Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Solid"

The worst thing about such a heavily invested project like Dead Space (DS), strangely, is its marketing. EA's commonplace screen-shots and pale trailers seemingly counteracted critics' optimistic forecasts and resulted in the indifference from fans of the genre at first. However, this glacial attitude was melted away soon after its debut.

The story in DS is a true stereotype of thrillers: an adventure of a spacecraft engineer named Isaac Clarke, who is working for Concordance Extraction Corporation (C.E.C), a large corporation in the field of mining (on a galactic scale, of course). One day, C.E.C receives an anonymous message from the USG Ishimura (Planet Cracker), their enormous exploiting ship which is capable of draining resources of a whole planet as well as destroying it. Suspecting that Ishimura has some technological difficulties, the company sends Isaac and four other engineers to the location of the ship. At the same time, Isaac gets a video tape recording the happening on Ishimura from his ex-girlfriend Nicole Brennan, who happens to be on board. Soon after their arrival, Isaac's team realizing the whole crew has been savagely massacred by the space aliens called Necromorph. Together with other survivors, Isaac finds himself stuck in a fatal situation when the USG Kellion, the only hope of escape, has been totally destroyed.

Players are separated from the rest of the squad right at the beginning; therefore, they have to face the vile aliens on their own. Moreover, the scare not only stems from this solitude or the gruesome looking of the creatures, but also their resilience against your firearms. Theoretically, it is impossible to kill these parasites without separating them from the bodies they are clinging to. In addition, behind their terrifying appearance is a cunning AI which allows them to feign death, take advantage of obstacles to cover themselves or even cooperate with each other to ambush you. As a result, DS succeeds in casting a constant tension on its players while leading them through deathly, stuffy corridors of the spacecraft without revealing what may happen at any moment.

DS does inherit successful features of previous thrillers (Resident Evil 4 and Cold Fear) such as "over the shoulder", third-person angle and laser orienting weapons. However, its new contribution is the intuitive interface in which Isaac's health bar is integrated into his space armor while maps and menu items can be freely rotated in 3D to make observation more comfortable. On the other hand, in order to simplify the way finding part, DS provides a special guiding device which can highlight the path on the surface.

Role playing factors in DS involves gathering money from defeated foes to upgrade or craft new gears and buying ammunition through the automatic selling machines scattered on the ship. Consequently, the game stimulates players to discover the maps thoroughly to search for equipments which will prove priceless against the deadly creatures. Besides, Isaac also possesses special skills such as slowing the time or manipulating objects from a distance, which he will use in solving puzzles, disabling traps or even battling the Necromorphs. Even more intriguingly, these powers can be upgraded just like in any Role playing games.

Graphic quality is equal to that of the game play. Next-gen power is satisfactorily spent on perspective drawing, light and motion effects and animation. The only flaw is probably the annoying camera angle whenever Isaac uses his terminating kicks, which prevents us from having an overview. Audio in game consists mainly of sound effects such as gun fires, the nasty sounds of the alien beasts and the desperate screams of victims. Overall, these effects are in harmony with the general atmosphere.

To sum up, DS is a quality Action-Thriller which came out in time, right after the disappointing Silent Hill (Homecoming) and far enough before Resident Evil 5.