Dead Space is a game that should be enjoyed by Survival Horror fan.
Fortunately, Dead Space manages to avoid most of these pitfalls and provide you with a gaming experience that's nothing short of outstanding. The game can easily stand with the Resident Evil series, and actually manages to beat Dead Rising in the face with its own guitar. EA actually managed to put out a very solid game the first time around, and should be commended for it.
You play as Isaac, a space engineer, who has been sent with a small security detail to the deep-space mining ship Ishamura to repair a downed communications array. There's just one problem: the entire ship has been overrun by infected humans that want to cut you in half and play soccer with your body parts, so it's up to you to get to the bottom of the story, prevent the infection from spreading beyond the ship, and trying to return things to normal before one of these things gets the chance to hand you your butt on a platter.
What actually adds the element of fear is the amazing graphics (I have to say "graphics" as a whole because I'm talking about everything from the environments to the actual character design) and the equally brilliant sound design. Everything is done in such painstaking detail that you are constantly on your toes, looking around, wondering where the next assault is going to come from.
Which leads to the combat itself, which is always frantic. You see, this isn't your typical zombie game. The creatures that are going to come at you during the course of gameplay were obviously human at one time, but figuring out exactly what part to shoot at can be a little tricky. The one key element is, and I'm not really giving anything away here, that shooting one of these suckers in the head won't kill it about 90% of the time. It will, however, tick it off. So instead of just ripping your head off, it will tear you a new one and then rip your head off for good measure. Even a gamer who's a good shot is going to have to shoot more than once to take an enemy down.
While the storyline isn't the absolute ultimate in gaming, it is still good enough surprise you more than once along the way. Most of the story is imparted via text, audio, and video logs laying about the ship (intermingled with a few cutscenes), which works to help keep the feeling of desperation alive as you struggle to make your way through the ship. It's not perfect; it does feel very contrived as far as the missions go and fails to give you any real connection to any of the characters (except Isaac). Still, it does its job to help move the game along and certainly maintains the creepy atmosphere.
There is so much here that was done so well, including one of the most fantastic curb stomps and Zero-Gravity jump mechanics I have ever seen, that you almost have to nit-pick to find the problems. Nonetheless, there are a few issues that creep up. Once in awhile, the A.I. of your enemies just seems to go brain dead and they completely stop moving for no reason. There are also a handful of "invisible walls" in the game. You open a door larger than the state of Kansas, and the creatures simply act as if they're walking against hurricane-force winds (as opposed to just walking through the door).
But the largest of the problems actually rears its ugly, deformed head right in the middle of the game. For no apparent reason, the pacing and balance of the game go off into outer space. The game literally drags through certain sections, and becomes tedious as the item drops simply aren't enough to allow you to defeat the next wave of creatures. I'm not talking about having to be careful with your ammo, as that's always a key factor in any Survival Horror game; I'm talking about the fact that they simply throw wave after wave of ammunition-wasting monsters at you with no breaks and not enough items to make it all the way through a given section. Soon fear and anxiousness are replaced with sheer frustration that could literally cause some gamers to just give up without ever finishing the game. At one point I actually thought to myself that I would have more fun whacking myself in the head with a hammer than taking another step.
Then, about two levels after that confusion starts, it stops just as quickly. Everything goes back in sync, and the game puts breaks from the all the monsters in their proper place. It goes back to properly building the tension and releasing hoards of creatures on you when you least expect it. Suddenly the game is fun again and no longer such a steep, uphill battle.
It is worth it to work through the unbalance, however, as the game has a tremendous ending that should not be missed, not to mention the sheer fun that most of the game brings with it. The eighty percent of incredible play easily outweighs to twenty percent of unbalanced play. Yes, it's fun to be scared.
There is an additional strong point for the game that deserves special mention, and something that Capcom always seems to miss. For all of the fear and anxiousness the game throws at you, they don't rely on the save system to create any of it. If you get thrown into a particularly nasty section and die (and you will die a lot on this game), you're only taken back to a checkpoint. You're not busted all the way back to a save point where you're forced to duplicate your efforts a second or third time (I'm looking at you Dead Rising). The fact that they were actually able to create the fear of death without the actual fear of death is quite an accomplishment, and something that few games have ever accomplished.
So for my final recommendation I will say that anyone who loves a good scare, is looking for good challenge, and appreciates Survival Horror for what is will fall head-over-heels for this game, and this a definite purchase for anyone that falls into that category. Everyone else should at least rent it and give it a try, as the only gamers who probably won't enjoy this game are those who take offence to strong content, or those who prefer run-and-gun to delicate, precision aiming.