When all communication is lost with the USG Ishimura, a enormous “planetcracker” class spaceship doing some mining in the Aegis system, a team is sent in to embark on a repair mission. For engineer Isaac Clarke this mission is personal, his girlfriend Nicole serves on the Ishimura, and her last message was anything but good. Arriving at their objective the crew of the Kellion find that their problems are somewhat bigger than a busted communications array. Their greeting party on the Ishimura is the monstrous remains of the former crew, it seems that some sort of alien parasite has been running rampage on the ship and transforming the inhabitants in gruesome monsters intent on tearing any living thing to shreds. Taking control of Isaac as he explores the dark underbelly of the doomed spaceship a sinister plot centered on a mysterious alien artifact is revealed and with every step the odds seems more and more hopeless. Welcome to Dead Space.

After the likes of Silent Hill and Resident Evil it takes a lot to scare modern gamers. Dead Space however managed to make me shiver right from the start with its disturbing rendition of “twinkle twinkle little star” in the intro. Laugh if you must but until you have played this game on high volume in the dark alone at night you ain’t seen nothing yet. Dead Space does everything you expect from a horror title perfectly. Dark, scary environments packed with monstrous creatures that leap out of you from nowhere? Check. Disturbing soundtrack with bloodcurling screams, gibbering monster effects and bowel clenching music? Check. In fact it’s only the story that’s a bit of a sci-fi clichéd. Don’t get me wrong the plot had me riveted to my seat but the whole alien parasite thing has been done to death before in games like System Shock and its ilk. What sets Dead Space apart however is the graphics. Not only does it have some of the smoothest visuals this side of BioShock but the creature design is literally out of this world. Don’t think it’s all just eye candy either. See that huge lumbering alien creature with tentacles sprouting from it’s every orifice crawling at you down a dark hallway? Well try shooting it in the head and see if it dies. Go on I dare you. Hmm, didn’t die, did it? In fact it seems you’ve just made it very very angry and it’s even more determined to inflict some grievous bodily harm upon you. A better bet would be to go for those flailing limbs and slippery tentacles that it’s using to propel itself towards you. “Strategic dismemberment” is what the developers are calling it and it’s as fun as it is gross. You see poor Isaac isn’t some macho action hero that’s out to save the day. He’s just a normal engineer (albeit one with a very cool spacesuit) caught up in some very bad circumstances. Thus his weapons are all just modified engineering tools like the Plasma Cutter, Ripper & Contact Beam. You can only lug around four weapons at a time but these (along with your suit) can be upgraded via “power nodes” at the various workbenches located throughout the Ishimura.

Dead Space does a great job with fully immersing a player into its world. Instead of a heads up display cluttering up your screen everything you need is integrated into the gameplay. For instance, instead of a “health bar” players can monitor Isaac’s condition via the display on the back of his suit as well as the way he moves and breathes. Likewise any ammunition counters is displayed via a “hologram” on the weapon itself. A very interested design approach and like I said one that makes for complete immersion. The plot also unfolds via communication with the various survivors aboard the Ishimura and all this is displayed as holograms projecting from Isaac’s suite. These communications can pop up without warning and can cause a minor hard attack if you are busy creeping down a dark deserted hallway and all of a sudden a hologram pops up shouting some instructions at you. It’s still better than some alien grabbing you by the foot and trying to drag you into a hole or some creepy critter lunging from the ceiling and attaching itself to your helmet causing you to hammer buttons until you manage to tear it of and dropkick it into a wall or something.

Another interesting feature of Dead Space is the zero gravity areas and areas that are in a vacuum. In zero gee you can attach yourself to any surface with your magnetic boots and thanks to the excellent graphics you will witness disturbing sights like a body floating past still spurting blood or twitching alien appendages spinning away after you dismember it. The vacuum areas are especially creepy since sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum so you can get a few nasty surprises when you turn around and bump into some nightmarish creature or run out of oxygen while navigating the area. Isaac has some neat tricks up his sleeve like the “stasis module that can literally freeze enemies in their track and the “kinesis module” that enables him to move around objects far too heavy for a human to lift or even use enemies own severed limbs as projectiles against them.

So from a visual and audio perspective there is very little to fault Dead Space on. With 12 chapters to play through even the length is nice since most modern titles fall a bit short in the longevity stakes. A lot of people has criticized Dead Space for being unoriginal and while to a certain extend this is true you can’ hardly expect something new and groundbreaking with every game that comes out. Let’s face it there are only so many variations of stories about creepy alien parasites that you can come up with. Besides the implementation and way it’s presented is so brilliant you’ll hardly mind the fact that you are basically just shooting monsters to bits in dark rooms like so many games before.

Slightly harder to overlook is the performance issues. I had a few nasty crashes while playing this game and since you can only save at certain predetermined spots it can become annoying. However I’m sure a patch will be out by the time you read this and depending on your system configuration this might not even be a problem in your game.

There is still a lot to be said about Dead Space and most of it is good but suffice to say that for once the hype was justified and this really is a awesome game. The story is very disturbing and will keep you hooked right until the (very freaky and hair raising) end and provided you play the game as it’s mean to be played (in the dark) will provide you with plenty of thrills and chills. Just be warned this is not a game for the faint of heart or very young. Dead Space is definitely a contender for “game of the year” in my books. Don’t miss out on one of the scariest and engrossing games this year.

Score

B