Dead Space
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

There’s an on-going discussion in the more pretentious corners of the Internet, where floppy-fringed journalists like myself are to be found constantly waging over one argument; are computer games an art form?

I say yes, based on nought but the idea that they are a creative process designed by a group of individuals in an attempt to elicit an emotional response.

There are those who disagree with that argument, often on the basis that no computer game anywhere has ever made anyone feel anything except bored. It’s to those people I offer up Dead Space as proof of their foolishness, because Dead Space is a game that can definitely make you feel something. It can make you feel afraid.

Or at least, it can if you’re willing to give it a chance to do so.

Unfortunately, Dead Space isn’t the type of game that really encourages you to give it a chance based on first impressions. It has a rather pastiched plot that seems to be an equal mix of Event Horizon and System Shock 2, the presentation seems to focus too much on the gory side of horror to really scare a more experienced survival horror fan and the controls are noticeably wonky from the start.

Story:

As we mentioned before, the core premise for the game isn’t anything groundbreaking to fans of either games or cinema. There’s this really big spaceship in orbit about this planet which suddenly sends out a distress call and you’re sent to investigate. When you get to the ship, which was in the process of breaking up the planet it was orbiting and salvaging the raw materials, you find that almost everyone is dead and – we didn’t see this coming, honest – there are aliens and zombies everywhere.

To brush off the totality of the plot so lightly is a touch on the mean side perhaps as there is actually some decent narrative that creeps out as the plot ticks over, but early on the game seems fairly basic. Things take a turn for the more emotional when your character, Issac, starts dropping hints about how he’s looking for a woman named Nicole who is supposed to be stationed on the planetbreaker – but discussing that would be to venture into Spoilerville.

As things go on and you venture further into the ship, the details of the plot start to clarify quite gruesomely and you learn more about the alien lifeform, called the Necrophage, how it came to be on the ship and what it is exactly. Again though; Spoilerville, population: not us, please.

All you really need to know early in the game though is that there are strange creatures and parasitic alien things on board and they’ve got one weakness – dismemberment. The enemies don’t take much damage from bodyshots in Dead Space and while a headshot can knock the foe’s skull clean off, that won’t stop him either. Instead, you’ve got to knock the limbs off and cause as much bleeding as you can by aiming for the elbows, crotch and knees. Oh, this is going to be fun!

Gameplay:

Dead Space isn’t under any illusions thankfully and it knows exactly what it is and how clichéd the premise is, so it doesn’t waste time getting started. It doesn’t bombard you with needless information or backstory, it just chucks you straight into the action.

Thus, within the first few minutes you find yourself separated from your team and wandering through the broken down, too-dimly-lit innards of the ship. The adrenaline starts pumping through chase sequences and early combats, but you quickly get to grips with your basic inventory and guns.

Dead Space doesn’t stop there though and the developers immediately start going to lengths to work in new mechanics, abilities and ideas. The dev team want you to know that this isn’t just Resident Evil in space – there’s much more going on under the hood.

Just after you’ve got your head around the holographic interface that projects in front of the player (and won’t pause the game, be warned) the game starts throwing new abilities at you.

Issac soon gains the Statis and Kinesis abilities which allow him to slow-down and manipulate his environment respectively and are as useful in puzzle-solving as they are in combat. Statis in particular is handy for slowing down the faster enemies and giving yourself chance to draw a bead on those whip-cracking elbows.

Then, just as you’ve got these new powers under control the game starts playing around with the level design and giving you new environments. Dark and dreary corridors aren’t all Dead Space has to offer – there are zero-gravity areas and even spacewalks through the damaged sectors. You’ll have to watch your oxygen meter carefully in those latter areas too.

It may sound a lot to throw at players, but Dead Space is a detailed and perfectly paced game and there’s a lot to slow you down on the way and stop you being overwhelmed. As you explore you’ll find automated stores where you can buy supplies, workrooms where you can upgrade your weapons and suit and side-areas to search.

