Dead Space

A rising or a setting sun?

A brief distress signal brings a small crew of engineers to a seemingly abandoned mining ship.  But something made the crew disappear and now one man has to try and escape from a continuous nightmare.

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Recommended Age Minimum Age Available On... 18 16 PC, Xbox 360, PS3 Overall Fun Length Frustration   Violence Sexuality Substances Gambling 8 6 5   10 2 3 0 Mods Religion Anti-Law Community Sports Magic Miscellaneous 0 7 3 0 3 2 8

1.     Gameplay

• Overall Fun - 8

Dead Space opens as the player and a small crew approach a huge world-mining ship.  Isaac, the main character, is an engineer tasked with fixing the mining ship’s communications array, which evidently broke after a brief distress signal was sent out.  Upon arriving, Isaac and his surviving crew members board the ship to find it seemingly deserted.  And that’s when things start to go horribly wrong.

Right about here.

Dead Space is a horror game with some survival elements.  This means that the game is designed to be slow and scary.  It pulls this off relatively well.  The atmosphere is always set up in a way that makes me wonder what is going to be around the next corner and I always had to be slow and methodical.  Eventually, players will create a formula for entering a new room safely.  Check the doorway, look left, look right, check ceilings, keep your back to a wall and move slowly.

This is why you keep your back to the wall.

After a few minutes of the game the player will learn the ultimate goal: get off this ship alive.  Every action between those first few minutes and the end of the game will be to forward that goal.  What made this awesome was that each step made logical sense.  I never felt like I was sidetracked or just doing something because someone told me to do it.  Occasionally I would wonder why the other characters weren’t attempting to help me, but eventually when one decided to help me he gets seriously injured (and eventually killed).

He didn't stand a chance.

This game is a mental roller coaster.  The writers were either creative geniuses or completely insane (probably both) because the stuff they managed to come up with is the kind of thing that my nightmares have nightmares about.

Seriously, this is my word of caution.  This game is not intended for kids.  Anyone under 14 will have nightmares for weeks, and even kids older than that will probably be left a bit skittish.  Please, please trust me on this one.

This is the quiet, pensive room. Imagine what everything else is like.

Overall I seriously enjoyed this game.  It was a breath of fresh air to an otherwise dull and predictable gaming world.  It was scary enough to keep me cautious, but fast enough and written well enough to keep me hooked.  For those old enough to handle the things they’ll see in this game, I can’t see a way to not appreciate its difference from other titles available right now.

I have to make a mention that the game explicitly says that the “marker”, a huge stone sculpture, causes hallucinations in people who are exposed to it.  The exact form of these hallucinations is not specified.  As I progressed through the game, however, I ended up playing a mental mini-game of “Real or Not Real” in which I would try to guess what was a hallucination and what was actually occurring.  Sometimes it was very obvious, sometimes it was much more difficult to tell.  The game didn’t end up giving any answers to this problem, and even if certain things are hallucinations they still appear very real and in great detail to the player.

Real or not real?

• Length - 6

For a purely single-player game this has a surprising amount of replay value.  The entire campaign will take about 10 hours to complete on easy.  Normally this would spell the end of the game, but Dead Space allows players to replay the campaign at a different difficulty level but with all of the weapons and items the player has picked up during the first playthrough.  There are a lot of upgrades that the player will likely have missed, so the gameplay experience through the second try can be completely different.

I enjoyed the game enough to justify a second playthrough, so I expect other players will as well.

• Frustration Factor - 5

Dead Space was designed to look and feel like the newer Resident Evil games.  The camera tends to stay over the player’s shoulder, the player cannot shoot unless aiming, and while the player is aiming movement is severely restricted.  This is fine, for the most part the game is manageable, but it can create some rather annoying situations.  For example, if an enemy gets too close to the player it can be difficult to target that enemy.  Generally, the player is only effective against an enemy who is at least 10 feet away.

Not good...

This means that if an enemy comes too close, the player has to turn around and run away before turning back and attacking.  This tactic can be extremely frustrating, especially when the player is trapped.  It is also ineffective against certain types of fast-moving enemies.

This also becomes a problem in zero gravity environments.  In these environments, the player moves even slower than in normal environments, which makes it almost impossible to reposition for quick movements.  Players can compensate for this by jumping from one area to another, but in that time the enemy can move as well, which can cause the player to lose sight of the enemy.

