Dead Space
Dead Space from EA is sure to please any action-adventure gamer looking for a bloody battle against deadly aliens. Dead Space for Xbox 360 begins when a massive mining ship, the USG Ishimura, comes in contact with a mysterious alien artifact and suddenly loses its communications with Earth. Engineer Isaac Clarke is sent to repair
Deep Space pits Isaac Clarke against deadly aliens. View larger. |
Zero-G game play allows you to walk on walls and the ceiling. View larger. |
EA delivers an incredibly frightening experience with state-of-the-art graphics and effects. View larger. |
Neutralize the attacking enemies with weapons and telekinetic powers. View larger. |
the Ishimura’s communications, but arrives to find a floating vessel that has become a complete bloodbath. The crew is mutilated and infected with an ancient alien scourge. Clarke’s repair mission is transformed to one of survival as he fights to save himself and return the artifact to the planet at any cost.
Fight with Weapons and Telekinesis
The alien hordes are incredibly resilient. You’ll have to find creative ways to neutralize the attacking enemies by shearing off limbs with powerful weapons. And when the ammo runs out you’ll be thankful that you can use your telekinetic powers to pick up objects (even the aliens’ own severed arms and legs) and hurl them at your advancing enemies.
Graphics, Effects, and Sound Increase the Horror
EA delivers an incredibly frightening experience with state-of-the-art graphics and effects, an audio system that will have you jumping out of your seat, and a truly horrific atmosphere that is permeated with death, mutilation, and despair. You’ll have to be resilient to slash through the alien onslaught and stop this virulent scourge. As you explore the ship, the tragic story of the USG Ishimura will unfold in gory detail as you discover frantic logs from the hideously transformed crew in their final days.
True Zero-G Effects
You’ll be able to take full advantage of zero gravity in Deep Space. Battling enemies and solving puzzles takes on new challenges and present ingenious opportunities with the Zero-G game play. You can use zero gravity to create your own path around obstacles by walking on walls and the ceiling. Leap across vast distances or change your perspective to gain a strategic advantage over your enemies.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Bring it on you….deformed…thing!
Known primarily for overdoing a franchise with multiple releases (see the endless yearly outings of sports titles or the Guitar Hero series), EA went a bit against the grain and released 2 original IP’s in the fall of last year: Dice’s Mirror’s Edge and EA Redwood’s Dead Space. Whereas the former was at times fun but other times frustrating, Dead Space is just top-of-the-line from head to toe. Everything about the game feels perfectly balanced and even small nitpick worthy issues can’t stop it from being an exhilarating ride…at least during the first time.
Story: In the near future, such ships exist called “planet crackers” which essentially grab gigantic chunks out of planets and mine them for resources and minerals. When the top ship, the USG Ishimura, goes silent and no contact can be made, in comes Isaac Clarke, an engineer sent in to what they think is just a communication equipment problem. Get in, fix, get out except the ship’s crew has changed and not for the better as they’re disgusting and deformed creatures hell bent on seeing you dead, often in the most gruesome manner possible.
There’s really only 2 complaints I can level at Dead Space’s story: one, we’re told to sympathize with Isaac thanks to a sidestory involving his girlfriend Nicole only Isaac doesn’t say a single word throughout the entire story and makes him a bit more autonomous and hard to sympathize with. The second is that the game is essentially a glorified fetch quest only instead of collecting items, you’re fixing stuff. Literally every chapter you’ll receive reports from either Kendra or Hammond, your shipmates, that something on the ship needs to be fixed lest something bad happen. A chapter where your completely cut off from everybody would’ve heightened the tension and made you go “now what?” but otherwise, you’re just errand boy. However thanks to the graphics and the pacing, you’ll be quite hooked into the story.
Graphics: What makes Dead Space such an immersive and effective game is the graphics since the ship just FEELS possible, as if this thing can actually exist. It’s a lot more effective when you take into account the layout, lighting, various facilities and levels and everything from detail in the environments, the gore effects and especially that one part during chapter 4 involving the bridge makes you go “holy ****”. Larger detail is lost more farther away things are and bodies on the floor have a weird ragdoll quality and it’s not uncommon to start shuffling bodies with your feet like they’re mannequins.
Sound/Music: Equally impressive is the sound mix from the roars, screeches, pipes and cans dropping from…somewhere, this is the game to have if you have surround sound as the sound mix will easily make you paranoid about everything. The voice acting is one of those functional types where no one really excels in their roles but they don’t stand out in the awfulness either. Primarily the voice acting comes from Kendra and Hammond who do good jobs for your voice characters. All that’s heard from Isaac is his yells during hits, breathing when he runs and being in air vacuums.
Gameplay: The first big thing Dead Space does is have no HUD displays anywhere on screen, well at least typical ones. There’s no Halo-esque radar or ammo counter or a shield meter in the old-fashioned sense but rather everything’s on Isaac’s body. His health is a bar that runs up his spine separated into segments, his Statis (slow motion for specific things such as enemies or equipment) is a half-circle while ammo counters are displayed on top of the weapon in a display. Even cutscenes and character meetings don’t have a separate cutscene but either come through holographic projections or brief moments where camera shows an action from somewhere else. This helps with the game and makes one wonder why most game designers don’t use it more.
