Review
Release Date: 10.14.2008
Platform:
Xbox 360Developer:
EA Redwood ShoresPublisher:
Electronic ArtsReviewed by
Samuel Altersitz on 11.5.2008
| Review Rating: 9/10 | User Rating: 8/10 |
Electronic Arts has decided to try and spruce up this Halloween season by releasing a new survival horror game to the market. First announced in 2007 with very little hype or promotion,
Dead Space took me by surprise. I noticed a few trailers for it on Xbox Live and thought it looked neat. I just wasn't sure how well it would play. Thankfully, it plays fantastically, overall.
Dead Space takes place far in the future. Earth can no longer support its inhabitants' need for raw materials and precious metals, and humankind has thus looked to the stars to find the materials it needs. Early in its space faring escapades, an alien artifact was discovered on Mars. Dubbed The Marker by some, a new fanatical religion sprung up from its discovery; and Unitoligy quickly became the fastest growing religion in the history of the planet. Though mocked by many, Unitologists believed their faith would one day be rewarded. Fast forward about 200 years, and another marker is discovered on the planet Aegis 7, far from Earth and its solar system. A giant "planet cracker" ship (mining ships that literally rip apart planets to gather their raw materials), the USG Ishimura, brings the newfound marker on board -- despite the chaos that it caused to the mining colony on the planet below. Shortly after that, a distress signal is broadcast from the Ishimura. Then all goes silent.
This is where
Dead Space begins, as a small repair ship is coming out of hyperspace answering the distress call. Thinking that a communications relay is causing the problems, the ship's crew members begin their docking approach. They have no idea of the horrors that await them.
OK, so my over dramatization of the way
Dead Space begins aside, this is basically where you begin
Dead Space... though without that much back story. Your character, Issac Clarke (named after Issac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, two well known and respected pioneers of the science fiction genre in the literature of the Twentieth Century), fellow engineer and computer specialist Kendra Daniels and senior security specialist Zach Hammond, along with two other security team members fly towards the Ishimura expecting this to just be another routine repair mission. Issac, however, had an ulterior motive for volunteering for the mission... to find a woman he knows on board the Ishimura, Nicole Brennan, whom he apparently was involved with.
I say apparently, though, because it's hard to find out what the relationship between Issac and Nicole actually is until practically the end of the game. Mostly because of the development decision to have Issac pull a Gordon Freeman and be completely silent throughout the game (in so far as dialog is concerned; he does grunt). While it isn't a huge detriment to the overall game, it does make it hard to empathize with Issac and really just ends up making him feel like a very generic character in a suit of armor. Players can get some sort of feeling of what Issac is thinking while checking his objectives, but it doesn't help to make him a more well rounded character as one would hope. Issac's generality really does contrast with Kendra and Zach, though, who show very distinct and powerful personalities throughout the game, as do other characters players meet up with or find out about through audio and video logs.
Dead Space can and will inevitably be compared to another survival horror game that came out a few yeas back:
Resident Evil 4. The comparison is not without merit, as
Dead Space uses basically the same over the shoulder point of view, a similar inventory management system (in the most basic of terms, anyway), a similar control scheme in some ways (especially aiming and the use of laser sights) and a heavy emphasis on action. Unfortunately, like
Resident Evil 4... it's just not that scary. There are a few jump out of your chair moments in
Dead Space, to be sure, but the overall feeling isn't one of fear and dread; it's more of a very gory action game that tries to scare you. Those few scary moments come and go fairly quickly and are spread out through the game. I think I counted around four on my first play through.
So, does
Dead Space really work as a horror game? No, not really. Does
Dead Space work as a highly polished and gruesome action game? Absolutely. The action feels paced just right in most cases, the story is well thought out and delivered and the whole game just oozes a feeling of polish not seen in most games.
EA Redwood tried to change things up in Dead Space, as well. The feeling of immersion is unparalleled by any other game on the market today. The developers figured they could keep you in the story by removing the basic video game staples like a HUD. It sounds very weird when you first hear about it, but it works incredibly well.