That said, we’ll admit that we spent most of our time deciphering the words that the absent crew have written all over the ship, which is an excellent touch. The remarks range from goodbyes and prayers to crazed ramblings and entire conversations about how the children have all been eaten. Chilling stuff made all the more effective by the fact that you never see a pen on the whole ship – what were they writing with?

However, the level design does fall down in a few places and the early stages of the game are definitely fraught with predictable objectives and NPC reliance. Hey, guess what – the engine is broken and we’re out of fuel and you’re the only one who can fix it even though you only need to pull three switches?

These are some of the weakest moments of the game on a whole and it’s a little disappointing to see that it gives you all these fun tools and environments to play through, then gives you same-old tasks and demands that you traverse each level twice. Returning to the tram at the start of each level may be good cardiovascular exercise in real life, but re-runs in games quickly get old.

Conclusions:

Dead Space isn’t an easy game to like and a lot of that is down to one very simple thing; the controls. The root of those control problems? Three words: it’s a port.

That Dead Space was designed as a console game is pretty obvious and is evidenced by everything from the over the shoulder camera angle right through to the absence of a quicksave button. Take heart though; it isn’t all bad.

Some console games have a design that can make the move to the PC platform quite easily and for the most part Dead Space is one of those games. The camera angle, while normally used more for console shooters, does a good job of limiting your field of view and making the game a bit scarier. It also gives you the field of view to make dismemberment easier. The savegame system works too – it’s a hallmark of the genre.

Even though the general design of the game has ported over just fine though, there are still some technical issues which hold it back. Some of these are little more than just occasional annoyances, like the load times which are very long

The controls however are a totally different matter; they are just plain awful. They are sticky, unresponsive and stiff – all of which would be leading in to a very crude joke about necrophilia if we weren’t such serious journalists. Snigger.

Admittedly, the problem isn’t as massive as it could be and once you get to grips with the stiffness of the mouse then you won’t have problems with lopping off limbs with your lasers and lumps of lead – but it’ll always be third nature rather than first or second. The problem isn’t only with the aiming either, it’s with the navigation too as turning and strafing isn’t as smooth as you might expect it to be. It’s clear the game would just play smoother and easier if it was being handled with a gamepad and not a mouse.

In the moment-to-moment gameplay, it isn’t a huge problem. It’s still easily possible to shoot off legs, arms and heads and it’s just as easy to stomp those skulls and pistol-whip those alien beasties in the elbows until the rotten limbs litter the floor. When you get into some of the nitty-gritty though; the puzzles and areas, then it starts to become more of an issue.

Take the zero-g rooms, for example. These areas could be fun and easy and interesting as you run up and down the walls and explore the effects and usefulness of directional gravity. Except it isn’t like that at all and you can’t really run up and down the walls as you might hope – instead you have to aim at and launch yourself onto certain surfaces.

That’s fine when you’re shooting from the floor up towards the ceiling, but it’s a little more irritating when you’re standing where the wall meets the floor and can’t simply walk from one to the other. You have to back-up and jump the corner instead.

It’s a problem; a real mix of love and hate because the game really is very enjoyable, fun and scary except for these control problems – and even that is a problem which is mostly tolerable and manageable. Like my hair.

It doesn’t always work, but one thing Dead Space definitely does is try – and that’s important. In the past Electronic Arts has been slated for spewing out endless refreshes of the core franchises, but over the past year or so we’ve seen the company start to change that where it can with games like Spore. Dead Space is another important stage in that process, using a variety of gameplay styles and clever little tricks to do so.

Dead Space isn’t a perfect game. The controls are sticky, the levels are sometimes padded out needlessly and the atmosphere occasionally loses its scary edge – but it has strengths too. The graphics and presentation are top-notch, the violence is brutal and engaging and the plot is deeper than you’d expect. In the end, the game is just plain fun, so while it may not be to everyone’s cup of tea it certainly won’t leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Gameplay: 6
Features: 7
Graphics: 8
Replayability: 8

Overall: 7/10