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Dead Space Review
by Mark Hooson
I HAVE to admire EA’s recent change of tack regarding new IPs, after all
publishers cannot live on franchises alone. Despite luke warm receptions,
Army of Two and Mirror’s Edge captured my interest solely because they were
EA titles without a year at the end of the title.
While I wasn’t the biggest fan of ME or AoT, Skate was an incredibly
impressive IP which really surprised me. EA appears to have pulled it off
again with Dead Space, doing for the survival horror genre what Skate did
for the skating genre - just making it, well, better.
On paper, Dead Space is a bit yawn inspiring. A strange virus is unleashed
by intergalactic miners which in turn reanimates the corpses of a ship’s
crew, leaving one man to get his buddies out of there. A kind of Resident
Evil with a ‘in space nobody can hear you scream’ vibe.
Hardly the most imaginative thinking for a brand new title, but its the
little things in Dead Space which impress more than the sum of its parts.
You play as Isaac Clarke, which may have a resonance with sci-fi fans, a
technician onboard a stricken mining ship who must battle his way through
hordes of the disgusting necromorphs to save himself and fellow survivors.
Necromorphs are the reanimated and mutated corpses of your former shipmates
which cannot be killed with brute force alone, but must be strategically
dismembered. Luckily, being an engineer, Isaac has allsorts of makeshift and
futuristic weapons at his disposal to chop, slice and maim the necromorphs.
One terrifying element of your adversaries is that if you only cut off one
limb with, lets say, a remote controlled circular saw (yes you read that
right), they can adapt their way of moving to continue their attack. Cut off
both legs and the necromorph will scurry at you with its giant claw like
appendages.
Half the fun of the game, despite the fact that it is disgusting, is using
the great and at times hilarious weapons to take them down.
Dead Space has a very in-depth upgrade system on a par with some RPG titles,
which sees you upgrading weapons and armour. It’s a bit like the merchant
from Resident Evil 4, but with holograms and space gadgetry.
The comparisons to Capcom’s franchise are hard to avoid, but at least Dead
Space improves on some of the annoying Resi quirks. You can, for instance,
run and gun.
The over the shoulder camera angle is as effective as the Resi one in
creating tension, but feels less restrictive.
Your inventory and HUD are displayed as a hologram being displayed out of
your weapon and suit, which is a great aesthetic and functional design
choice.
Controls are very intuitive and introduced sympathetically. The only parts
which bothered me were the ‘zero gravity’ sections which became very
frustrating at times.
Now, Dead Space is a survival horror game, and unashamedly so. In that
respect, the most important question about this game should be ‘is it
scary?’ Well, to give you an idea, the vibration from my mobile phone as I
received a text message when I was guiding Isaac through a dark corridor
being lit intermittently by a strobe like light scared the bejesus out of
me.
Okay, okay so it wasn’t the game that scared me directly, but the game
creates such an atmosphere of tension, sucking you into its world, that you
are completely immersed in the experience, delivering genuinely scary
shocks.
In one section, I entered a decontamination room, upon entering which the
doors were sealed (not a good sign.) After some clattering in the distance,
the lights went out. In complete darkness, flashes from broken and
malfunctioning lights picked up advancing necromorphs in the corners of the
room as I blindly fired circular saws around the room. Great fun, and very
scary!
So Dead Space does deliver on scares. The story isn’t going to win any
awards, but there’s something about the atmosphere which makes it very
memorable.
As for the graphics, the jury is still out. On HD displays the visuals are
very sharp, but feel a bit wasted when there is so much darkness in the
design. On the other hand, the absence of light is needed for scares.
In the sections which are illuminated, things can look a bit samey, with
greys and browns which we’ve seen enough of in other next gen titles. On the
other hand, there are areas of blue and orange hues which look great and
moody.
Your enemies are suitably gruesome looking, and made even more macabre by
the fact that the dev team Redwood Studios supposedly studied car crash
victims in designing the necromorphs.
In terms of sound, Dead Space can be a quiet game at times, but when there
is music it is expertly placed and executed to make the hairs on the back of
your neck pay attention.
Overall, a very enjoyable survival horror game which is a breath of fresh
air from Resi or Silent Hill. I might have been more impressed with a new
character and a new backdrop to immerse myself in more than the actual game,
but even if this had been a Resident Evil game set in space, it would have
been a good one.
