I started playing Dead Space about a week ago. Holy Cow, it's some scary stuff!

First of all I have to say, that I am not a shooter-type person. I like games that don't require a whole bunch of button pushes or combinations. I like games that plod along a little more. C'mon, give me a break, I grew up playing Asteroids on my Atari. One button, one joystick. That's all. Anyways, I started playing Dead Space and surprisingly, I really, really like it. It's not first-person so it was probably a good introduction for me into this unknown realm. I'm used to things like Oblivion and Fable II being third person.

The visuals of the game are stunning. Everything is generally dark and appears to have a wash. The only things thatare brightare the health and statis meters on Isaac's (the main character's) suit. Even the color of the blood that flows PROFUSELY from dead enemies is a little muted. The music makes the game great (This is the one I was talking about in your blog, Ab.) There is nothing like hearing the enemies coming but not know where the heck they are. I spin around like an idot trying to find them.

The controls are easy to master - I really didn't have much trouble though I still panic sometimes and hit the trigger for my weapon instead of stasis. (Statis stops an enemy in it's tracks for a short time.) There is one enemy that is a big swollen blob. If you happen to shoot him in the body, he explodes into about a million ;) little enemies that are tenacious. They are fun to stomp, but if outnumbered, they're trouble. Stasis works well - then you have to shoot the limbs of theblob to kill it. That's much easier to do if it's not shambling at you.

The storyline is engaging and is told through a series of conversations and audio, text or video logs that Isaac picks up along the way. I'm in Chapter 6 (of 12) and I can detect that somethingbad is going to happen (trying to be spoiler-free), but I don't know what it is yet.

I haven't been so absorbed in a game for a very long time. I haven't even really been on GS lately because I've been so into it. I tried to catch up tonight :)

Yay for me - I got the trophy for maintaining hull integrity at greater that 50% in the asteroids shooting portion of the game. I guess all of my time with my Atari paid off! Ok, actually, it took me 16 tries to get through it and I got really lucky!

I'm off to try to kill the Leviathan. He's a pain and I'm having trouble. Stupid bad guy :)

~Toni