Gaming History 101

When you first read or hear about Dead Space, it may not seem to peak your interest as much as it should. In truth, Dead Space is an experience from start to finish. This game is going to suck you into a world that will literally take over your living room if you let it. Aside from that, the universe is big as well. You can currently pick up the graphic novel, telling the early story, and as of yesterday the animated movie also released, which tells of the events leading directly into the game. Couple that with the announcement that Dead Space 2 is officially in development and there’s no reason to skip this game.

In order to appreciate Dead Space, you want to play it at night, with surround sound (as sound seems like a bigger factor than visuals), and pair these factors with being alone. A high-def screen helps, but is in no way as necessary as surround sound for this game. From the very beginning to the tense ending, you will treat this game much like being the leader in a haunted house: at the edge of your seat.

The basic plot begins in the comics (you can download a fully read retelling of the graphic novel for free in either XBL or PSN) and tells the story of a monolith found in a mining colony. As you probably expect, strange things happen in the colony that lead to tragedy, but before they do, the monolith is uploaded to a mining vessel called the Ishimura. The animated film tells the tale of what happens when the monolith makes this move. The game takes place when a small team, including game protagonist Isaac Clarke, travel to the Ishimura in response to a distress beacon.

Things aren’t quite right the moment you enter the ship and you are immediately thrown into a world containing the most tense moments I’ve ever experienced in a game. You will get many jumpy moments, that in truth are just cheap scares, but the more stressful part will be responding to these moments. Unlike most games, the Necromorphs, enemies of this game, cannot be killed by traditional means. The term “strategic dismemberment” is used to signify “cut off their limbs”, forcing you to actually have accuracy and very limited ammo makes this twice as important. This is one of those games where you can run completely out of ammo and never be able to make it through the rest of the game, so save often and keep at least 2 saves rotating (you can do this in both versions).

This game is not really the scare fest that it was advertised at, but at the same time, like a bunch of college kids at a haunted house, journalists are a little too quick to claim this game isn’t scary. You will jump quite a few times early in, but once the freak out of the jumpy creatures is over you will be left with nothing more than tension. That tension, however, will keep your heart racing through the second half of the game. The scale can go from small (your size) to incredibly large (boss battles and several new enemies that introduce themselves). It’s freaky to say the least in this too-close-to-avoid atmosphere stolen right out of Event Horizon.

There are several aspects of this game you won’t find anywhere else, beginning with the lack of gravity. The first time you see gravity turned off it will wow you with how seemingly accurate it can be. Fighting creatures in zero gravity seems to give you an advantage that you don’t find in other areas of the game and help to further the idea that your environment can often be your strongest weapon.  Stasis, which allows you to freeze creatures and certain items in the world, is easily the most useful tool in the game, but just like ammo it is very limited. Telekinesis, the one tool Isaac has an unlimited supply of, will allow you to grab and throw items and limbs of your enemies (and surprisingly does this much easier than the similar “force grab” of the Force Unleashed). Just in case you were running out of things to keep track of, vacuum areas will keep you rushing to as you have a limited supply of air for which to overcome obstacles that at times can be incredibly tough.

The controls are smooth and responsive, however from time to time you will get turned around with the complex control scheme (especially in the Xbox version, in my opinion). Having played both games, I preferred the way the PS3 handled the controls and chose to complete the game on PS3, however the controls are quite similar on both consoles, so the choice is really preference. The virtual HUD is great for holographic cut scenes, however when you run out of ammo and need to add stasis or check ammo supply, the fact that you don’t leave the game just adds one more thing to keep track of. I died at least a couple of times while being chased trying to exit the supply screen. Graphically this game looks almost identical on both systems (saw a few graphical tears in the PS3 version I didn’t see in the 360 version, but I was looking very hard on a large screen). While the box of both claim 1080p, this game is actually in 720p on both consoles and only upscales to 1080p (and not that smoothly) with some forced adjustments, however the game looks almost the same in 720p and 1080p, so just enjoy! The Ishimura is flooded with plenty of blood-soaked sets that are disturbing to any onlooker, so no kids allowed (and my fiance was a little unsettled after watching for about 20 minutes, so I now play without her around).

There are some additional flaws with the game, namely that you are so low on ammo in the second half of the game that it becomes much more frustrating than tense, especially during late boss battles. The “new game +” feature, which allows you to keep all your upgrades and start a new game, is great except that you can’t change difficulty. I also didn’t understand why you have to complete the game more than twice to fully upgrade everything, this just seems too limited. The difficulty is above average, but once you’ve completed the game at least once, is possible (but with a lot of time and frustration). The trophies/achievements sadly don’t offer much to do other than the linear storyline has to offer.

Final Score: 4 out of 5

This review was originally posted on December 1, 2008 at a previous site I was senior editor at, That Gaming Site, and was converted over with permission.  Additionally the review score was adapted from a 10-point scale that originally gave the game a 8.7 out of 10.