Whats Dead Space?

Dead Space is a survival horror third-person shooter video game, developed by EA Redwood Shores for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows released in October 2008. The player takes on the role of an engineer named Isaac Clarke, who battles a polymorphic, virus-like, alien infestation which turns humans into grotesque alien monsters called “Necromorphs”, on board an interstellar mining ship named the USG Ishimura – Wikepedia Article

Prequel

I must admit i downloaded the game from my trusted source of “security copys”. I was looking for a nice and easy ~10 hours distraction from the work on my projects and boy did Dead Space deliver. I will for sure grab a copy of the original game when i go to a video game shop next time and already ordered the sequel Dead Space 2.

I played the game on a Windows 7 64bit, Intel Q6600 Quadcore @ 2.4 GHz with a single NVidia GTX260 serving a 23″ monitor on max settings.

The first playthrough was done on medium difficulty ( which was a mistake .. see later why ).

Technical stuff

Its a good console port

When you play the game from a developers perspective you will notice that its originally designed for consoles. However this doesn’t hurt the experience on a PC. The game is ported absolutely flawless. Except for unskipable cut scenes and ingame movies, you will never notice. Controls are fine, menu flow is fine, save system are fine. Dead Space didn’t trapped into one of the big NoNo’s from Console -> PC games. Even better … it brought us some nice fresh wind from the good console game feature. But more on that later.

Graphics – 5/5

The game still looks very good from a 3 year later point of view. It sure can’t hold up to Crysis 2 on maxed everything, but the developers took a very close look on the details .. and you feel that when you play. Everything is fitting exceptionally well and the graphics compliment the atmosphere extremely well. If i’d need to compare it to something i would say it look like Mass Effect 2, but one step further.

Also i never experienced clipping problems, unwanted “Wall Hacks” or anything. Bug free at least on my system. I must admit .. for an unpatched game ( as i ran it ) this is actually really surprising for todays time.

Sound – 5/5

Amazing .. simply amazing. Wow .. from monster sounds, to ambient music, to sound effect, to weapon effects .. everything perfect. Playing on my 5.1 headphones i always felt like i was in an abandoned space ship with creepy monsters all around me. For more than ones i actually turned around ingame to see where that creepy sound was coming from and whether or not its a thread to me.

Whatever sound studio was behind it .. you did an amazing job!

Controls – 4/5

Seeing it as an console port i didn’t really expect much, but the controls where nice and accurate. While the mouse on the main menu sure has some mouse acceleration problems, it doesn’t affect you ingame.

Interface – 5/5

One of the points i mentioned earlier “Taking good points from console games and implement them onto PC games”.
None of the interface elements are static on your screen. In fact you see none the entire game. You always see your character from a 3rd person shooter kind of view with the health and mana bars on his back. The ammunition display directly shows on a realistic way on the weapon ( when you right-click aim ). Breath and story telling elements are also flawlessly integrated into the 3rd person view. Even the inventory is not just a window poping up, but a smartly and logically display on your character.

I like that a lot and give my honest respect to the person who designed that!

Gameplay

You will get a good 15 hours of entertainment out of your first run through Dead Space. I turned every stone around looking for better loot ( like i always do ^_^ ) and played a bit over 20 hours.

Story – 3/5

While the story was certainly fitting into the “You’re on a lonely ship invaded by aliens” scenario .. it was kind of the default story you’ll get from a game focusing on other aspects.

+ The story is fitting, logical and compact

+ The story has some very nice “Keep you hanging” moments where you don’t know if the thing you do at the moment is actually good for the cause of the background characters and you

+ The story also has some twists and changes. On ~50% of the game i was suspecting how the story would twist, but on ~70% of the game it was pretty clear where it would probably go to. But also more than ones i was highly surprised by next step on the story. There was never a downtime in story telling. They always give you something to think about.

- No choices. Man whyyyy :,( I didn’t expect a high complex interaction system like in Mass Effect 2, but at the later parts of the story its certainly CRYING for a moral choice by the player. For the last 40% of the game i always had in mind “PLEASE let me choose my next step”. They never did. This would certainly helped a TON on replayability if they would have implemented one or two moral decisions here and there. I was certainly disappointed on that one.

- “Would you kindly?” .. The one mission aim you have at any time is strictly linear and always done in the way “Please pull this plug, repair this, get this thing there” with one “supervisor” telling you what do to. Don’t get me wrong, this worked 100% fine on the game setting, but like i said before : Implementing some moral choices here could have improved this by 1000%.

