THE GOOD:- The versatility of weaponry is very impressive.
- It's a survival hard at its very hardest in my opinion. You're on your own for the whole game.
- The game is very jumpy at times, and can scare the crap out of you in certain scenes.
- Nice selection of enemies to fight.
- Game gets a lot tougher as you progress.
- A nice selection of space suits and upgrades.
- A handful of boss fights, some of which are pretty challenging, depending on your difficulty.
- Entering zero gravity is always quite fun.
- Some very gruesome scenes.
- Shooting off your enemy's limbs one by one is always fun.
THE BAD:
- It may sound a little silly, but the game can seem very lonely at times. You find yourself on your own all of the time, with no help or support from anyone but Zach and Kendra who will talk to you throughout the game.
- No online mode.
- The lack of ammunition in certain areas of the game.
SUMMARY:
The first time I heard about Dead Space was on Neoseeker funnily enough. A guy suggested buying it as your next horror game in one of the forums, and he was extremely right when he said it would be excellent. I checked out a few videos of the game on Youtube, and it looked like my cup of tea so I decided to purchase it as soon as it was released. I can't say I've ever regretted it.
GAMEPLAY
This game gives me a bit of a reminder to the Alien movies. Probably because they are both out in space, but the ships in both look quite similar at times. I'd say one of Dead Space's influences was probably the movie 'Aliens'. It doesn't take too long for things to actually kick off in the game, when your crews' ship crashes and you find yourself wandering the area that you had crashed on until you can get a new ship up and running.
As you progress through the game, you'll find yourself getting use to it a lot more and it becomes a lot more enjoying. I didn't get use to it for a while, but being a fan of horrors, I liked every minute of it that I wasn't too use to it. You'll also pick up important things as you go along, like schematics for you to purchase new weapons. What's really good is the fact that all of the weapons have their strengths and weaknesses. But once all weapons are upgraded, it's pretty hard to pick a favourite. It really depends how far you are in the game, what difficult you're playing on and what enemies you are fighting. But if I had to pick a favourite weapon it would be the SWS Motorized Pulse Rifle. One you upgrade this gun to its maximum level, it's really powerful and easy to take off the limbs of your enemies. It's also fun when you are surrounded by enemies and you press RT to shoot your gun around in circles. Once upgraded, this gun absolutely owns. Although that said, once you have The Ripper fully upgraded, this game becomes a walk in the park on any difficulty. The worst gun on the game is the Flamethrower for me. They didn't really put much effort into it it seems, and all it really does is waste your ammunition without really effecting the enemy too much.
GRAPHICS
The game's graphics impressed me quite a bit. Your own character Isaac looks really well done, especially all of his suits. When you aim your gun, the trigger looks very well suited for the next-generation system. The alien characters are well done simply because, they were made up graphics from the Dead Space comics. My favourite well-done enemy character is probably the very last enemy boss you fight. Although it gave me a distinct feeling of Gears Of War 2, as well as the sea creature did.
PLOT
The very fight scene gives you an early taste of the game when you show the majority of your crew getting murdered by two aliens with scissor-like arms. You find yourself flicking a switch on the other side of the room when your whole crew is on the other side. You then notice the lights being knocked off and things begin to get dark and spooky until the two aliens enter the room from the roofs. One of the doors beside you is then opened and you make a run for the elevator while you are being chased by one of these aliens. Just as you enter the elevator and the door closes, you think you're safe - but then the alien opens the door and gives you pretty much a big fright. But very soon after that, the door crushes him. It's a really nice introduction to the game as it gets you in the mood to crap your pants right at the beginning!
EASTER EGGS
The only thing in the game I came across that was sort of like an easter egg was the Zero Gravity Basketball. It's not really an easter egg as such because there is an achievement for it, but it's pretty fun to play. Basically you use your kinesis to shoot the ball you receive through one of four holes (baskets). There are 6 levels from my knowledge, and the holes begin to close as you progress and tend to get tougher. When you complete it, you'll see that some of the lockers from behind you opening, and some contain quite a good bit of cash for you to buy weapons, new suits, upgrade nodes etc. I find this Zero Gravity Basketball game pretty fun, and a pretty nice addition. You don't come across it until late into the game though.
