'Dead Space' is an OK game that could be really great. There's very little about it that is actively offensive, the game is fun, looks good, and has enough unqiue ideas of it's own to be interesting for the runtime, but it feels a little forgettable due to how poorly it attempts to grasp an effective horror direction.
Presentation is where the game shines the most, textures, shadows and reflections still look great even if they lack the variety of, say, 'Mirror's Edge'. Designs all around are great, all the architecture has an almost 'space brutalist' quality to it, and all the tools as well as armour are very unique. The diagetic GUI is easily the best work here, it's clever and immersive, a truly natural evolution of the semi-transparent GUIs found in older horror games like 'System Shock 2'.
Speaking of, 'Dead Space' was supposedly intended earlier in conception as a sequel to 'Shock 2', until the developers saw Capcom's 'Resident Evil 4' and decided to make something similar, but in space. Now having finished the game, I'm pretty reinforced that this wasn't a great idea. 'Dead Space' is grotesque, violent and horrifying—much like Capcom's campy shooter—but isn't scary, which is a problem given just how seriously the game takes itself. 'Resident Evil 4' worked because it was self-aware and silly, when you have a game playing the relentless pace and excessive gore straight with the intention to scare it doesn't come across so great. Visceral Games amazing A/V work would make for a great atmosphere but it never gets the opportunity to breathe. There's no building tension or sense of pacing, it's all just endless limbs flying and screaming which eventually gets more numbing than unnerving, this coming from a person who is is normally really easily shocked with gore. It's not about how horrific your imagery is, but how you frame it, and the action oriented approach with tight controls makes 'Dead Space' play more like 'Doom' than 'Silent Hill'. This isn't to say the game is bad, it's just shallower and more boring than it could have been with some slower pacing, and this is probably why so much of it just seems to be white noise for my memory.
So while 'Dead Space' is a terrible horror game, as a shooter, it's pretty good! The physics and slow-motion mechanics are givens but the zero-gravity is really different and used in some super creative ways. The set pieces don't distrupt the core gameplay loop, actually enforcing core lessons from the design, and it's really nice to be have precision shooting demanded on humanoid body parts that aren't the head. The necromorphs are really fun to fight, but you really must play on hard mode. I played on it while only using the starting plasma cutter and it was still too easy to feel truly tense, so I can't imagine how it feels on the easier modes.
Narratively, the game is mostly compelling, but the characters are really aggressive and antagonistic to each other, and at times it's just beyond sensibility which can make them pretty frustraiting. The plot has some good enough intrigue to make the macguffin chase it turns into feel more consequential, but it's really let down by the protagonist. Isaac Clarke might have a name which assures us Visceral Games have good taste in literature but his motivations are basically void and his relationship with Nicole is hard to get invested in given how shallow and generic they both are.
I've heard people compare this series to Ridley Scott's film 'Alien', and having now played it's first entry I'm completely baffled. I'm starting to think people who make this comparison haven't actually seen the movie, because 'Alien' was all about stillness and subtlety, qualities which 'Dead Space' hardly possess! This doesn't make it bad, though! 'Dead Space' is a lot of fun and has great presentation, but it really did have more potential and I was pretty sad that it never reached the level of still tension that people said it would. For all these flaws—and the terrible PC port, please use a controller if you wanna play this lol—there's a lot worth seeing here, even if it could have been better.
Presentation is where the game shines the most, textures, shadows and reflections still look great even if they lack the variety of, say, 'Mirror's Edge'. Designs all around are great, all the architecture has an almost 'space brutalist' quality to it, and all the tools as well as armour are very unique. The diagetic GUI is easily the best work here, it's clever and immersive, a truly natural evolution of the semi-transparent GUIs found in older horror games like 'System Shock 2'.
Speaking of, 'Dead Space' was supposedly intended earlier in conception as a sequel to 'Shock 2', until the developers saw Capcom's 'Resident Evil 4' and decided to make something similar, but in space. Now having finished the game, I'm pretty reinforced that this wasn't a great idea. 'Dead Space' is grotesque, violent and horrifying—much like Capcom's campy shooter—but isn't scary, which is a problem given just how seriously the game takes itself. 'Resident Evil 4' worked because it was self-aware and silly, when you have a game playing the relentless pace and excessive gore straight with the intention to scare it doesn't come across so great. Visceral Games amazing A/V work would make for a great atmosphere but it never gets the opportunity to breathe. There's no building tension or sense of pacing, it's all just endless limbs flying and screaming which eventually gets more numbing than unnerving, this coming from a person who is is normally really easily shocked with gore. It's not about how horrific your imagery is, but how you frame it, and the action oriented approach with tight controls makes 'Dead Space' play more like 'Doom' than 'Silent Hill'. This isn't to say the game is bad, it's just shallower and more boring than it could have been with some slower pacing, and this is probably why so much of it just seems to be white noise for my memory.
So while 'Dead Space' is a terrible horror game, as a shooter, it's pretty good! The physics and slow-motion mechanics are givens but the zero-gravity is really different and used in some super creative ways. The set pieces don't distrupt the core gameplay loop, actually enforcing core lessons from the design, and it's really nice to be have precision shooting demanded on humanoid body parts that aren't the head. The necromorphs are really fun to fight, but you really must play on hard mode. I played on it while only using the starting plasma cutter and it was still too easy to feel truly tense, so I can't imagine how it feels on the easier modes.
Narratively, the game is mostly compelling, but the characters are really aggressive and antagonistic to each other, and at times it's just beyond sensibility which can make them pretty frustraiting. The plot has some good enough intrigue to make the macguffin chase it turns into feel more consequential, but it's really let down by the protagonist. Isaac Clarke might have a name which assures us Visceral Games have good taste in literature but his motivations are basically void and his relationship with Nicole is hard to get invested in given how shallow and generic they both are.
I've heard people compare this series to Ridley Scott's film 'Alien', and having now played it's first entry I'm completely baffled. I'm starting to think people who make this comparison haven't actually seen the movie, because 'Alien' was all about stillness and subtlety, qualities which 'Dead Space' hardly possess! This doesn't make it bad, though! 'Dead Space' is a lot of fun and has great presentation, but it really did have more potential and I was pretty sad that it never reached the level of still tension that people said it would. For all these flaws—and the terrible PC port, please use a controller if you wanna play this lol—there's a lot worth seeing here, even if it could have been better.
danrokane
9 months ago