Review: Dead Space (360)

Background

EA’s Redwood Shores studio has brought forth another addition to the survival horror genre with Dead Space. Other games from this studio include The Simpsons Game, The Godfather and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07. The entry into the survival horror scene is new for this studio, which gives them the opportunity to explore new ideas without remaining faithful to any previous intellectual property.

The Story

Dead Space’s story is a little bit like Half-Life meets DOOM III. The HL part comes in because, instead of being a big, bad, ‘roid-driven space marine, you’re a mute space engineer (maybe Isaac’s last name is Freeman). It’s also part DOOM III because, unlike HL, this game takes place in space and has abominations. We’ll throw in a little Halo to the mix because the enemies are just as disgusting as the Flood. So, if you can imagine a little bit of those three games rolled in to one, you have the general idea of Dead Space; the mute protagonist engineer and his crew responds to a distress call from a ship that is badly damaged, arrives to meet the hordes of hell and – just like Halo’s Flood – the baddies aren’t dead when you think they should be.

The Good

As I mentioned in last week’s preview, the graphics in this game are SUPERB. The enemies are well modeled, the environment (although very similar to OTHER games like this) is drawn beautifully and definitely sets the stage for a survival horror game, and the effects are wonderful. EA has visually impressed and allows the player to really immerse themself in the game.

Another great feature of this game is the menu system. They’ve created a menu HUD that is basically a laser screen that displays in front of Isaac. It’s hard to describe, so just imagine that new HP/ASU plastic screen popping up in front of your face, except that there’s no physical screen. You can rotate around and look at the display from the back and he’ll move his head to look at each individual item within the inventory. It’s almost so good that it’s gimmicky, but instead it’s a subtle enough feature that it’s cool.

The sound, as I mentioned last week, is definitely amazing. TV speakers do it no justice, and certainly if you’ve found this blog, you’re beyond that. If not, however, shame on you – go buy surround sound! Again, EA put the perfect amount of ambient sound in to heighten the tension and not make it laughable.

The weapons are a lot of fun to play with. If you thought the Gears saw was cool, then check out the Ripper! I’m not sure exactly the physics of the game, but who cares! Apparently in the future, space engineers have a need for some really strange tools. Gone are the days of Craftsman wrenches; long live the flamethrower…for, uh, welding purposes and such!

As frustrating as save points can be in other games like this, EA decided to add in mini-checkpoints. This helped to save a bit of time so that I didn’t have to run back through a bunch of hall ways and kill some minor baddies leading up to a boss. Good work on taking some of the frustration out.

The Bad

I can’t help but get the feeling that I’ve played this game before. Seriously, if anyone out there has played the three aforementioned games, you’ve played this game. I’m sure the Aliens games were also similar. If EA wasn’t planning on reinventing the genre, good, because the didn’t. Props to giving the genre a new IP to work with and adding some elements that haven’t been done yet.

The map. I’ve looked at it twice. I think it’s so unhelpful. It looks like it’s trying to be a 3D version of the original DOOM map from way back in the day, but I got really confused looking at it. It just didn’t seem to be very intuitive.

The Ugly

Nothing is really purely “ugly” in the game. I know I’ve said it before, but the worst part about this game is the tired story. Running around to complete an objective from Commander Keyes Kendra Daniels (a member of your crew) Some of the bosses were too easy. Sure, I might have died a couple times, but once you figure out the pattern of the attacks, it’s almost too simple to kill the bosses.

Conclusion

Billing itself as a “strategic dismemberment”, there’s really only a little bit of strategy necessary to the dismemberment. In spite of the tired story, the game is fun and scary. The graphics and sound do a great job at creating a scary and intense atmosphere, and altogether, the game is good. EA put out a great title and hopefully they’ll continue to develop this IP. Maybe one day we’ll get coop!