Dead Space Review

Dead Space is a game that starts with a lot of promise but ultimately fails due to many bad gameplay decisions and frustrating situations.

The first time I played Dead Space was at the PC Gamer Showdown back in September. The game impressed me greatly with its gameplay based around dismemberment and it's brilliant lighting and sound effects that create a very creepy atmosphere, and the first half of the game was extremely enjoyable.

The game begins with you, as Isaac, on a shuttle travelling through space to investigate the USG Ishimura which has suddenly stopped radio contact after sending out a distress signal. Joining you on the investigation are Kendra Daniels, a technology expert, and Zach Hammond, the security officer. Naturally as you try to land on the Ishimura things go wrong and your ship is destroyed, already leaving you stranded on the ship.

Once again, things go from bad to worse as the Necromorphs attack and you run for your life, splitting you from the rest of your team. Don't worry, they weren't very likeable to begin with. It's here you get hold of your first weapon, a plasma cutter, and begin your bloody campaign across the ship leaving nothing but decapitated body parts in your wake.

I want to make it clear that there is nothing inherently wrong with the combat, it's one of the games strong points. How can anyone not enjoy shooting a limb of an attacking for, only to watch them continue to crawl towards you until you remove the rest of their limbs and head? The combat is bloody and will keep you on your toes. As will the environment.

The USG Ishimura is brought to life brilliantly with some of the best sound and lighting direction that I've seen in a game. One of the things that will constantly put you on edge is the banging of malfunctioning doors, which can be heard several corridors away and leaves you guessing just what is lurking up ahead until you finally find said door and feel like such a gullible fool for falling for the same thing AGAIN. The first time I played the game was without sound, and it really removed one of the largest elements of the game. Do yourself a favour and use headphones when playing this game.

The lighting is also fantastic. Shafts of light that cast the shadow of vents on the floor set the mood as you slowly make your way down that long murky corridor and quite often a shadow passing through it will be the only indication you have that something is coming, before it bursts out of the aforementioned vent screaming for your blood. Likewise the moments where you are walking along the outside of the ship, with the planet below and the light of the sun shining through the darkness of space is beautiful. I have spent many times suffocating out there staring at the environment.

That's another nice and original addition to the game. Zero gravity and vacuum environments are easily the highlight of the game, and are unfortunately too few and far apart. Fighting in the zero-g environments, cutting off the limb of a foe only to watch it gracefully spiral away from the body is amazing. As is jumping from the floor to a wall to a ceiling. You soon forget which way was originally up and vertigo sets in.

The environments of the outside of the ship were my personal favourite moments of the game. With no sound but the muffled thump of your boots on the deck there is often no warning that an enemy is upon you until they are chewing on your neck. The oxygen limitations of your suit also add that extra sense of tension in these areas.

Along with the dismemberment gameplay is an added level of almost RPG customisation to your characters weapons and suit (known as your RIG). Throughout the game you pick up power nodes, these can be used whenever you find a workbench to upgrade your weapons and your RIG. The upgrade screen is like a schematic for the weapon, with you having to place power nodes into various slots to upgrade things like damage, speed, reload time, and ammo capacity while your RIG can be upgraded for air supply and armour. It's impossible to max out everything in your first playthrough, which adds a level of strategy as to what fits your play style best. Also, upon completion of the game, you can start again (provided it's on the same difficulty) with all your equipment from your previous game. So eventually you will be able to breeze through the game with a fully maxed out Isaac.

Another great game design is the HUD. Instead of using the standard HUD seen in most games, everything is incorporated into the game in real time in one way or another. Isaac's health and stasis meter are displayed on his back, with the ammo counter appearing as a small hologram above the gun. Even the inventory, objective screen etc show up as holograms in front of Isaac, along with video transmissions from the other characters.

Now onto the bad things. Can I just say whoever decided it would be a good idea to put turret sections into this game deserves to get fired. I did not pay £30 for a fancy version of Asteroids. This section is plagued with unresponsive controls and no indication as to how close you are to actually finishing the section. When your team mate tells you “just one more minute” I expect it to be one minute, not to still be shooting at asteroids for another three. It's a boring and frustrating section of the game. What makes it worse is the fact that by the time you've put in enough hours of dismemberment to forget this horrible section, they decide to repeat it again. Not a good move.

Another of the frustrating “variations” of gameplay is when you are tasked with protecting a character from Necromorphs while they attempt to unlock a door so you can progress. This wouldn't be so bad if first I had been given the chance to buy more ammo and second if the pathway the Necromorphs would be on wasn't out of the range of at least three of my weapons, leaving me with only one weapon and a limited supply of ammunition to get through.

One of the final game design annoyances was on rails sections. It's nearly 2009, I thought game development had got past these horrific ideas. Being trapped on a tram crossing a room while enemies spawn on either side isn't fun, its monotonous. Especially when I can just stand in the tram, not bother to shoot back, and remain perfectly fine.

Now for the biggest lapse in logic with this game. Why is an engineer being sent to fix computers when a technology expert is part of the team? Or why is he sent on dangerous missions to kill things when they have a security officer with them? Surely my place as a systems engineer should be in the control room, where the security officer wastes most of his time?

The game started out as a strong contender for game of the year, but by the end of Chapter 5 there are too many distractions from the core gameplay which are uncalled for. The most enjoyment to be had with this game is when you are dismembering things, why do they feel the need to interrupt this with monotonous, unoriginal ideas?

Final Verdict: If you have a lot of patience and free time (because you'll only be able to play an hour at a time before getting frustrated) then give the game a shot, otherwise spend your money on something more worthwhile. Still, as the starting point of a franchise, it could've been worse.