Dead Space - Review

Added October 22nd, 2008 by Artie Augustyn

For years now, the survival horror genre has been ruled over by Eastern Developers. Since the release of Resident Evil in 1996 every game classified as survival horror has always been accompanied by an eastern developer such as Human Entertainment (Clocktower), Konami (Silent Hill), or of course, Capcom (Resident Evil). In 2002 Silicon Knights took a stab at the genre by releasing Eternal Darkness, but since then there hasn’t been a survival horror game developed by Western companies, until now. The folks at EA Redwood Shores have unleashed Dead Space to the world. Although Dead Space isn’t the most original game out in the market, it provides a decently sized story mode that starts out with a bang and doesn’t let up till the credits roll. If you’ve been waiting to see what Western developers can do with the genre, this is the game you’ve been waiting for.

Dead Space takes place on an enormous “planet-cracker” ship named the USG Ishmura. You take on the role of Isaac Clark, an engineer sent in to fix the ship’s mechanical problems. When you enter the ship your crew is greeted by violent alien life forms whose soul purpose is to rip you apart, limb from limb. Most of your crew is slaughtered.  Luckily you and two other crew members escape the incident and decide to find out what happened on the ship, and exterminate every last alien on board. The Ishmura is a ship dense with lore and background information, making the world you’re submerged into more believable with each journal entry discovered. Isaac’s story grips you enough to keep you interested but it’s only used to provide a context to events, and never digs into some deeper meaning or anything like that.

From the very first action scene alone, the biggest flaw of Dead Space is revealed: a complete lack of originality. Every enemy, scare, plot point, setting, and design concept comes directly from some other form of entertainment. Enemies look like the antagonist of John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” The entire setting seems eerily close to Ridley Scott’s “Aliens.” You’ll probably recognize several gameplay concepts:  Resident Evil (camera), BioShock (story), and Metroid (constant back tracking).

To be fair, despite the lack of original concepts, Dead Space is borrowing the best aspects of these classics and forming it together into one new product. It’s similar to trying a new food called “The Ultimate Consumption” and saying “This tastes a lot like cheesecake.”  Well, cheesecake IS the most delicious food in the universe, why wouldn’t you want everything to taste like it? If you have no problem revisiting your favorite moments from gaming classics, Dead Space’s setting won’t turn you off. And, of course, if you’ve never played any of the games that influenced Dead Space, this obviously won’t affect you.

Dead Space does have a few new concepts unique to its release that prove to be engaging. The first and most blatant being a new tactic called “Strategic Dismemberment.” Dead Space’s antagonist is an alien race called “Necromorphs.” Necromorphs are deceased humans brought back to life by alien viruses, hence the name. Given how they were created, these guys are not running off of human functions such as brain power or blood. Because of this, instead of filling enemies with lead and hoping for the best, you have to strategically dismember several limbs until the body eventually gives up and dies.

It takes several limbs to be removed before a Necromorph will actually perish. Every now and then you’ll shave off an enemy’s legs, but instead of giving up, the creature will improvise. Without relying on its legs for movement, it will actually crawl towards you, determined to end your life. Most of these creative improvisations are interesting to see. The one variation that doesn’t make a lot of sense is when you shave off an enemy’s head; it can still see where you are.

Due to your profession as an engineer, you’re equipped with mining tools and various other cutting devices as opposed to the usual assault rifles and rocket launchers, so slicing off limbs isn’t a difficult task. The sight of arms and legs flying off your enemies followed by a stream of thick red blood is immensely entertaining and never becomes old. But Strategic dismemberment isn’t very strategic. Somewhere during the process of being transformed from a rotting corpse to a living, pissed-off being, every limb in the Necromorph’s body is elongated to absurd lengths.  You’ll find yourself accidentally cutting your enemies up to pieces before you even know you’re supposed to do that. The exaggerated proportions actually make it harder to not dismember an enemy than it is to do so.

Along with gruesome new tactics is the decision to have the entire user interface within the game. Isaac’s health is represented on his back, ammo for his guns appears in a window when you aim your gun, while audio, video, and text logs all appear through digital holographic projections in front of Isaac’s face. Meaning if you move the camera away from Isaac’s frontal view, you’ll see a distorted image or nothing at all. It’s a cool effect to look at for the first few minutes of the game, but it has a bigger purpose than providing something cool to look at.

This effect attempts to immerse the player into the world of Dead Space, but it doesn’t work as well as it should. Menus are displayed too perfectly, making it easy to forget that you’re looking at a projection from Isaac’s suit, and not just a floating menu. In addition to this, picking up objects in the world or choosing an item from your inventory becomes more of a hassle than it should be. Often times you’ll get frustrated with the attempts of immersion, and wish that they just had a series of menus instead of ambitious immersion techniques.

The rest of the graphical presentation is top-notch. Lighting effects provide the most graphical amazement. Flashing quarantine lights signify danger in the area while serene white light distinguishes medical facilities from the cruel reality of the ship. Another accomplishment in the presentation is sound design. Necromorphs scream fear into your veins as their cries echo throughout the ship, and guns unleash vicious booms of power establishing order with each round launched. Both lighting and sound design are at their best when the player is sent into the vacuum of space.

The tone of the color palette is switched to muted grays and blues, while the sound is drastically lowered. Intense battle music is no longer played during space sequences, leaving the player with a feeling of surrealistic discomfort. Enemies lunge towards the player in complete silence; the only sound heard is Isaac’s heart beat, intensifying with each new enemy spotted. Fighting in Zero-G space is easily one of the best moments of the game.

Finally the length of Dead Space is a debatable point of interest. Completing the story will take you anywhere from eight to twelve hours depending on your pace. Despite being a rather short experience, the game encourages multiple playthroughs. Throughout the game Isaac collects power nodes which can be used to upgrade his suit or weapons. It’s impossible to upgrade every piece of equipment in one go, so after completing the game once, the player is given the option to replay through the game again, but with all their saved attributes.

However, these saved attributes cannot be carried over to new games on harder difficulties. Completionists will also find their fix by searching for the numerous audio, text, and video logs scattered throughout the ship. Needless to say, there’s a lot to do in Dead Space, but at the same time choosing to rent wouldn’t completely rob you of the experience.

Dead Space won’t be winning any awards since it’s basically a compilation of previously used concepts molded together into one game. And despite being a survival horror game, it shares similar problems with Resident Evil 4. It’s scary at first, but once you get a bigger gun it becomes a Horror Action game, with no real threat present. That being said, Dead Space is an excellent game that’s worth checking out, even if you don’t like horror games.