I’ve never really enjoyed so-called ‘horror’ games: most titles that intend to terrify use cheap scare tactics and tired clichés that have made the genre into a stagnant collection of boring formulas that are as dead as the zombies they try so hard to ‘reanimate.’<\/p>\n
With a story that reads like a Frankenstein-esque assembly of Alien, Event Horizon and Doom, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Dead Space is part of this declining genre. Let’s see, futuristic setting? Check. Eerily unresponsive spaceship? Of course. One unwitting hero sent in as a repairman who ends up being the very saviour of mankind? You betcha.<\/p>\n
But although it seems to teeter on the edge of mediocrity, Dead Space is not one of those games. Not even close. In fact, it’s probably one of the most refreshingly petrifying experiences you can have without going to a Thai ladyboy bar.<\/p>\n
You play Isaac Clarke, a full body suit-wearing engineer that’s part of the crew sent in to see what the deal is with the Ishimura, a large space mining vessel that is maintaining radio silence for no apparent reason. (Un)surprisingly, a bunch of angry alien life forms, the Necromorphs, have infested the ship, turning its crew into a variety of grotesque creatures who seem to have an invested interested in tearing the flesh from your bones.<\/p>\n
Armed only with your trusty engineering plasma cutter, you set about destroying the alien hordes and reclaiming the ship.<\/p>\n
It’s here that I should mention that Dead Space is mind-blowingly, pants-wettingly terrifying. It really is. I’m talking, “play only during the day and in the company of friends” kind of terrifying. I’m saying this because (for once) EA has managed to create an incredibly immersive horror experience simply by pulling a few small tricks and twists on what we thought was an already exhausted genre.<\/p>\n
The first trick up the game’s dark and terrifying sleeve is the awkward camera angle. It forces the player up uncomfortably close to Isaac. This feature starts off as just plain annoying, but it soon becomes apparent that the decision was made intentionally, and is in fact a stroke of game-design genius as it adds to the general claustrophobic terror of deep space. <\/p>\n
The second is the noticeable absence of a HUD (Heads-Up Display). Every element that you’d normally expect to be displayed is cleverly incorporated into the game: your life bar is rendered along the back of your suit, your ammo count is shown on your gun when you aim it, and your objectives, inventory and other info all pop up as wicked 3D holograms from the aforementioned suit. Thus, you’re never pulled out of the action by a pause menu, map interface or any other conventional distraction, leaving you trembling in fear throughout.<\/p>\n
Thirdly, the placement of your weapons is all completely justified. Killing tools range from a variety of mining instruments, to standard weapons that are upgradable. Engineer Isaac can use power nodes scattered throughout the game to perform specific modifications at various Upgrade Benches, making the entire weapons system seem quite plausible.<\/p>\n
There are several other in game mechanisms that help bring the blood-soaked, limb-scattered corridors to life. Players will come across zero-gravity areas where they have to bounce around with a limited oxygen supply, and fight a variety of Necromorph abominations utilising various different tactics in order to take them down. <\/p>\n
Players will marvel at Isaac’s small yet purposeful behavioural responses, and they will even do a bit of puzzle-solving to round things off. It’s small add-ons like these that make sure the game never feels like it’s lagging on or falling into the tired clichés of its counterparts.<\/p>\n
The quality of the visuals in Dead Space is of a generally high caliber, and at times, is really quite amazing. Nothing feels like it was thrown together in a level editor, and there’s a suitable level of well rendered stomach-turning gore to get players squirming. Close-quarters corridor combat is just as awe-inspiring as the massive outdoor or hangar levels, and boss battles are truly majestic in their detail and scale. The voice acting is unexpectedly good, while alien sounds are appropriately horrifying.<\/p>\n
Combine a top-notch presentation like this with a good 12 hours or so of single player gameplay, a wide selection of trophies to collect, and a twisty story that feels fresh despite it’s ovedone roots, and we have an action-horror-sci-fi adventure that will remind players what it really means to be afraid.<\/p>\n