Instead of traditional weaponry a la shotguns and assault rifles, Isaac carries engineer-type equipment from plasma cutters to rippers and the equipment feels like what one would use in their fixing duties so it’s nice that they’re functional for killing some beasts. The core of the game is to dismember your enemy, essentially take them apart piece by piece. Take their legs off and make em crawl or take their arms away and leave them attackless. Of course knowing how best to dismember is key since some actually change should you do something and screw you over even more. But with flamethrowers, pulse rifles and melee attacks at your disposal, you’re more than well-equipped and that’s what makes the game work: it’s not difficult per se a la Ninja Gaiden but rather it’s an even matchup. You against them and not feel handicapped by anything.
With kinesis which acts similar to Half-Life 2’s gravity gun where you can grab distant objects or move big things you couldn’t otherwise move, there’s also the aforementioned stasis which temporarily slows time down for an enemy which is fun since it’s for a specific enemy so the annoying one can be slowed while you deal with the lesser types at full speed. Another of the more funner aspects is zero G. Just aim and if you can jump, you’ll go flying which’ll get you either on the ceiling, walls and all over. It’s incredibly fun and having an enemy flying at you is a bit intense. The segments where there’s no air are also great since the sound is drastically cut down save for muffled gunfire and yelling from Isaac.
My one complaint is that the game isn’t as amazing the second time since it becomes a bit more predictable. “Oh, this is where I get ambushed so better go this way and do that” and since some of the achievements are most definately multiple playthroughs needed, it doesn’t make it chore-like but it drags it down ever so slightly. Whereas Mirror’s Edge frequently had great moments mixed in with completely off-the-rails segments and gameplay moments, there’s very little that breaks Dead Space. It’s not “scary” per se and won’t make you lose sleep but it’s an intense ride.
5 Stars Very Nicely Made and A++ For A No FAQ Needed Game
I’m one of those gamers that sometimes require an FAQ, you know, when the game gets confusing and there’s no real leads as to where you have to go and so you have to wonder around for hours and hours just to find out where you are and you feel frustrated as heck because of it.
I don’t need an FAQ but I do use faqs quite often because I don’t feel like playing a game for fun and get myself frustrated instead.
Well, that’s what’s so fantastic about this game, you can continually push a button and the characters hand will point to the ground and a beam of light can be seen that gives you a trail as to where you have to go next or what you should do.
I find that very relieving and I think EVERY game should have something similar. I just wanna follow along and play the game, not figure out what the heck I should do next…
The game is brilliant in the fact that it employs all these tactics to scare you, you know, the kind you see in movies where the suspension builds up and then you get scared out of your pants. You’ll be walking and suddenly everything gets quiet…quiet…quiet…then something crashes in and the sound kicks in.
One of the scariest moments I faced was being trapped in a locked place with monsters and I was desperately trying to get out or the part where it was quiet then the monitors turned on with the sound of a woman screaming really loud.
I will definately replay this and I find this game a lot less stressful to play than a vast majority out there. I definately do NOT like games that tries to make me search for hours just to find out what I’m suppose to do next….great game! I bought it expecting to sell it back, no thank you! This is a keeper.
So far I’m selling back fallout 3 (kept getting lost), fable 2 (replay value really sucks), left 4 dead (fun at first then gets boring real fast).
5 Stars scary
this game is great still not threw with it. it had no sraches on the disk and it came as fast as it could. one of the scaryes games i every played but i will say it was weird when 1st playing it since i was so use to the cod5 controlls.
3 Stars Surprisingly not as good as people say it is.
After hearing great praises and reviews about it, I purchased it brand new (which I rarely do) and was met with steadying disappointment. Before I tear it down, I’ll start of with the positives first. The atmosphere and graphics are fantastic. You really get the sense that this used to be a fully functional ship until all hell broke loose. Likewise you can never let your guard down, because psychologically you never known when the enemy is around. Nothing can be assumed safe, not elevators, already cleared rooms or even save points. Sound is pretty good. Weapons have oomph, enemies identify themselves differently and when walking through the vacuum of space, sound is minimized like in real life. The minimized HUD was a good idea, enabling you too concentrate on your suit and posture for signs of injury and energy readouts. Lastly some of the puzzles are smartly performed. Now with that said what is the negative? First of all, nothing done is this game is very original. Take BioShock/System Shock 2, F.E.A.R, Resident Evil 4/5, and even bits of Gear of War and you pretty much have this game. Once the novelty of new enemies wear out (there aren’t alot of variety) combat becomes a slight chore. Out of six different weapons, I found only two or three of them really useful. Oddly enough the flamethrower was not one of them. The story takes too long to uncover, and by halfway through I stopped caring. As a result you just tends to plod along, going from one end of the ship to the other to complete some new task, not really caring what new catastrophic situation had just unfolded like clockwork. Ultimately that’s what’s wrong with this game. You just end up not really caring what happens, and the game does nothing to really keep you connected. Again, I was deeply disappointed and had to struggle validating my time completing this game. As a final note, the final boss and ending was extremely cliche. A friend was able to guess both after I told him to think of the most stereotypical game boss and ending.
3 Stars YES!!!! This game is aweome…um, nevermind…
This Game starts out awesome and the first part of the game had me completely enthralled, everything works well , the HUD is great, not a complaint to be had. Then I played it , and started to get bored doing this and hitting a switch then walking and killing the same 2 enemies over and over then walk 10 minutes and hit another switch. The Graphics, atmosphere, action everything is done near perfection…They just forgot to make the game fun to play.
