Dead Space is a game of pure horror with a distinctive Lovecraft feel to it.
Set far into the future, it is all about the fate of a massive mining ship, a planet cracker, called the Ishimura, has gone silent.
Isaac Clarke is an engineer, part of a small team of trouble shooters sent to find out exactly what has happened to the ship, and to render assistance if needed.
Of course when they arrive in system and find the ship literally dead in space, no running lights, no communication, nothing, they know that something has gone horribly wrong.
Still, unlike most normal sane people instead of simply cutting and running, they decide to continue with their mission and they end up docking and set foot upon a literal ghost ship.
There is no sign of the crew anywhere, except for scenes of violence and blood. Within minutes of boarding, two of the five members of the repair team are horribly butchered and the remaining three members are separated.
Sounds scary? The fun’s only just beginning.
The game has a grand total of twelve stages, or chapter. I played it on medium level, and it took me typically an hour and a half to beat each stage or chapter, taking into consideration the load time when I was killed attempting to complete each chapter.
When you first start out you can choose three different levels of play - easy, medium and hard. I always start on the medium level, because it typically isn’t insanely difficult but not a total cake walk.
To be honest, I did find the medium level to be fairly easy to play. There were a couple of times when I was in a confined area (in which there are MANY on board the Ishimura) and I had to face multiple necromorphs that I was defeated by the sheer numbers. All that meant however a change in strategy was in order to defeat the menace.
The biggest issue was dealing with a distinct lack of ammunition. There were many times in the heat of an attack that I found I was out of ammo for the most effective weapon I had on me. When that happened, things got quite intense and downright scary.
Even the bosses (and yes, there are a couple of these large nasty creatures) were not all that difficult to defeat. Just use what you have learned playing the game up to the point where you encounter them and you’ll do just fine.
Ok, now to the meat of the game play. The really refreshing aspect of the game was that you didn’t have a heads up display that I have been so used to seeing in many of the other first person shooters that I’ve played over the past year.
Your health is represented by a glowing strip on the back of your suit. Your ammo is actually displayed right on your weapon so you can easily see it, and whenever you receive communications, video or even access your inventory, and it appears as a window, projected in front of your suit.
Unlike most games I’ve played and reviewed, your health doesn’t regenerate over time – instead you have to find health kits which range in size and the amount of damage they heal.
As for the weapons, there really is only one true weapon in the game, a generic pulse rifle. Other than that you have tools at your disposal which work wonderfully as weapons in a pinch… these include a plasma cutter (for mining, cutting chunks of rock down), Remote Control Disk ripper (buzz saw that is remotely controlled), Hydrogen torch flamethrower (for melting ice to get at minerals), Ore cutter line gun (to cut off really large chunks of ore), the force gun (essentially knocks enemy targets back), and the Supercollider contact beam.
While playing I really only used four of the weapons, and didn’t bother trying the others. The most oft used weapon was the Plasma cutter, followed by the Pulse rifle, Line gun and finally the ripper.
The ripper was quite fun, as you could launch the blade into a close by enemy, literally cut it to shreds and still have enough energy left over to move it over to a near by enemy necromorph and begin softening it up.
On top of this you have two additional weapons / tools at your disposal. First is the Stasis field, which slows a target down in time, so you can move around it, take your time aiming and firing, or slow down hazards around you (such as slamming doors or the like).
Secondly you have the Kinesis module, one that allows you to pick up objects near and far, bring them to you, move things around, or even turn things like boxes, fire extinguishers and even body parts into projectile weapons.
Now, every single weapon, tool and even your suit can be customized during game play. You will find nodes around the ship and you can use these nodes at repair benches (infrequently found during each chapter) to modify your tools. You can increase capacity, range, damage, duration, and even your suits internal air and hit point capacity.
These come in very handy, and you don’t get too many of these nodes, so choose what you wish to use them on wisely.
However, as the game progresses you find, and quite often, credits that you can use at the store to by ammunition, nodes, tools and even new rigs (what your suit is called).
And lastly, if you are really out of ammo, you can always curb stomp or slap your enemy targets with your boots and gauntlets. Not recommended, but sometimes you don’t have much of a choice in the matter.
In regards to game play you have very little choice in what you do. Each chapter takes place on a different part of the ship, and the space you have to explore is very limited. Although due to the lack of ammunition, I would recommend checking every nook and cranny you come across for lockers, lock boxes and even items laying around loose.
Each Chapter has specific tasks that must be completed, which are usually go find object A to fix object B to get into area C. Some people don’t like this, others, like myself, don’t really mind it.
All the while you learn more and more about what happened aboard the ship and about the alien creatures that have infested it.
There are also numerous times you’ll find yourself in the vacuum of space or in Zero gravity. You have magnetic boots so any surface you can jump at can be walked upon, and when in Zero G, you’re not immune from attack – the Necromorphs don’t need air to survive, as you’ll quickly discover. The vacuum is more of a hazard to you than anything, so don’t stay in a vacuum for long, or if you do, make sure you have spare air canisters on you.
The designers made excellent use of the scenery, truly brining out feelings of dread and claustrophobia with Isaac having to travel through tight confines that are rarely well lit almost constantly.
Even the three large areas were not spared the feeling that something horrible not only happened, but is about to happen again.
More often than I can imagine I kept wishing that my rig had a built in search light, something that I could use to flood a darkened room or corner with light to see what was waiting to jump out at me.
And the creatures, the necromorphs would come out of anywhere at any time. You’ll quickly find yourself aiming your weapon at any air vent you pass by or under as you progress through the game.
Visually, the game is stunning and sickening all at once. The decks and walls are liberally coated with blood and viscera, and body parts are strewn around like toys left behind by a careless child.
It is quite a beautiful game, if you look past the gore and the horror that adorns every room that you come across.
And you’ll leave plenty around as you go as well, as the quickest and easiest way to destroy a necromorph is to blow off its limbs.
If my memory serves, there are about twelve different types of necromorphs, each more hideous and revolting than the last.
And each one requires a specific way of killing, which you’ll learn soon enough.
Finally, the designers made wonderful use of sound. The ship is clearly alive around you. You can hear the engines thrumming, the air moving, things getting bumped and knocked down by unseen foes, screams, murmurs that you can’t quite make out and regular announcements over the ships intercom that once again, you can hear but you can’t understand.
Learn to make use of the sounds; it will save your life.
Lastly, there are a total of 48 achievements (eight are secret) that can be found throughout the game, of which I discovered 35.
Overall this game is very intense. It is something that kids shouldn’t play due to the gore and intense horror. After playing for a few hours I found that I was getting stress headaches because of just how well it was done.
Part of the fun of the game was discovering exactly what the necromorphs are, and what happened to the crew. It isn’t pretty, believe me.
And, for added fun, play it in the dark, alone – I dare you!
4 out of 5