Dead Space

The new king of survival horror?

For the last few years Capcom was the king publisher when it came to Survival horror games with the fantastic Resident Evil franchise. There have been franchises that have tried, Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark, Fear. All these have tried and failed to topple the mighty Evil franchise.

Well those little bust publishers that are EA have decided to throw their two cents worth into this genre and that title is Dead Space.

Promotion and build up to the game’s release has been cleverly marketed - a comic strip series showing on the PSN store(U.S only) and Xbox live plus an Animated Movie released on DVD and BLU-RAY, the excellent "Dead Space Downfall") serve as a prequel story that leads up to the game’s events. And this is where the fun really begins.

You play Issac Clarke (named after two Sc-fi writing greats, Arthur C. Clarke and Issac Asimov), a mining engineer sent to do a repair mission on the U.S.G Ishimura; a mining ship (which is also known as a ’planet cracker’) which has unearthed and brought on ship an alien artifact. Or is it?
When Issac arrives he realises he is not alone and the crew of the Ishimura have been turned into hideous creatures. So it begins with you trying to restore parts of the ship to running order and at the same time finding out what happened to the crew(there is also a hidden agenda and extra purpose why Issac is here but I won’t spoil it for you).

The graphics are just amazing and the lighting gives the metal corridors and rooms a menacing feel with blood stains splattered everywhere and to go with the amazing graphics is the even better sound. Every scratch, hiss, clank and bang is used to amazing and startlingly good effect, special mention has to be when you are on the outside of the ship and all you can hear is Issac’s heavy breathing and the muted sounds because of the envelope of space which consumes your surroundings.

The controls are very slick and easy to handle, they are very similar to Resident Evil 4 but with one added bonus, the weapons can be chosen in real time with the D pad. Also, all menus come up as a holographic image in front of Issac, so for example if you are trying to pick an item from your inventory and you see one of the many creatures that you will encounter rushing towards you, you can simply raise your weapon to aim and the hologram will disappear.

There is no hud in the game, if you raise your weapon a little holographic image sits on your weapon telling you how many rounds you have left. Your health bar is represented by your suit. This then gives you the full screen - no watching the bottom left of your screen to see how many rounds or health you have. This makes the game even more immersive and the better for it.

The creatures are hideous and horrific creations and they take a lot to be taken down; strategic dismemberment is the name of the game here. If you shoot their head off they will still come at you the same with their arms, the trick is to take out there legs then arms and head. This is deliciously and sickly done, with limbs and blood spraying everywhere.

Your weapons are all mining tools which make a nice change from the norm and all have alternative uses(this i will let you find out for yourselves). Also your suit gets upgrades with stasis and telekenesis abilities and you will find yourself using stasis to freeze your enemies and then watch their limbs fly off in slow motion as you lay fire into them.

Talking about slow motion now we come to what I regard as one of the games major highlights - Zero G (or Zero gravity for the non science people out there). The way items, body parts and blood move is very realistic and a visual highlight of the game, and there are many. Along your way through the ship you pick up "logs", there are three variations of these - video,text and audio - all filling in gaps of the story and also giving hints how to progress through the game so do not skip these, do so at your peril. The puzzles are quiet easy if thought provoking and some will use stasis or telekenesis abilities at times.

So what we have is a great package of a visual, increasing horror. Imagine if someone got the films The Thing, Aliens and Event Horizon and threw them in a blender, this game would be close to the result. It is a gripping, scary, dark and thought provoking game and hopefully a beginning of a new franchise.

Is this the new king of survival horror? In short, yes, and the best survival horror game on the next gen console market yet. Resident Evil 5 the bar has been risen, good luck.

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