Ureview by: Eraser
Ureview points: 28
Ureviewer since: April 2006
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Reviewed On: Monday November 24, 2008
Price paid: $60.00
| Rating: 9 | Recommends product: Yes
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Introduction
Dead Space puts you in the shoes of Isaac Clarke, a system engineer who, together with Kendra Daniels and Zach Hammond, are sent out on a mission to the USG Ishimura, an enormous space ship that has lost all contact.
As your team enters the Ishimura (by rather unconventional means), you'll find that everyone aboard is dead and that the ship is taken over by hideous monsters named NecroMorphs. Ofcourse, soon you'll be split up and the adventure begins. Armed with nothing more than your bare hands, you'll have to find a weapon to defend yourself and find out what happened on the Ishimura. Ofcourse, things turn to the worse and you'll quickly find yourself fighting for a way out, rather than collecting information.
Old ideas done right
Dead Space is a horror shooter. It's like a text-book example of the genre. It doesn't redefine it nor does it revolutionize it. Dead Space is basically a collection of old ideas re-done, but re-done in a very good way.
Having said that, it would be absolutely wrong to label Dead Space as a boring old repetitive beast that doesn't do anything interesting. On the contrary. While we've seen all the horror cliche's numerous times, Dead Space executes these cliche's in such an excellent way that they'll all feel new and fresh again. The design of the whole game is very well done. The whole environment feels believable and is interesting. "Scare" moments are very well set up and do frighten you. The monsters are gruesome and the weapons pack a punch.
The whole game is presented in a over-the-shoulder third person perspective like we've seen in games such as Gears of War. There's no cover system, but to make up for that, killing monsters is much more interesting than it is in a game like Gears of War. Simply emptying a clip of bullets on an enemy won't take it down quickly. In fact, some enemies will tear open and reveal lots of smaller, weaker but quicker enemies crawling out of it's remains. The way to go about it is by severing off the enemy's limbs one by one. That is the most effective way. And it works pretty well too.
The weapons have been tailored for this kind of dismemberment as well. Your first weapon, the Plasma Cutter, is excellent for cutting off appendages, just like the Line Gun, which is essentially a bigger Plasma Cutter that shoots slower moving projectiles. There's also a Pulse Rifle (comparable to a an automatic rifle), a flamethrower, the Forcegun, the Contact Beam and the Ripper (which shoots a blade that hovers and spins about a meter in front of you. Excellent weapons for chopping things up.
No HUD
Another thing that isn't exactly new but again very well done is the lack of a HUD in Dead Space. No health and ammo indicators float around in your screen. All of this information is available inside the game. For instance, along Isaac's spine, a glowing blue ribbon is visible indicating your current health and when you aim with your weapon, a number is projected over the barrel indicating the amount of ammo that's left.
But it goes further. In-game menu's like your inventory aren't seperate menu's either. Along Isaac's chest, a holo projector is visible, which projects images in front of Isaac. If you bring up your inventory, the holo projector lights up and projects your inventory menu in front of Isaac. The same is true for the map, objectives and video communication fragments that are played. It's all very easily readable but it keeps you in the game. Another side effect from this is that you can't pause the game while taking your time seeking a med-kit to use, but that adds to the tension of the fight.
Things like this seem so simple, but Dead Space is the first game where I've seen menu's that interact with the player (rather than with the player's character) integrated into the game world so well.
Graphics and audio
In terms of graphical quality, Dead Space doesn't disappoint. It looks excellent, even on my SD television. If you do have an SD TV though, don't count on reading the text logs, as the fonts are way too small. I didn't feel I missed out on anything though.
The art style of Dead Space is good. Again, it's a cliche, but the game takes place in a heavy industrial looking environment. No well lit, bright colored Star Trek like corridors but dark, gloomy, rusty, metal environments. The design of the levels, the characters, the enemies and the weapons is well done and helps dragging you into the environment.
Audio is another good point. The music fits the game very well. Moments are tensed up by the music that swells up from the back ground and sound effects make you jump from your seat. Through the audio, clues are given that there could be a monster about. But there's not always and if there is, where is it? Sounds like something falling over, claws scraping over the other side of a wall, things creeping up an air duct, things like that set the mood.
Conclusion
If you like horror games, Dead Space is a game you don't want to miss. The story stays interesting throughout the game and you do keep playing to see what's coming next. The only small point of criticism is that the game loses it's tense scary atmosphere a bit at like three quarters of the game. You've seen most of the enemies by then, know how to take them out, you know how your weapons are best used and somehow it seems the developers gave the later levels less attention for scary details than the earlier ones.
Don't let that discourage you from getting this game though. It does stay interesting until the very end and it's easily one of my favourite games of the past few years.
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| Pros: Brilliant horror setting, good story, impressive graphics, believable characters. |
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| Cons: Tension weakens as you progress. |
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