Your health is displayed on the spine of Issac's suit, known as a rig; and, even more incredibly, this is actually explained in the game when Kendra "syncs everyone up to the ship" right before you start playing. Basically, everyone wears a rig of some sort, and the rig each person wears sends the vital signs of its occupant to the ship and has a visible component as well (I suppose so others on the ships/colonies can see how badly someone is hurt). This is a very plausible explanation as to why players would have this much of a visual cue as to Issac's and the few other survivors' health. Issac's rig also displays the amount of stasis power he currently has as a half circle near Issac's health meter.
Everything else in the game is displayed as holograms, from Issac's inventory to how much ammo is in each weapon. Weapons display their current ammo count as a hologram at the back of them when players aim. Issac's map, logs, objectives and inventory are displayed as holograms in front of and just to the right of him when they are accessed. When players pick up a new log a video or audio meter is shown or a text is read out, all while the action is still going on. The same for the use of Issac's inventory - it is in real time. Nothing the player is used to doing in other games to stop the action can be found here, short of pausing the game completely. In an interesting touch, as players move around their inventory screen, Issac's head follows the cursor, as if he is actually taking note of what he has. At first I wondered just how well this would work, but it woks incredibly well, and feels completely seamless. An interesting thing to note is if players move the camera around while you have one of these holographic screens open, they can actually see the hologram from different angles and see that the holograms are really in 3D. Obviously this sort of inventory screen and log book management won't work in every game, but in a science fiction setting it works perfectly.
Another way EA Redwood decided to shake things up was with the weapons in the game. Truthfully, there is only one real gun in
Dead Space, the pulse rifle. I suppose the flame thrower can be considered an actual weapon as well. But, everything else is just a mining tool that Issac uses like a weapon. The plasma cutter is a tool, the line gun is a tool, the ripper is a tool, etc. All the tools are useful in mining operations, especially for cutting and pulverizing ore and rock. It just so happens that tools that can be used to do these things can also cause great bodily harm to creatures they are aimed at. In addition to weapons, Issac has two modules that are gained throughout the game, the kenesis module and the stasis module. Kenesis allows Issac to pick up and move heavy objects or to throw them out of the way. It's mainly used for puzzle solving, but can help when Issac is low on ammo and needs to fight off necromorphs. Stasis slows down objects, which is useful not just for certain puzzles that require it but also when Issac is being overwhelmed by enemies. Weapons can be upgraded as time goes on, as can Issac's rig (more hit points and air capacity) and his kenesis (longer range) and stasis modules (duration and power to use).
This, of course, brings us to the big feature of
Dead Space's combat mechanics. Strategic Dismemberment. Enemies in
Dead Space are, as a rule, tough. Can you just fire into their torsos and kill them? Yes, you can. Will you waste all your precious ammunition if you try to play it this way? Yes, you will. Instead, players are encouraged to dismember their opponents, since the limbs of the necromorph monsters are apparently a lot weaker than their mid sections. Dismembering enemies causes extra damage to them and has the added benefit of limiting their ability to attack you. If they run fast, Issac can shoot their legs off to make them have to crawl after him. If they have giant slicing arms that can hit players from a good distance away, Isaac can shoot them off to force them to try and bite him instead. I found that, as a rule, most enemies were dead by the time I had dismembered three of their limbs; I normally shot their legs out, then shot off an arm and they died. Every now and again you will come across slightly tougher enemies, but this generally just means you need to knock an extra limb off. Lest that sounds too easy, note that this rule doesn't apply for the few really tough non-boss enemies in the game.
A word of warning, though... head shots are not instant kills, and in most cases just make the necromorphs really angry as they swing around blindly to try and kill Issac.
Strategic Dismemberment does work, although players may find most normal enemies a bit too easy after upgrading their weapons a little because of it. It also has the slight problem of becoming very pattern forming as players play though the game. See an enemy, blast its legs off, blast an arm off, rinse and repeat does pop up a lot. However, the gory detail in the dismemberment never gets old.
