Dead Space is an over-the-shoulder third person survival horror game set on the USG Ishimura, a mining ship in deep space. The game has a similar perspective to games such as Gears of War and Resident Evil 5 and puts in the shoes of the protagonist Isaac Clarke, a communications engineer part of the crew tasked with investigating the radio silence from the ship. The game’s inspiration is blatantly owed a lot to the film Event Horizon and straight from the off the game is very dark and tricky to see around sufficiently. It also thrusts you into the action straight from the off and you are cast into a very dark corridor and attacked by a host of creatures even before you even have a weapon. Another film which springs to mind is Aliens as the long, badly lit corridors combined with alien creatures jumping out at you from ventilation shafts and floor gratings. Terrifying stuff. In accordance with the atmosphere, Dead Space also has sections of the game which encourage you to fight and fulfil objective in Zero Gravity. It took me a while to get used to this but it’s actually a very intuitive and fun experience albeit jumping around and having horizons adjusted like a camera on a washing line can induce slight symptoms of motion sickness.

The controls in the game are relatively easy to get used to, after all you need to do is run, shoot and operate mechanical doors, yet lots of survival horror games like to over complicate matters by implementing stupid controls which are so specific yet you could accidentally hit the wrong button in the midst of a panic attack. Dead Space at least doesn’t have that problem as the specific weapons if pressed during a spontaneous attack would actually be beneficial. For example one of the “weapons” you acquire is a stasis module that can turn a single target into bullet time, which is handy if you’re starting to get overwhelmed. The other aspect of this game that is very beneficial compared to Resident Evil 4 & 5 is the ability to aim AND move. So you can creep around a corner with your gun out as opposed to the acquisition of concrete boots the instant your gun is raised in Res4.

The weapons for the best part are quite iffy. Arguably the best weapon in the game is the first one you pick up as throughout the game you can upgrade weaponry and armour with gold nodes which unlock in Final Fantasy style crystal grid. Hoarding lots of these nodes can turn a simple fusion cutter into a veritable laser cannon in a few increments which I suppose stops the game being as scary as it’s beginning. Don’t get me wrong, the fright factor remains constant the entire game and the edge of your seat is more populated than the rear, but there’s something not as scary running about as a Star Wars Stormtrooper armed with a minigun of justice. The sawblade and the line gun are amusing weapons nonetheless as I found myself Autistically sawing off necromorph limbs like some sick psychopath and for that reason this was found to be relatively cathartic.

The game is totally without fault however as various parts of it force you take the gunner seat of the Ishimura and fight of waves of asteroids coming towards the main hull. It has to be said that this part of the game is sheer bollocks. The guns overheat after two shots if you’re trigger happy like myself which is less than helpful especially when the universe decided to throw an intergalactic sized buckshot at your face. Just imagine trying to stop all 80,000 people exiting Wembley Stadium through the same turnstile armed only with a tennis ball gun which stops every two balls. Yes, it’s that bloody stupid and impossible. Yet some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to have an achievement for doing that with the hull integrity remaining above 50%, well I would if I was equipped with a decent weapon. And to top it off the commander is yelling orders at you while it’s happening, which to be honest induced some impromptu racism as the entire sequence is very frustrating.

The storyline does indeed start off really well and immerses yourself into the back story very quickly but I can’t deny that throughout the twists and turns you will encounter, it does sort of descend from a decent Event Horizon story into sheer stupidity and utter confusion unless you stringently watch every cut scene as if your were in an online Where’s Wally competition.

All in all Dead Space is a very good game and has fanatastically detailed environments to play a decent survival horror in HD and the enemies and surroundings add to a really good mix of shooting and horror. If you like the film Even Horizon and enjoy Silent Hill/Resident Evil games then this is definitely a recommended title. Would also recommend ironing out a few creases of frustration that this game also has before releasing a sequel but a sequel would be well received.