AUDIO
quote Wikipedia
In 2009, Dead Space was nominated for several awards by the non-profit Game Audio Network Guild (GANG): Music of the Year, Audio of the Year, and Sound Design of the Year. By voting of GANG members, Dead Space was awarded Audio of the year and Sound Design of the Year.
Although the game itself doesn't have any songs besides the credit scene, the sound throughout the game plays a huge part in the scare factor. When walking around, you'll more than likely be jumped at from behind by a creature. It's not extremely scary if you take away the sound the creature makes, and the music that creates the scene in the background. But once that sound and music is there, it makes the game much scarier to play. If you're hiding from enemy creatures, or searching for them, you'll hear the music and it can be really scary. You're anticipating the creature to jump out at you when the music plays, and it simply creates the scene for you - there's not many other ways to describe it, but it plays a huge part throughout the story mode.
CONTROLS
I, for one, found the controls on the game rather easy to get use to. But I've played a lot of Gears Of War in the past. The controls are very similar to the two Gears Of War games, so if you have played them a fair bit, I don't think you'd have much trouble with them. The only button that will give you a little trouble for a short while is the run button. Sometimes I would forget you could use it, or at the beginning, I would forget which button I'd have to press to sprint. Besides that, only a console change will trouble you. On the PS3, the shoot button is R1, which is RB on the Xbox. And on this game the shoot button is RT, which is R2 on the PS3. I don't think this should be the case for you anyway, if you're only going to be playing the game on one console.
REPETITION
Unfortunately the game is a little repetitive. But I didn't mind too much as I always enjoyed what I was playing. But again, there is no online mode so if you have completed the game once, twice or thrice, it may come repetitive to you. That said, I completed it four times and I didn't really get bored of the gameplay. The difficulties will help as well, as the tougher the game, the more you will enjoy it if you're experienced with it.
LASTING VALUE
Well, I bought this game ages ago. I'm not sure exactly when I got it, but it was months back. And I'd still play it now and as I said above, I have completed it four times and I still find the game very enjoyable. There aren't any other games that are really like it on the Xbox 360, so it's different which is always nice. If you're a hardcore horror fan, I don't think you'll get bored of this quickly anyway. I certainly didn't, and I'm only the average horror fan.
TYING INTO A SERIES
It has recently been confirmed that there will be a second Dead Space game. So it might be a good idea picking this one up, if you want to have a go at the second one. The second one will be a continuation from the first from what I read, so it will be no use playing the second one without getting to know the first.
GLITCHES/BUGS
I never came across any glitches in the game, but I did see a certain glitch on Youtube where one of the enemy aliens runs around in circles repeatedly. I had never seen it on the Xbox edition, so I think it was just for the PC that it happened. I could be wrong of course.
SUMMARY
To keep it brief, I would definitely say this is the best horror-based game that I have played on a next-generation console. I enjoyed Condemned 2: Bloodshot, but I think that game concentrated too much on scaring you rather than the gameplay itself. Dead Space has got both pretty much right for me. It has a really good story mode - a little misleading but that's only because there is going to be a second game. This is a horror-based game I would purchase all of the time if I had never played it before.
RECOMMENDING IT
It's hard for me to say whether you would enjoy this game as much as I did, because I obviously don't know what type of games you enjoy playing, but it's definitely worth having a look at if you enjoy horror-based games. As I said above though, the game does tend to get lonely and there is no online play. So if you enjoy socialising in games, or playing online, you won't find this too perfect. That's the only major flaw I could pick from the game, otherwise this would be five stars every time for me. But the storyline is very good and I'd recommend it to anyone to be honest. At the very least you should rent the game or play it at a friends to see if it takes your fancy. It's possibly the best horror-based game I've played on a next-generation console.
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