Dead Space

(Played on Steam Deck with English voice and text. 15 hours and 30 minutes to see the credits roll on Medium difficulty according to Steam clock.)

Horror has been for yours truly the undercurrent of science fiction ever since they started reading for amusement 2 decade ago, Hugo winner Cixin Liu was already a master in short form back then. Before being the first non-English speaker winning a Hugo rocket for Best Novel with Three-body Problem, Mr. Liu had introduced my teenage self to some shocking horror imagery all rightfully in the name of hard science fiction thriller. The man can even build horror with his non-fiction writing. The unhealed frostbite on a child’s foot even during summer in the author’s afterword of Three-body Problem can generate nightmares as much as what vacuum does to a body in that fiction. Let’s just say that Teen Slashers are just kiddy shit compare to that.

Then there is Yukinobu Hoshino, a Japanese comic artist who had blown both Hideo Kojima and his appreciators away. The short of it is I think Mr. Hoshino’s books can put the whole endeavor of Hollywood on space horror genre to shame. Whether it’s cult favorites (reads “not all that good”) like Event Horizon or stone-cold classics (reads ”actually good, at least for expensive to make movies”) like Alien, Lucifer by Yukinobu Hoshino would give them a run for their money in terms of both idea and presentation.

Those 2 paragraphs are just my way of telling you: do not except a glowing review here. I did except to write a glowing review, but as the battles heated up in Dead Space I started to like the game less. With survival horror being about gingerly bypassing an ecosystem of monsters (One may argue that even the more action packed Resident Evil 4 is about that), Dead Space’s focus on arena fights is getting the foundation of the genre wrong. Then some choices made in the design can be outright baffling. Overall, I would say if you got 70 us dollars to burn, maybe spend it somewhere else.

The Works

Since this is a remake of a 15 years old game, I see no point sum up the story. For one thing it had been spoiled to hell and back in the decade and half since. For another, the story is boiler plate to a fault. While there are good enough characters within archetypes, one just knows going in that this is one of those killing everyone but maybe leave one for the sequel kind of franchise horror.

The plot, while compelling enough to push yours truly to spend a couple of late nights on the game, is nothing to writhe home about. Go to a derelict spaceship and get it working. Oh no, the celestial body is pulling us in, get the engine work faster! Then dribs and asteroids coming, get the guns working before hull damaged too much. Space horror usually save the monsters for later but an action game cannot afford that. So, before the funhouse of horror in space can truly begin, you are already in zombie land.

At least the zombie design is fun enough, right? Wrong. Pushing cosmic horror creature design towards fleshy is likely the most boring direction one can push with Great Old Ones being a bunch of psychic fishes and whatnot. Mass Effect, an M-rated WRPG before, making machines and Tales of Arise, a T-rated JRPG after, making plants are both more interesting directions one can take cosmic horror.

Guess 2008 was just the right time for the one to catch fire, huh?

A Work

In many ways, Dead Space is more DOOM 3 than Resident Evil 4. It has corridors after corridors the way id Software products have those. I cannot remember the lighting situation in the 2008 since I played it once 10 years ago, but the pitch black in 2023 remake can be straight out of the first polygonal DOOM title. The difference being that Dead Space has flashlight on its weapon so aiming down the sight is the only way one can navigate the darkness and defend themselves if a monster jumps out. Still with the darkness so engulfing and monsters so jumpy, Isaac Clark’s movement speed, AMD or not, simply is not sufficient enough to keep him safe. There is the fleshy floor later in the game, where Mr. Clark would slow his pace even more and would not sprit. Trying to evade monsters in such environment led to several frustrating reloading the save.

Unlikely earlier titles of survival horror, where even though monsters can come out of nowhere lots of them would stay in the environment minding their own business until player character appears like an enticing snack, monsters only pop out of nowhere in Dead Space. Sometimes you just want to get on with the plot, but the door locks for biohazard leak and would not open up until player clean those up.

The arena design in Dead Space can feel wrong in 2 polar opposite directions: too small and too big.

The regular arenas are too small, whether they are littered with obstacles and too narrow corridors. Then slow moving and no evade button Mr. Clark has to be fight a dozen of them Necromorph. Cornered equals doomed, and there are usually no checkpoints.

Then there is the too big zero gravity arenas. I’m very glad that the free foaming G-Z in the sequels is added in, then less glad that there are faster, shooting farther and harder to spot enemies are introduced there. It’s there the aspect of Isaac Clark not being a soldier truly shows: battlefield intel. In many games with 60 to 70 us dollar price tags, there is usually a dedicated button to push some one can see where the enemies are. The “detective vision” in sci-fi setting is usually justified as how a future soldier is linked to a intel network. Guess engineer Clark can tip into one of those.

It Works

I made the boar headed decision to play through this game entirely on the Steam Deck I got last Christmas. One may argue that some of my dissatisfactory about the game can be lifted if I played on more powerful hardware. Indeed, the framerate drop after setting 3 to 4 zombies on fire is noticeable. But as I mentioned above, some problems cannot be solved by high framerate.

With the game Verified after some patches, I’d say the Deck is not too bad a way to play this not too good a game. As far as my trail of fire for the new hardware goes, it does run through without too many problems. Though it is power consuming. A fully charged Deck can run Pentiment for almost 4 hours while about 80 minutes are the most Dead Space can go.

Final Words

February, the seventh, 2013 was the day I beat 2008’s Dead Space on Xbox 360. It was 10 years ago to the week by the time of writing. I remember being fond of the game enough to continue a binge of the whole trilogy back then. I did not even loathe the then new Dead Space 3, one everyone trying to forget. But a decade is a long time.

Now, I spent my 70 us dollars and about 16 hours to see this new one through. There are highs of course. I just like free foaming in G-Z as a humanoid, it’s still the only way to feel like piloting a mobile suit of Gundam fame in space with over-the-shoulder aim and shoot. If only the rest of the game can be better as well.