So I finally got around to beating Dead Space, and figured I could share my perspective, for those who care about it. As far as horror games go, I have a few I like. Resident Evil 4 is the most played out of the horror games that I do, but really? Thats supposed to be scary? No. Theres zombies. Theres big zombies. Theres an annoying as hell knife fight. Next we have F.E.A.R, a game that if it were a man and I were a girl, I would want its babies. It has scared me more than any other game. So walking into Dead Space I figured it would be between the two of those. How was it?


Not the front page stock footage

First off this game has a lot of flavor. It has a ton of history for the ship and how this all started, and many logs to collect and things to read, and other stuff that I couldnt do becuase my TV isnt HD and 50 inches large and I didnt know there were captions, and even still, that would ruin the immersion into the game. Blah. So the voices were barely audible through things like glass and the logs you had to read were short. But it was all there. I liked the fact that it wasn't thrown in without explanation. The weapons that you get to use are also in this same sort of field, where they have a reason (why did this farmer have an RPG? Whatever...). The game tries very hard to put you into a spot where you dont really feel like you are in a game, which worked pretty well for me. The non existant HUD matched with a real time inventory was fantastic, and the near lack of cutscenes was very well done. This has been picking up some steam lately (likely since Half Life, not sure) and I really enjoy it.

But its not all about looks and choices the designers made, if so Yaris could have had its own little niche (or does it....) but gameplay is a major factor here too. I have heard that Isaac moves too slow, but I didn't see a problem. He runs. He moves. He shoots. He moves AND shoots. Its some fancy stuff going on there. But if you have played Resident Evil...its pretty much like that. But in space. With more limbs flying off. This is my biggest complaint, is that the game feels like RE4. It has it painted all over with a few low gravity low oxygen things. Even the push-this-button-to-kick-this-guy parts are all intact. Sigh. At least we know it plays well, but really they should have DLC of Leon Kennedy skin so that way it feels right. PC version, I am looking at you.


Like this, but in space

Also, it decided to go with a wonky ass system of melee vs shooting. The two need to be a separate button. I have tried to aim/swing then try to swing/aim and it usually takes it about 3 seconds to get the right action, and by that time a monster has eaten my face. You dont really even bother with melee unless you are out of ammo. Also, curb stomp button. Yeah, theres a button that curb stomps, instantly rasing this game to the level of Gears of War, 11/10.

The only gun I found worth my time was the plasma cutter. I tried the flamethrower and I tried the assault rifle. The rifle had its fun moments, the flamethrower was crap. The ammo you have per each gun is directly related to the amount of guns you own. So if you have 3 guns, suddenly the game starts to suck because none are any good because you cant upgrade them all and you run out of ammo for the one that you spent your power nodes on getting up to decent damage and ahhhhhhhh just stick with one gun. Lame.
However if you stick to one gun then you have like 100 things of ammo that you will never use clogging up your teeny tiny inventory.

So this game is survival horror, right? Sure. Was I scared? Eh...I had a few shock moments, but nothing really scary or sticking. The biggest scare I had was by distraction. Theres a room where a guy is puking his guts out, so I was looking at him thinking "will I have to kill this guy?" when a necromorph comes up from behind and eats my face. I was using that, jerk! The only other scares I got were after I took a break. I played a chapter a day for a week, then decided to play Fallout 3. I came back recently and finished up. When you stop playing the game you forget where the makers thought to put a guy. I was actively thinking about where a necromorph would be, and being mostly correct. Then when I started fresh I had forgotten what to look for, so it was like it was trying to be scary. It really fell short of traumatizing (how I like my horror games) but had its moments. The sound is supposed to help a lot, but I live with 3 girls, so blasting the sound of curb stomping bones and slicing limbs is not well appreciated. Also my gaming set up is pretty weak, so I only have TV speakers or a pair of 30 dollar speakers from Best Buy. Yeah.

So how fun was it overall? I feel like I was overly hard, because it is a good game, and you all probably know it. Its a lot like RE4 which as far as being enjoyable sure isnt bad, but as far as feeling fresh and new (which helps with being sucked in, instead of thinking 'this is like game X') it falls pretty short. The horror aspect of it is pretty weak, and after a while it feels like a run and gun. For those who require a numbered score it was a 7, 7.5. Up until the last chapter. The last chapter (the namesake) everything changes. It suddenly decides to be fun, and new, and fresh. It has a bright world with a good distribution of enemies and a spectacular boss that I would have loved to gone agianst more things like that. At the end of the game I could bump it up to an 8 as being actually really enjoyable. I wouldnt say rush out and buy it if you are skeptical, but definately consider it in the future, or as a holiday gift!