Which brings us to the graphics in
Dead Space. To put it simply: absofreakinglutely drop dead gorgeous. I don't know what engine EA Redwood is using for this game, but this thing is God awful brilliant. Everything from the backgrounds to the lighting effects are jaw dropping. There are only a few instances of pixelated textures, mainly on closeups of Issac's helmet shadows when on the tram, and the air effect used when entering or exiting a vacuum. Other than that, I don't think I have seen a better looking game released on any system in recent memory. And this is coming from an Epic/Unreal Engine fanboy. Major thumbs up to the designers of the engine of
Dead Space. I suggest taking a close look at the opening scene with the shuttle in space and in the final chapter, especially.
The sound design is equally impressive. Grunts, moans, eerie whispers and weapons all sound top notch. With a surround sound system, they sound even better. Musical cues are also well done. The vacuum sounds, or vacuum sounds which are muffled to the point of nearly not being sounds I should say, are also very well done and convey the feeling that you aren't hearing the sounds as much as getting the idea of the sounds from their vibrations coming through Issac's rig.
One thing that slightly bugs me is the repetition of enemies throughout the game. In the end, there are only a handful of enemies that you encounter, and you face them and a more powerful variation of them over and over again (the more powerful versions appearing obsidian black, almost looking burnt). Also, in some areas certain background sounds drown out other, more important sounds; and unfortunately this happens a few too many times for my liking.
One other thing some people may not like about
Dead Space is the amount of backtracking there is. If you have played
Metroid or
Halo games, then you know how backtracking works-- and there is a lot of it in
Dead Space. Later in the game you'll actually find yourself going back to older levels, mainly going to other sections of those levels. While this makes sense when we consider the way the story progresses, some people may not like it that much. The main problem with the backtracking, though, is that it makes the Ishimura seem smaller than it should be; this thing does rip apart entire planets, after all, and has a tram system to go from one area to another. It should feel ginormous. On a side note, however, there will often be lockers or storage bins that were locked on players' first visit to the areas that will be open for looting on their second visit.
And loot is needed, especially on the higher difficulty settings. Loot comes in the form of ammo for weapons, credits to buy things at the automated stores, logs (audio, video or text), schematics to make new items available at the stores and the ever important power nodes. Remember, Issac isn't a soldier, he's an engineer... but he is a crack shot. As such, he can use power nodes to upgrade his rig, weapons, and kenesis and stasis modules at work benches placed throughout the levels. Upgrading these items really helps Issac out in the form of more hit points or air supply (for use in vacuum areas) for his rig; the ability to hold more ammo, decrease the reload time or up the damage potential of his weapons; a longer range for his kenesis module or more energy and duration for his stasis module. Power nodes also have the added ability of overriding locks on certain doors in a few levels, allowing players to often find lots of ammo and med packs, semiconductors to sell and sometimes logs that can only be found in those rooms. Just remember that once a node is placed in a slot, the placement cannot be undone, so players should think about where they are putting nodes so that they aren't wasting any, as the nodes are in limited supply.
The overall story of
Dead Space is quite good. It flows at a nice pace, and has enough twists and turns to make one think; though the game only clocks in at about 12 hours or so from start to finish. Also, EA smartly added back story in the form of comics written by Antony Johnston and illustrated by Ben Templesmith (who is probably most well known for illustrating the 30 Days of Night comics) which detail the events on Ageis 7 prior to the game-- which are also viewable in a semi-animated style and fully voiced on EA's
Dead Space website. Additionally, EA partnered with an animation studio to produce an animated DVD/Blu Ray disk that will give back story on what happened on the Ishimura from the time between the end of the comics to the point where the game begins. This is a lot of back story to put together, and it shows EA might feel
Dead Space is really a franchise waiting to happen.
And, if it is going to become a franchise, well, I won't be hard pressed to go and play a sequel.
Dead Space is definitely worth the price of admission. Its atmospheric setting, brutal and gory combat, insanely good graphics and sound, well thought out story and the ability to kick babies (no lie) make Dead Space a game well worth checking out this Halloween season. Don't expect to be scared out of your wits, but do expect to have a good time playing it.
