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Dead Hype

With less than a month to go before the official release of Dead Space, we've seen a lot of new promotional material. It'd be right to say that we've been fed the cake, with cream and crust. Though understandable, with the current release schedule September and throughout the year. Competing for the attention against titles such as Silent Hill: Homecoming, Resident Evil 5, Fallout 3 & Call of Duty: World at War.

But really, ask yourself, besides Fallout 3, which of these games have been out there promoting themselves in the way Dead Space has?

So why all this hype? So far we've seen so much of the gameplay elements to wonder “Well, if that's it, what then?” though that's a general flaw the game industry's suffering. It wasn't more than a few years ago I sat down to watch an hour long presentation of what then was a beta version of Spore, basically showing everything that the game has to offer. That, among other reasons, is why I won't buy it. The Company failed on that part, in enticing me into buying the game, because after watching that video, and reading about it, it really doesn't hold any more surprises.

Spore, is what you get. So the experience playing it has to make up for the lack of astonishment a player experiences during a game when he goes “Ohh man, that's really cool!” because the initial awe has already surpassed months ago. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't buy a game that I already knew everything about on-hand. The experience just wouldn't be the same.

So how does this relate to Dead Space? By now, we've all seen the gimmick of the game, Strategic Dismembering (How is it that every game is running on one major gimmick to sell itself, why don't they incorporate ALL the defining benchmarks of what makes a solid RTS or FPS?) and we've been lead on by such things as the outer space area's, the 3D live inventory interface and a lot of the more hectic & creepy moments in the game.

Mind you, all of that combined is enough to sucker me in, and yes I'll buy the game on release date, I'm just afraid I'll be sorely disappointed in it.

So, why buy the game when you know the core of it? I'd argue that, compared to Spore, the hype about Dead Space has been done just right. With the addition of a full length animated movie, a 4-part comic book, that explains the events leading up to the game, the site www.noknownsurvivors.com, the amount of “bait” put forth via vidlogs & developer interviews has been just right. Being a big fan of game developers that actually take their time to develop and come up with an original story, and then make the most of it, I've gotten suckered into many games. One of the main reasons I started playing WoW all those many years ago while it was still in Beta, was because of the lore, and to this day one of the reasons why I'll never return; Blizzard screwed up there, big time. You cannot change lore as you please, universal law. But when I see how much they've done for Dead Space in regards to telling a story directly to you exclusively, rather than showing a movie (MGS 4, I'm looking at you) I can't help but jump up and down in glee. Now if they'd only release that damn movie before the game launches.ø

I'm a giant sucker for survival horror, and still replay Silent Hill 1 though 4 & S.T.A.L.K.E.R to this very day, and watching how survival horror games has changed during the last decade, have gotten me really excited about the upcoming release of Dead Space, Resident Evil 5 & Silent Hill (Sadly, my current financial state, being a poor student, do not agree with me wanting to buy these games) but Dead Space in particular, because it's taken the development of the previous games in it's genre, and done just what I feel should be standard; incorporated them into one seamless game that excels above any other. The promises of an unforgiving and frantic story that pits the player's skill against seemingly impossible odds, close quarter ranged combat, limited ammo and strategic dismemberment combined. The fact that you cannot pause when low on health to heal up, but have to run away or be very quick on the controls to get a pick-me-up, reminds me so much of what made S.T.A.L.K.E.R so great, that and the fact that higher difficulties were rewardingly enough to not go with the easier levels of the game. You're an engineer! Not your average gun-slinging psychopath that relies on auto-aiming and superior fire arms, but having to use wit and your own ingenuity to figure out how you're going to survive the next 10 minutes, is what for me hauls this game in.

Though in the end, with many other things, it's either really really good, or really really bad. However, if you ask me, this could be a valid candidate for Game Of The Year.

I think that pretty much sums up my feelings about Dead Space, thanks for reading :) 

Note: How fucking cool was it that S.T.A.L.K.E.R was made entirely in russian? I mean c'mon, that beats every voice-over ever made in the history of gaming (Except for Monty from Planescapte: Torment)