- You certainly will not win new views on life or something to think about it on real life from the game

Cutscenes, Storytelling and Background Information – 3/5

The story telling is on a overall medium level. There are some pretty amazing videos, but they are really rare. I feel like some situation could have been improved with a cutscene and some could have really needed one.

+ There are 3 mini games and some interactive cutscenes. The interactive cutscenes still only rely on pressing a button fast or shooting a certain spot of an enemy.

+ If there are cutscenes they are of Hollywood movie caliber.

- I feel like the cutscenes are used too rarely. I certainly didn’t expect a Call of Duty “play some mini games in between cutscenes” disaster, but only 2 scenes are a bit to low. While the story telling ingame is fine, i’d love to see more movies.

- Why on earth would you drive the metro with your back towards the open entry of the train o_O

Items, Guns & Skills – 4/5

Besides from your Telekinesis Skill and a Slowdown Skill for environmental objects and enemies you get the 6 big mayor weapon classes in modern games. You’ll get one precise pistol, a shotgun, another shotgun with mine effect, a machine gun, a rocket launcher and a flame thrower. Just in a modern costume of cause.

+ You have a limited amount of inventory space and I also needed to make hard choices on what to prioritize on keeping ( e.g. keep the ammunition you need to stay alive or keep the item that sells for lot of money on the shop )

+ You can only buy items from the shop if you have found the blueprints on hidden spots around the levels

+ You can modify your armor/weapons via an ingame modification system. You can trade collected “power nodes” ( rare items you find ingame ) for better weapon stats like recharge speed, damage, magazine capacity and speed. Its logically implemented in the game and can only be done on workbenches which are available on every quest hub in the game.

+ Ammo is always rare and you’ll breath on relieve if you’ll see a item shop on the horizon multiple times on the game. The first game in a long time that a game woke this “I’m actually low on ammo .. i need to wisely spend it” feeling in me.

* Its a neutral point, but i only modded my first pistol weapon to max damage, reload speed and speed and never used any other weapon, besides trying them out. Except from the “explode into zerglings guy” ( with bad aiming a flame thrower will save your ass here ) i never felt like i need any of the other weapons.

- The two skills only serve the purpose of solving ingame puzzles. At least on medium difficulty they can be totally ignored while dealing with enemies. I have the strong feeling that this will change on higher difficulties.

- Some items have no use on lower difficulties. I nearly certain that this will change on higher difficulties.

Enemies – 5/5

+ The enemy AI is very smart. No sweet spotting on boss enemies ( they will fall back to hidden places ones you’re on such a spot ). Also the enemies will surround you, flank you, take cover and bust your fortressed position.

+ Every single enemy type needs a special way of defeating them. You can’t simply just empty your magazine on a group of dudes and hope you’re fine. In Dead Space 80% of the group will survive if you’re not applying customized strategies on every single one of the enemy types.

While the custom strategy only involves shooting at different parts of their bodies … its easier said then done. Its challenging until the end of the game and a very big plus on the game in my opinion.

+ Enemies spawn on scripted events that fit extremely well into the atmosphere of the game. Will still practicable to a certain point most of the time you don’t know where the enemies will spawn from. Combine that with the awesome sound effects / music in this game and you’ll enjoy 15 hours of paranoia.

- There are only ~6 types of enemies. Like i said above every single one of the encounters is challenging and every single enemy type is very well designed, unique and demanding, but later in the game the old models only get replaced with darker ones. You’ll still fight the same dudes ( they are still challenging! ) just you need to hit other parts of their body ( way harder then it sounds! )

Replayability – 4/5

After finishing the game on medium difficulty i was awarded with a new item to unlock on the shop ( Military Uniform ), another difficulty level, some extra credits on the new run and some “Background story information” while playing. I must admit .. that definitely challenges and invites me to play another run. While i can’t see how you could reenjoy the story, i certainly would love to see some of my negative points denied ( Like some items having no use on medium, the slow down / telekinesis skill have no use, that i didn’t need to use other weapons etc. ).

You also keep your inventory/items/mods from the last run when choosing to continue after the last boss fight. Neat!

In all honesty i will play on “Insane” ones more and because i’m pretty sure the game was balanced on a higher difficulty … will get another great 20 hours out of it.

Conclusion

Play the game on hard/insane mode!
You’re certainly not doing you a favor in running on ez mode. I feel like i missed out 50% of the game experience just by playing on a too easy game mode.

Buy the game!
While the game has some flaws ( due to too low difficulty mode chosen by the reviewer .. aka me ) its certainly a must buy.