fun ride that didn't manage to garner anything more. What people really can't deny, is how much of a damn successful horror game it is, built up from many other gaming franchises maybe, but this is one type of Frankenstein that can handle a few pitchforks and torchs.