Dead Space Review

What can I say about Dead Space that hasn’t been said already? It’s awesome. From the first time you see the back of Isaac Clark to his crew mates on their little repair dingy spaceship approaching the USG Ishimura, you know at the moment, damn this is going to be good.

If there is a need to even begin to describe the story of Dead Space you should be ashamed. You should have been following the story from the previews by now or have already played through the game, twice. But in case you don’t know the story, let me summarize it for you.

This story takes place hundreds of years in the future where planet Earth has ran out of natural resources and has created huge spaceships to venture into space and start mining planets by literally “cracking them”. You take the place of an engineer named Issac Clark, who is sent to repair the “Planet Cracker”, which is the USG Ishimura. The USG Ishimura is the flag ship in the fleet of planet crackers, it’s the biggest one out there. You and your crew are sent to the Ishimura to repair what is assumed to be a damaged communications array (The USG Ishimura has been silent and has gone “dark” for a week or so).

From then on Issacs tale goes downhill.
You get to meet the multi-limbed mutated crew members that want to rip your face off and somehow make your way off the ship.

I must say, this may be the scariest game I have ever played. And I’m saying that even after a few Silent Hills and Blood Curses, Dead Space did me in. It’s riddled with plenty of jump scares that have been designed from the ground up to scare the poop out of you. The puzzles built into the game play using what is called “Stasis” (which makes things move slower) and it's freakin brilliant, and I have to admit that the kinesis you have in the game is more enjoyable than in Star Wars: TFU. An example of a puzzle that uses Stasis will be like, There’s a door that is glitched and it keeps on slamming shut and opening at a speed that would hurt you if you tried to regularly stroll through, you would have to slow it down (using Stasis) to walk through.

Ok poor example, but still awesome.

Anyways, Dead Space was well worth the money. Awesome scares, good controls, and strategic dismemberment takes a bit to get used to but its fun. The game definitely has lived up to its “this will scare the shit outta you" hype. So it’s a buy!

Grade: A

- Justin