GAMER REVIEW: DEAD SPACE

Dead Space will always hold a special place in my heart as the game that introduced me to survival horror. It is the example which I use to judge all other survival horror games. Why, you may ask? Well, lets delve into my review for Dead Space and maybe you'll figure it out.

Dead Space takes place in the far future where human's bad habits have just about depleted almost all of Earths natural resources, which is why we are now reduced to drilling far away planets for their resources to be used on Earth. The biggest "Planet Cracker" in the fleet is the USG Ishimura, which has just suffered a complete and total comms blackout. Enter Isaac Clark, the hero of the game, it is his crews job to travel to the Ishimura and restore all comms systems. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a normal repair mission quickly turns into the stuff nightmares are made of as the truth behind the blackout rears its ugly head and Isaac and crew quickly find themselves trapped in a battle for survival and drawn into an ever deepening conspiracy that involves the US Government, The Military, and a popular religion known as Unitology.

If it weren't already obvious from the above paragraph, Story is one element that Dead Space isn't about to run out of. The Story of Dead Space starts once the screen flickers on and continues until the tense final shot.

Of course, this wouldn't be a survival-horror game if it wasn't able to scare the piss out of players...and Dead Space does this brilliantly. The game literally uses every element it can to get you to scream for your mommy. The alien-zombies known as Necromorphs are so twisted and disturbing that the mere sight of one is just about gauranteed to give us nightmares, now to have the game sic these bastards onto the player in seemingly never-ending droves while your exploring the ship or locked in a small, dark room during quarantine is what ultimately will drive most players to cry UNCLE!!! The only way to defeat these uglies is to de-limb them in the goriest ways possible. Cut off their legs and they'll start dragging themselves across the floor towards you, it would seem cutting off their heads would do the trick...but no, as after I chopped off some of their heads they still continued to pursue me. For them to cease bothering you, the player MUST cut off all of their limbs.

As if having these things become the new "Crew" of the Ishimura weren't bad enough, as you travel through the ship the sounds of them crawling in the vents above you is a reminder that while you may have fended off the last horde, there are still more waiting to pounce on you when least expected. You may be safe for the time being, but it will never stay that way for long.

Helping in the "Pee your pants" category is the tense music and ship design. The music keeps the player in the right state of mind while playing the game, climaxing or hitting sudden, loud chords when a Necromorph attacks. The ship design feels like something out of HR Gigers vivid imagination. It's all quite disturbing.

Why anyone would even sign on to work in such a vast ship in the middle of a far-away system is a mystery to me, but why Isaac stays on the ship even when things turn deadly is not. The game provides enough motivation for Isaac that the reason why he stays is never a mystery. You see, his girlfriend is stuck aboard the Ishimura and sent Isaac a mysterious message before the ship lost all power. Even if Isaac did want to leave, the Necromorphs were able to successfully blow up the tiny vessel Isaac and his crew used to board the Ishimura. In plain and simple english: They're stranded on the deadly ship until they can find another means of escape.

As if all this weren't enough to give any hard-core gamer a reason to give Dead Space a try, the gameplay itself is also superb in its execution. It's quite entertaining to run around the ship avoiding terrible terrors, and when cornered, de-limbimg them. It feels like the whole game you are stuck in a one-man war for dominance and survival.

Now onto what may be the only downside of the game: The re-playablity. There's not much to Dead Space beyond its story mode(which took me a around a week + to finish). There's no multiplayer mode or online option. Once players finish the game they've pretty much gotten all they could out of it. True, there are countless achievements to...um, achieve but that in itself does not provide players nearly enough motivation to give Dead Space another run-through.

Inspired by Alien, The Thing, Night of the Living Dead, and Solaris Dead Space is a force to be reckoned with. The terror inducing atmosphere stays consistant from beginning to end. The only down-side to this is that the players are rarely given any time to cool down during the game. This is either viewed as a good thing, or a bad thing depending on who is playing the game. Dead Space is definently not for the faint of heart as most of its artistic canvas consists of splattered blood, severed limbs, and disturbing aliens that are relentless in their quest to devour you whole. As a whole, Dead Space is a bloody-fun gaming experience, provided players have a strong enough constitution to see it through till its satisfying end.

9.7/10