Dead Space review

What do you get when you mix System Shock 2 (a great, but old graphically game), John Carpenter's 1982 movie, "The Thing," the 1997 movie, Event Horizon, and Resident Evil 4?

System Shock 2

+
The Thing

+
Event Horizon

+
Resident Evil 4

=

Dead Space. 


Like System Shock 2, this game takes place on a spaceship, the USG Ishimaru. You are sent in for a routine repair. You go in everyone welcomes you, you fix the ship then leave with a few beers for the road. The end. 

The welcoming committee

Ohai.

The aiming system is a over the shoulder view that is very like Resident Evil 4. Except your lifebar is displayed on your spine and a floating ammo counter appears over your mining tool when aiming. 

This game deviates from traditional games, since most your weapons are tools used for deep space mining (saws and such) and the enemies are amazingly resilient. 

Unless you cut off their limbs of course. Note: The head doesn't count. The first time I cut off a head, the bastard flailed around his scythe for arms and eviscerated me. Limb dismemberment is an integral part of this game. Cut off their legs to slow them down, cut off their arms to reduce their weapons...

The developers were made to study pictures of car crash victims in order to design the models (according to Wikipedia)... D:

Also to note: there are many many death animations for your character which are all quite gruesome. 

This game is scary as hell. Like shit your pants scary. You can hear your character's heart beating rapidly, but sometimes I mistake that as my own. 

And I play a lot of horror games (FEAR, Afraid of Monsters, Stalker, etc.).


Afraid of Monsters: The previous holder of shit your pants scary. 

The music and the atmosphere will have you tense for the whole game. 

Also there are really cool parts of the game where you can fight in zero gravity (you can jump on surfaces with your magnetic boots and the world flips...) also there are airless vacuums where you can hear your character's labored breathing while completely silent aliens surprise you. 


Wiiiiiii!

The main problem with the PC Port for this game (there is a Xbox 360 version and a Playstation 3 version, also a Wii version...jkjk), is that the mouse is so incredibly slow when you first start.

Going to Options->Visuals in game and turning off VSYNC will fix this major major problem. If you have an LCD monitor, it may screw up a bit, so alt tab to your desktop and put VSYNC on in your NVIDIA control panel or ATI catalyst panel. That way, the in-game VSYNC is turned off, which is the only thing screwing up the mouse. 

So yeah, play this game, in a dark room, scream, stop playing it, dread to play it, go back, piss your pants, etc etc, win awards, do a barrel roll, chop chop, stomp on bodies, AND LISTEN TO THE WHISPERS, OH WHY DO THEY WHISPER TO ME? 
/ [Doormat]


What's that Yorick? Kill them all?

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