Dead Space is a survival horror title released October 15th 2008 for the Xbox 360, PC, and PS3. Dead Space has you playing the role of Isaac an engineer who must fight his way through a ship full of “Necromorphs” while fixing various aspects of the colossal planet cracker looking for his girlfriend. You can read the full write up of the game over at wiki.

Physics: 7/10

There is one creeping physics issue that you will notice when playing throughout the title. That is, dead bodies and body parts have no weight to them, and will fly across the room if you walk over them the right way. At one point as I was back tracking to a store, I ran over a body in a wide open hallway. I watched it arc through the air like a punted football to come crashing down out of camera range. While this is an extreme example you will often see arms, heads, legs, and other stuff skip across the ground or pop up in front of you. In various instances in the game, particularly the hanging/swinging ship and at various points in zero-g, the physics work quite well, but the constant bouncing body parts really detracts from the experience. It’s hard to stay scared when you accidentally kick some miners head down the hallway…….maybe they should add a trophy for that.

Graphics: 9/10

1080p on the PS3! Finally we are starting to see titles come out that take advantage of the PS3s full resolution instead of using blurring effects in a pitiful attempt at making them look better than they actually are. The graphics in this game are amazing, and unlike other TPS/FPS the action slows down enough that you can actually enjoy them. It’s hard to pic any one point in the game where you just step back and say, “Wow!” Even the mundane hallways are convincingly done and instill a sense of claustrophobia. All of it from top to bottom looks amazing. There are a few nagging problems though that prevent a perfect ten. The first is in the opening sequence. The woman’s hair looks like someone stapled a slab of cardboard to the back of her head. The second is the blood and dripping water. Dead Space is very……drippy….yet none of the water, blood, or gore shows up on Isaac. It’s hard to understand how such great detail was paid to the environment yet these two obvious issues slipped through the cracks.

AI: 7/10

There is not a whole lot of AI behind the “Necromorphs”. They come walking down a catwalk or hallway until they see you then they run straight for your throat. If you face more than one and you kill one of them, there is a slight chance it’s buddy will jump through a vent. At this point in time it is best to put your back into a corner and wait for it to reappear. We’ve caught a few hiding above doorways and jumping down from catwalks but we think these are scripted not AI run. One thing we noticed though, the monsters will not chase you through door (level sectioning) ways or onto elevators. This wouldn’t be so bad if they ran for cover like the vampires in Uncharted but they don’t they walk around in circles trying to pathfind. If your goal is to just get through the game this is a handy little slip up to exploit.

Sound: 10/10

The sound is just another element in the perfect picture that is this game environment. When you combine them with the disturbing graphics you definitely start getting paranoid and start checking your 6 o’clock. What really stands out is the little details they covered. The short circuited doors make a loud banging sound. This can be heard in neighboring sections of the ship, unlike most games the noise doesn’t magically disappear when you move past it. Noticing this makes it hard to understand how they missed the flying body parts and water/gore resistant suit.

Content: 8/10

Dead Space has the typical check list of content. Hidden spaces? Check. Kill this many things with each gun trophy list? Check. Unlockables you can use in a second run through? Check. Depending on where you live and what system you own there are a couple of DLC suits for you to fiddle around with in game. The game length is on par with Uncharted about 12-15 hours. Meaning not long enough for $60 but long enough to tell a decent story.

Story: 7/10

The story is pretty typical. Your a space marine engineer that crashes your little ship onto the big, scary, dark, and silent ship. Your motivation is also particularly typical. Your girlfriend is on board the the big, scary, dark, and silent ship. The captain thinks he can solve the issue despite the blood and gore and losing two team members to monsters within a half an hour.  The other crew members are useless, they spend their time complaining, arguing, and dieing. Leaving you to do all the work. Your enemy is an alien menace known as the ”Necromorphs” which is as cringe worthy of an enemy name as Chronicles of Riddick’s Necromongers.

Online: 0/10

What online? With 15 hours of game play for $60 there is no reason for a game to not have an online component. Four dollars an hour may not seem that bad until you stop to think the average hourly rate for their target audience is minimum wage maybe slightly higher. You can download a couple of suits and later there is a movie coming out, but if you thought you might wonder the halls with a friend…your dreaming. Moving on…..

Controls: 9/10

The controls are pretty involved. GTA IV involved. But unlike GTA IV, Dead Space gives you a chance to get use to one concept before moving you on to the next. The pauseless menu system is excellent. Not being able to retreat to the safety of a menu/inventory screen when the action heats up really ads a sense of urgency and realism to the game. The menu system and the HUDless interface do wonders to really sell you on the environment. The one nagging problem is the Resident Evil movement controls. If you have an enemy behind you, forget turning on a dime you’ll be dead before you can bring a weapon to bare. You are going to have to run straight ahead to give you some space and some time to turn around.

Game Play: 8/10

The game plays like a typical survival horror game. Everything is creepy and makes you paranoid. Your ammo is limited and your enemies are hard to put down. You have to shoot off the limbs of the monsters as blowing off the head or body shots do nothing. At least they are not suppose to. Maybe it was my dedication to spending all my energy nodes (upgrade points) on hit points and the starting gun damage capacity but most things went down with three gut shots. Started out blowing legs off then running up and stomping on the necromorph’s head. That tactic only works when facing one at a time. Using the stasis field to pause one enemy while you curb stomp his friend was an annoying way to play for me so I just opted for the other way of conserving ammo, max damage per round. The main reason for the tactic change was because of Isaacs annoying tendency to stomp the wrong things. He will stomp anything, legs heads, bodies, arms and enemies. In the thick of battle with enemy parts all over the room Isaac is just as likely to stomp some random piece of gore as he is the enemy chewing on your leg. Another annoying issue was when an enemy attacked you. The camera pans out to get a shot of Isaac being munched on while you furiously hit the x button. Once you kick the thing off you, nine times out of ten your facing away from it.

Conclusion:

Parts of Dead Space are typical and it has some of the flaws of a mediocre game, but it doesn’t matter. The attention spent on the creatures, the environment, menus and the HUD over shadow all the nagging problems this game has. So what if you play head soccer through 90 percent of the game. It is a beautifully detailed environment to play head soccer in. Dead Space will take its place next to the survival horror greats like Resident Evil, Clock Tower, Fatal Frame, and Silent Hill.