The player also has the ability to stomp on the ground.  This can be used to damage enemies or break open boxes.  However, the stomping mechanic is very difficult to control, very slow to complete, and impossible to stop once it has been started.  This can result in unnecessary damage to the player if he tries to stomp a nearby enemy, misses, then gets hit while recovering from the stomp.

That's probably a hit.

Aside from the controls, there was one section where I had no clue what to do and the game gave no indication as to how to approach the problem.  I had to plant a beacon on an asteroid.  This seems simple until the two huge moving blades come into the picture.  As soon as I stepped onto the asteroid, the blades would cut me apart.  I tried every tactic possible to avoid the blades but nothing worked.  Eventually I had to give in and look up what to do.  The internet told me to walk around to the other side of the asteroid.  I didn’t think of this because the walls around the asteroid were barely wide enough to fit my character through, and the asteroid creates the optical illusion that I would be unable to pass through the force field.

I hated this thing.

2.     Parental Notices

• Violence - 10

Dead Space is very violent.  The player will be fairly regularly attacked by necromorphs, which are zombie creatures that have long limbs.  The player is encouraged to shoot the necromorphs’ limbs off, which not only does extra damage but also slows down the necromorphs’ movement or attack speeds.

It's hard to get more clear than that.

Regardless of whether or not the player actively tries to shoot off limbs, odds are very high that the player will end up chopping up the enemy necromorph into pieces.  This is due to the fact that many of the weapons fire a wide-reaching projectile that can easily sever one or more limbs from a necromorph’s body.

25% less effective.

One of the weapons shoots out a circular saw that spins and hovers in the air, cutting anything it comes into contact with.  It is extremely effective at chopping up necromorphs and draws a lot of blood and gore.

Chunky.

Blood, gore, and other signs of violence are all around the ship.  Seriously, I could create a book with how many screenshots I took that included blood or gore in the environment.

Well, at least the zombies were nice enough to put the bodies in a corner.

There will be some more extreme examples of violence as well (yes, more extreme than what’s already been depicted).  Late in the game, the player watches as a mad prophet takes a large metal spike and shoves it into a civilian’s head.

Ow.

Necromorphs will occasionally find and murder survivors.  This is usually accompanied by lots of screaming and a lot of blood.

Death imminent.

Late in the game the player will find people (or pieces of them) that have begun to be absorbed into the necromorph material that lines the walls of the ship.  One of the more disturbing examples is of the top half of a man with what looks like tentacles or intestines hanging out from what should be his lower torso.  Instead, his skin and muscle tissue hangs from his chest.  Occasionally he will look up, grab the flaps of his skin and muscle, pull them open to reveal the tentacles, and scream.

How do you even imagine this stuff?

• Sexuality - 2

There were a number of very subtle sexual elements included in Dead Space.  Occasionally the player can find magazines with women in bathing suits on the cover.  These are meant to be parodies of magazines like Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition and other similar magazines.

I still don't understand the point of the swimsuit edition.

Late in the game the player can also enter some of the commanding officers’ rooms.  One room has a picture of what looks to be a woman in a bra posing seductively.  The picture is very low resolution, however, and easy to miss.

But why is it framed?

• Substances - 3

There are two examples of substances that the player can find.  The first, and most obvious, is the health vials that the player can find around the level and use.  The substance inside seems to be watery in nature and the specific amount depends on the size of the health vial.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

There is also a poison that the player has to make.  The poison is liquid when it is in the vial (similar to the health vials, but the liquid is red).  However, when the player uses the substance, it releases a poisonous gas that injures the necromorph growth.

• Gambling - 0

Gambling is not a factor in this game.

3.     Other Factors

• Mods - 0

There are no modding tools available for this game.

• Religion - 7

Religion plays a huge part in the central theme of this game.  It turns out that the ship that the game takes place on was created and manned by “Unitologists”, a very rich and influential pseudo-religion with a cult-like following.  It’s exactly like Scientology, but with different beliefs.  Unitology was founded by a guy who believed that the government covered up the fact that there is life elsewhere in the universe and that life is the key to the next stage of evolution.

Where is your god now?

