A fun sci-fi horror shooter that tries to do a little to much.
Here we have the first ever violent horror game from this company, and just like Mirrors Edge it gives us hope for the future of gaming as a whole. Next to Activision Blizzard, EA is the largest producer of games in the world so what they do affects the gaming industry to a large extent.
For the longest time EA have been known by most cynical gamers as the 'producers of yearly crap' in that rather than spending two or three years making great games they would typically spend a year or less making a single title and then produce extremely similar sequels for many years to come. This would then result in almost every one of these titles being as mediocre as the last.
Need for Speed, Madden, The Sims 2 Expansions, the list goes on.
So it's very nice to see games like Dead Space at long last emerging from the company. While the game itself is hardly the revolutionary new thing we were all hoping for it still gives people like myself faith for the future and at the same time restores some of our respect towards EA.
Dead Space puts you in the role of Engineer Isacc Clarke.
Unlike your typical gaming protagonist he's not a super warrior nor is he packing more guns than the average American firearm enthusiast.
The game emphasizes strategic dismemberment, which basically means if you want to kill things rather than going for the traditional head shot it is usually better to cut off the limbs.
Because of this most of the weapons are quite different to your typical shooter arsenal. Instead of shotguns, pistols and rocket launchers you get a series of cutting devices, all with alternate modes of fire.
My favorite is the rapid fire plasma cutter that functions similarly to an automatic rifle but instead of firing bullets sends three high velocity projectiles at a single area that eventually cause enough impact damage to make an enemies limb go flying off.
So on a purely shooter level the game is fine, no real problems at all. The weapons are fun and easy to use and the enemies are nicely varied and usually challenging in different ways. That is until you work out all there weak spots and the game gets pretty darn easy.
Amazingly despite being on the same space ship for 90% of the game each area has its own unique architecture and subtle style with varying looks and cool designs. You never walk through one of these levels and think 'man this looks just like the last level' because for the most part they don't which is nice.
The main problem with the game is the enemies rarely ever emerge from different areas. They're either already walking around, waiting around a corner or are climbing around in air vents and likely going to fall out of the ceiling or a wall vent at some point.
You will never see an enemy come crashing through a wall or effect the environment around you in any way whatsoever to get to you. Heck they seem to be incapable of even opening doors.
This is the exact same problem that plagued Doom 3 and brought the games potential way down. Yes that's right monster closet syndrome. Instead of having enemy encounters being varied or unpredictable the developers lazily decide to just throw in a few spawn points and set triggers for the player. Step into area X and monster Y spawns at point Z, rinse and repeat.
The first couple of times its startling and unexpected but then it happens over and over until it gets to the point where you see an enemies body on the ground, knowing you haven't recently killed it and by now you've realizes its alive and just waiting for you to get near so you whip out a gun, kill it, bam whole sequence is rendered pointless.
Now to be fair there are some sequences that vary up the encounters you come across, like the giant intestine looking tentacle things that kill you instantly if you don't hit there weak spots fast enough. Problem is even these eventually become repetitious.
One enemy in particular is a nod towards Resident Evil 3's Nemesis in that no matter what you do he will continue to stalk you and force you to switch up how you play for a little while. Sadly this is the only truly unique enemy as even the bosses are all basically the same 'I have a weak spot, please shoot it' affair. It is such a shame as the creatures themselves are very well designed and it shows that if given a little more time some good variation amongst each of these could have been achieved outside the melee, ranged and swarm varieties.
Dead Space should have been a survival horror game but like Resident Evil 4 before it, it has taken the 'horror shooter' angle instead. It's very violent and some times messed up but never ever scary. And considering how frequently you come across ammo and health for your super weapons you can hardly call it a 'survival' game at all.
Part of what made games like silent hill and resident evil really good during there earlier incarnations was the fact that each and every enemy was potential death and your chances of living verses dying were always much more skewed towards the latter. It gave you a sense of dread and tension like so few games ever seem to do anymore. Because of this you developed a connection to your character, what they weren't feeling you clearly were and it made the experience so much more satisfying and intense.
Dead Space would have been a far greater experience if the enemies were much more dangerous and difficult to kill. The game only gets difficult when you encounter many of them at the same time. I wanted to be terrified of every single individual necromorph that came my way, instead I find myself yawning and just mowing them down with absurd ease. When I was inevitably killed it was for no other reason other than being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Not cool.
The anti gravity segments are probably the highlight of the games gameplay as no other game has done this before. Having to jump around in a 3D space makes some parts of the Dead Space feel quite original, a particular boss fight involving this mechanic was alot of fun indeed. Some areas like this also have no oxygen so having to get things done within a time limit while also having to worry about what surface you should be on added some much needed tension to these puzzle segments. It did get kind of annoying though when enemies would randomly pop up to get you.
Dead Space also for some strange reason features a gravity gun rip off that really wasn't needed at all if the player could you know, use there characters arms to do things.
The time slowing ability also seems a little tacked on and although gives combat a little more variety the fact neither of these things are explained or make any sense within the games world is somewhat jarring. Having to move platforms around with gravity manipulation is one thing but moving boxes and pulling levers with it is just stupid.
There are some things the game does do quite well. The atmosphere for example is very well executed, especially in the sound department. There is this one room, filled with machines and a lot of air vents and I swear the sound coming from them is the most messed up thing you will ever hear in the history of games. I just stood in the room for like two minutes thinking; 'holy crap… wh… what IS that?'
And every now and then you'll here whispers and you'll turn around and nothing will be there, creepy yet awesome. The lighting in Dead Space is also very good, heck the visuals are for the most part quite amazing. Clearly alot of time was spent making the Ishimura look and feel a very certain way and in this area the game nails it.
Now as for the story of the game it is on paper very compelling, I even watched the internet comics and got totally in to it but sadly the game itself does a poor job of delivering it outside the typical environment clues and some text and audio logs. A little more character interaction would have been nice and perhaps a story that didn't rely so much on the player walking in to rooms and having to work out what happened for themselves.
It doesn't really help that Isacc doesn't give off any emotion at all, he never speaks and never seems to even look at other characters when they're speaking to him. He just stands there in his looping default stand animation. Granted you barely ever get to see his face still some head bobs and some hand gestures could have made all the difference.
As for Isacc's motivation, it is virtually non existent. Early on you find out he's looking for his girlfriend on the Ishimura and a combination of his lack of expression coupled with the lack of any kind of back story or plot development as to why we should care for her leads to a character to player connection that feels forced and half baked.
The vast majority of the game is spent fixing various devices or locating various items so you and your two other companions can find out what happened on the ship and attempt to get it running again. Never mind the fact that there might be survivors worth searching for or that the player character we're suppose to care about is doing nothing whatsoever to find his supposed love interest.
So yes an ambitious game that tried to be something brilliant but ultimately failed due to some bad design choices and a handful of poor writing decisions. Despite that the game is still very fun and does bring some new things to the third person genre. If all you want to do is carve up some freaky mutants in a messed up place then this game is a winner for you. If you're after a solid story and a terrifying experience you are going to be disappointed unfortunately.
Thanks for reading my review.