Gaming Generations :: Dead Space

NickD · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:22 am Post subject: Dead Space

Dead Space

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Official Website: http://www.deadspacegame.com
Release Date: 10/14/2008
Genre: Sci-Fi Horror/Shooter
Number of Players: 1
ESRB Rating: Mature
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REVIEW

This game is a completely new series in the survival horror genre. It offers a new interesting location for the series and deals with interesting concepts.
I played through this game on medium difficulty and didn’t run into too many moments when I had a major ammunition constraint.

PLOT

For a while now, the people of Earth have been going about the process of planet cracking. That is, using a ship to crack open other planets and take the valuable resources from inside them in a quick, efficient way. Suddenly, one of the biggest planet cracking ships, the USG Ishimura, needs repairs on what seems to be a routine quick fix.

You play as Isaac Clarke, engineer extraordinaire, who boards the ship with the rest of his small ship’s crew. The plan was just to repair the Ishimura’s communications array, but once you get on the ship, you notice the lack of crew immediately.

The beginning plot isn’t anything too impressive, although the story makes some great twists during the course of the game.

SETTING

This game takes place on the Ishimura for the most part, but also on the planet that the Ishimura was in the process of cracking. Narrow hallways, often covered with odd growth and many small cracks and crevices are the commonplace.

GAMEPLAY

This game essentially starts out as a survival horror game. Personally, it reminded me a lot of Resident Evil 4 with a space setting, with a lot of influences seeming to come from popular shooters (the third-person view and aiming are more like Gears of War than Resident Evil). You start off with one gun, the Plasma Cutter, which is actually used as a standard engineering tool. This gun easily became my favorite weapon since both of its firing modes were useful all the time. Every gun has 2 firing modes though, and each can be used well in strategic areas. The line gun’s alternate fire, which is a timed “mine” is great to use on stationary targets since you can launch it and duck back behind a corner.

This game, like many survival horror games comes to down a mixture of shooting skill and strategy. The shooting skill part in this game comes from “strategic dismemberment.” The ultimate goal in all survival games is to take down enemies using as little ammunition as possible. In Dead Space, you need to cut off a Necromorph’s (the game’s name for the monsters) limbs to kill them faster. You also need to strategize what weapon to use on any given enemy as well as which weapons to upgrade, which is done using power nodes to assemble a makeshift circuit.

Not only do you need to think about upgrading weapons, but you need to consider upgrading your suit (Rig) to hold more oxygen for the vacuum areas or more Health as well as the extra powers that it can gain: Stasis and Kinesis. Stasis is used to slow down objects, including enemies, and kinesis is used to move and shoot other objects. Personally, I maxed out my Rig completely, but put nothing in to the alternative powers.

They eliminate the normal Heads Up Display by adding a holographic display on the weapons and the armor. It’s also impossible to get lost since you can press a button to have a laser guide you to your next objective. Your health and the amount of Stasis you have can be seen on the back of the armor.

Power nodes are scattered throughout the station scarcely, however they can be bought for a large 10,000 credit fee. This causes you to debate between buying more ammo for your weapon or upgrading the weapon. Credits can also be used to buy med packs, refill stasis packs, oxygen tanks, or to upgrade your suit to have more damage resistance and inventory slots. I came dangerously close to running out of ammo halfway through the game because I paid a lot of money to get power nodes. But, I switched to buying only suit upgrades, med packs and ammo.

Because of these choices, the last half of the game was essentially a shooter with some horror elements. I had powerful weapons and a lot of ammo for them. I didn’t find air tanks useful to buy and since I didn’t use stasis too often stasis packs were usually sold for extra ammo credits.
The bosses and small “puzzles” that you need to solve to defeat things are great. Zero gravity and vacuum areas are well placed and add to the “trapped in space” feel. The minigames are also pretty fun, challenging, but incredibly rewarding.

GRAPHICS

The graphics are good enough to be incredibly creepy, especially at the beginning of the game. The alternate fire modes of some of the guns look really cool, as do the brutal death sequences that show when you mess up. I’m sure everything would look better in HD though.

SOUND

The sound effects are used well and often to creep you out and make you think something’s after you. I also thought it was great that you can only really hear the sounds of things that are touching you and moving in the vacuum areas, even if it lets a bunch of things sneak up on you.

SUMMARY

This game does a great job as a new series in the survival horror genre. This is definitely one of the best games in the genre, especially on the next-gen consoles. There is a decent amount of backtracking, not unlike the first Halo game. The game only has about 12-15 hours of gameplay, depending on how scared you get, how much you explore(there’s not a lot, but it is recommended), or how much you strategize.

I also want to say that some of the criticisms of the game are also completely stupid. One of the criticisms I read was that you can’t continue on with all your current stuff on a higher difficulty setting. My answer to that would be: There is an achievement for beating the game on the hardest difficulty level. Allowing people to max everything out and play through that difficulty would effectively reduce it to being as difficult as a playthrough on easy, making the achievement pointless.

Overall Score: 9.0/10

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Pictures courtesy of GameSpot.com
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Nick
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Finished Reviews:
Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS)
Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (DS)
Ninja Gaiden II
Battlefield: Bad Company (360)
Gears of War
Too Human
Dead Space (360)
Legendary (360)
EndWar (360)
Fallout 3

Writer, Actor in Flingshot Productions