An extremely atmospheric game. You won't be disappointed.
Another moment, you're shooting round after round, trying to keep a seemingly endless swarm of Necromorphs from reaching a friend. There's a great distance between you and the Necromorphs, so you know that you're safe, and if you're calm and aim well, you can save your friend. Then the game surprises you once more, by reminding you that the Necromorphs can come from anywhere, as one suddenly lurches up from the platform beneath you.
But the jump-scares aren't all that Dead Space has to offer. Throughout the levels, you're always tense, waiting for the next attack. You hear Necromorphs clanking around in the vents, the roars of something really big coming from outside the ship, the lights flickering on and off so suddenly you think you're under attack. Doors obscure your view into the next room, and you know that Necromorphs are perfectly capable of lying in wait right behind it. When you open a door, your gun is always ready. The atmosphere is that tense.
And even when you've been playing long enough to get used to it, to get used to the fact that the Necromorphs can be anywhere - behind you, in the vents, on the ceiling, everywhere - it presents new things that continue to shatter your confidence. In one level, you face an undying Necromorph. You dismember it, but it instantly regenerates. There's no way to kill it, and you have to run for it. You'll be able to close off passageways behind you, impeding it, but you know that won't stop it for long. Like the other Necromoprhs, it's able to use the vents, and at some point or other, you realize it's going to catch up to you, and then you might have nowhere to run. The simple fact that you've left an undying enemy behind you raises the tension to the point that you wheel around, just to check if the sound of the door closing was really what it seemed to be.
The setting is also a major playing card here. Although it takes place on a huge fictional ship, everything seems so real. Everything is as it should be. There are medical bays, research rooms, doctors, engineers, engine rooms and fuel problems and ventilation and food storage and mining tools and processing chambers. Everything that will probably be on a mining ship in the year 2500 is there on the USG Ishimura. That sense of realism makes the whole situation much truer to life, and in the process, much more urgent and tense. Dead Space makes full use of this environment, like having zombies clank around in the vents and hopelessly insane survivors do what the insane do. All of this, coupled with the excellent graphics and wonderful sounds, makes Dead Space a very powerful experience.
Gameplay is where Dead Space encounters a problem. While the shooting mechanics and moving around are excellently done, close combat is extremely unwieldy. Both of Isaac's two moves are slow and leave him open, and if you're caught without ammo, there's not much you can do. Despite that, Dead Space is a very wonderful, very impressive experience. It's definitely worth a try, especially if you're a fan of the horror genre.