Dead Space Box Art

First off I should state that I’m not generally one to play the survival horror genre, although I have played and thoroughly enjoyed many of them such as System Shock 1&2.  I’ve also completed the game twice within short succession in order to write this review.

The general outline is that you are an engineer named Issac (named after Isaac Asimov) who is sent to a mining ship with a small crew to fix their communications systems as the ship went into radio silence and hasn’t responded to any forms of communication.  You then become stranded on this ship, and you notice that there are creatures lurking about (called Necromorphs) that want to kill you, and turn you into one of them.

Space zombies!  Yes, I know almost every space horror game has these now but considering how much polish EA put into Dead Space, it’s really not an issue.  It doesn’t seem like an old idea.  And the different forms that you find all over the ship make it a lot more interesting than fighting the same 3 enemy models over and over.  A big part of this is the fact that you have to attack the limbs.  Use your Plasma Cutter to hack the legs off, so they crawl towards you, then blow their head and arms off with the line cutter.  It’s quite fun, and also creepy because you can fire blindly into their chest and cut their legs off, but they’ll still scramble across the floor trying to kill you.

Although I can’t really say I was scared by this game (although the 2nd playthrough was surprisingly more spooky for some reason) but it did have some elements that made it spooky.  Take for instance the main religion of the game universe Unitology.  There are people in the game that WANT this all to happen, as it’s part of what should happen according to their idea of God’s Divine Plan(TM).  This personally filled me with frustration because these people don’t know what they’re doing sentencing these people to their deaths in the name of a fictional character.  Sort of like the frustration I have in the real world, where all these wars are started over which religion is more peaceful as they try to bring about the end of the world.

The lack of ammo in the harder difficulties definitely made me walk a little slower, and swear a bit more when I get jumped by three or four baddies as I fire wildly into the mass of limbs.  This definitely helped set the mood and made for a better gaming experience overall.  So if you want to get the most out of the story, don’t hesitate to bump up to a higher difficulty level on your first playthrough.

Overall I have to say I’m quite impressed with the game.  It was more than I expected and although I play’d it twice in a row I didn’t find it difficult to do so at all.  I’d advise you to at least give this game a shot, and if your into the survival horror genre you’re going to definately want to play the hell out of this one.

For those of you unaware of the plotline it goes as follows:

You awake to find yourself in a room, a computer talking to you stating that you have been selected to run through some tests. Once the tests are completed you will be bathed, then there will be cake. You are then given a gun, that allows you to shoot an entrance and exit portal, and you proceed to solve increasingly complex puzzle rooms.
Pretty simple, and although the plotline is not very deep and you can guess that everything doesn’t go quite as planned, it makes for a very memorable game. Who doesn’t like delicious cake after all?

One of my favorite parts of this game however is the end credits. I feel that the way they display them and give a sort of epilogue at the same time is genius to say the least, and what makes it even more awesome, is that it’s all expressed in song. It really shows Valve had fun making this release.

I have included a video of the end credits, however it does contain spoilers, and although I don’t feel that they ruin the gameplay experience at all as the plot is so transparent, you may want to decide to play through the game to see them, as it’ll probably make them seem that much better.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.