In order to reach that next stage of evolution, followers of Unitology must be willing to die and be reborn.  Normal people would take this figuratively (it’s a phrase that many religious use), but the leaders of Unitology meant this literally.  Cue the necromorphs, who are interpreted to be the next stage of evolution.  One group of necromorphs kill you, the other group brings you back to life, just like the leaders of Unitology told their followers.

Reanimation in progress.

Unitology is described in detail in the game.  The more detail is revealed, the more it sounds exactly like Scientology.  There are four different tiers within the religion, each tier having greater access to the information that is hoarded by the religion (and the perks that go along with the rank).  In order to advance in rank, a member must first give money and power to the church.

Sound familiar?

One of the few survivors on the ship is absolute insane but works to forward the beliefs of the church.  The player frequently hears this maniac preaching nonsense over the communicator while attempting to murder the player.  Eventually the player watches as this insane minister of Unitology kills someone and prepares them to be turned into a necromorph.

Preparations.

• Anti-Law - 3

The Unitologists know that the planet that the game revolves around is considered “off-limits” by the government back on Earth.  No one, especially not average citizens, can legally approach the planet.  However, the Unitologists ignore the legal ramifications in their search for the marker.

The Unitologist religion is based on the belief that the founder was correct in his assertion that the government covered up the discovery of alien life.  The founder posed that the government purposefully hid or destroyed a “marker” in order to prevent humanity from finding out that there was something else sentient in the universe other than humans.  However, he never explained why the government would cover something like this up.

Because of his beliefs, Unitology has an inherent distrust (and sometimes outright hatred) for the government.

• Online Community - 0

There is no multiplayer game mode for this game.

• Extreme Sports - 3

For the most part, the player will move very slowly throughout the game.  There are two exceptions.  First, there will be a number of times when the player will enter a “zero gravity” environment.  The player’s boots are magnetic and will keep the player grounded to any surface.  However, the player can jump to distant surfaces rather easily.  The zero-gravity environment can be a bit disorienting, but I found it to be unique and extremely entertaining.

It's a bird! It's a plane!

The player will also have to venture out into “vacuums”, or spaces where there is no breathable atmosphere.  These types of environments are usually accompanied by zero-gravity environments.  The player will have an oxygen meter.  If the player's oxygen runs out, he suffocates and dies.

Note the oxygen meter on the back. It lets anyone behind Isaac know how long Isaac has before he suffocates.

• Magic - 2

Towards the end of the game the player gets to see the “Marker”, which is some sort of giant stone sculpture.  Somehow the marker is able to keep the necromorph boss thing from escaping the planet.  The player needs to put the marker back in its place on the planet’s surface to solve the necromorph problem.

When he does this, the marker is surrounded by magical flames.  None of this is even remotely technological or biological despite the rest of the game following a relatively “science-fiction” trend.

Can stone burn?

Other than this, magic is not a factor in this game.

• Miscellaneous - 8

Scary Images

This game is designed to be a “horror” game, so naturally there are going to be some moments that are designed specifically to scare the player.  While this isn’t the scariest game I have ever played, the atmosphere and ambiance are set up in a way that could easily scare someone who is not mentally prepared for the ordeal.

Certain moments were more scary / disgusting than others.  For example, in one section the player finds a civilian who has been blinded (presumably by necromorphs).  She is laying down on the ground next to what she thinks is another survivor, stroking the survivor’s back.  However, the player can see that she is actually stroking the bloody, mutilated torso of a body that has had its limbs removed.

Touch touch touch.

In the hospital wing, the player walks into a room with small surgery tanks.  He sees a woman performing surgery on a severely wounded man.  When the player takes a closer look, he can see that most of the man’s skin has been removed (he seems to be still alive) and that the woman is using a bone saw to hack into him.  She then turns back to the player, lifts the bone saw to her throat, and slits her own throat.

What about the Hippocratic oath? Or antisepsis?

Oh and the player later finds her alive, laughing hysterically at another dead body.  She’s completely unresponsive to anything the player does.

What's so funny?

Suicide

The woman mentioned before in the surgery tank was the best example of suicide in this game.  But the even more obvious one comes at the end of the game.  Isaac's girlfriend sent Isaac a video message, presumably right before the ship was overrun.  At the end of the game, it is revealed that she actually killed herself at the end of the message by injecting herself with some sort of poison.