Okay. So. Dead Space. I'm a huge horror game fan, and I had been watching this one like a hawk ever since it was announced. Now, I'm not going to go deep into what the game's about, the graphics, the controls, etc. etc., because there have been many blogs about that stuff already. I want to talk about the overall experience.

The first thing I noticed about this game is that from the very beginning, from the second you start the game, the ambiance is absolutely perfect. For what it is, it's realistic, it's detailed, and it's genuinely creepy once you get about ten or fifteen minutes into the experience. It's not so much a scary creepy, but a what-the-hell-is-going-on creepy, and I love that. It keeps me wanting to play more.

The little details can also make or break a game, and the most awesome of these details in Dead Space is the complete and total lack of a HUD. Absolutely everything is viewed through your suit's holographic charts, and this means that when you're looking at your map or inventory, everything is still happening in real-time. That means that you can go through all your menus while you listen to an audio message, while you're waiting for an elevator to stop, or even in the middle of a battle --- Make sure you're not going to be attacked when you open your menus, because it will happen, so be quick about it. :P



Now, there are a couple things that kinda... Not bother me, but irk me. Melee attacks don't seem to work well all the time, especially the arm-swing. I don't know why, but I can almost never hit anything on my first try with that attack, even those conduits you have to destroy that are stationary on the walls. Also, just another nit-picking thing, when you stand next to a wall and either aim or perform a melee attack, you kind of "jump" back a step or two --- You don't have an animation, it just kind of glitches you back about a foot. It's not super important, but it still kinda takes the realism away from the game when you do it.

One more thing is the lack of seemingly standard features. When you complete the game, you can restart the game with all of your stuff carried over, just as you should be able to. But you can't change the difficulty. You're actually locked to the difficulty you started with unless you choose to start a completely new game, which will mean that you won't have any items. There's also a mysterious lack of a sensitivity setting for the aiming joystick... Why isn't it there?

Also, be wary of equipping one of the downloadable suits --- If you do, you can't equip any other suit on top of it, which means you can't get the Achievement/Trophy for upgrading your suit as far as it can go.

Overall, I'm quite impressed with Dead Space. If you have the money, seriously, grab this game right now if horror's your thing.