Video Game Review, XBox 360: Dead Space
Dead Space is a title from summer 2008 that has come back to conversation after the release of Resident Evil 5. It’s upcoming sequel doesn’t hurt, either. It captured the hearts of many critics with its finely-tuned serving of cheap scares, disgusting monsters, and improvised future weaponry. But, while it was heaped with praise, it was criticized for not being original. Critics said that it was Resident Evil, but in outer space instead of a mansion, and with better controls. Those same critics generally agreed that there was no problem with that.
The player can move while shooting, after all.
Dead Space is cleanly divided into two modes: adventure and butchery. There is no blurring between the lines. When the player is shooting things in Dead Space, it is all he is doing. When the shooting is over, he will promptly return to exploring and puzzle-solving after picking up the money his adversaries were mysteriously carrying. In a way, its battles are set up like a turn-based Japanese RPG with random encounters.
The title’s monsters certainly sneak up on the player in a similar way to NES RPGs: a horrible caucophany of dissonant instruments replaces the traditional psychedelic swirl of colors as the onset of a combat scene is announced. Instead of browsing through command menues, the player defaults to running backwards and aiming at the nearest enemy limb. When the carnage is over, the floor is littered with loot - including currency - which the player will spend at the next vending machine to buy weapons and armor. Much of what propels Dead Space forward is rooted in the same things that propel Dragon Quest forward.
The enemy monsters in Dead Space are terrifying, because they never stop coming at the player. Dismembering an enemy’s head has little effect on it; some of the stronger creatures won’t miss a beat. Blasting their legs to bits with a rocket is only a minor inconvenience. Without legs or a head, they can still crawl, and they still have claws. Dead Space’s monsters need to be completely destroyed before they will stop. Complicating the issue is that the monsters are cruelly spindly and skinny; the player needs to shoot their arms off, but their arms are hard to hit, and they keep waving around erratically. As a final, poetic note, there is only one weapon in the game that is actually a military gun. All of Dead Space’s other weapons are mining and maintenance implements. They carry with them the quirks of tools not designed for killing.
Dead Space carries its scripted scenarios with meticulous design. No two fights against the monsters are the same. The earliest fights are in corridors, where it is easy to shoot the enemies down while they are running straight forward. The game graduates to corridors with air vents, where, suddenly, the monsters can come from any direction - even straight above - and putting one’s back to the wall does not ensure safety. There are later battles in massive, zero-gravity hangers in three dimensions, and there are the same battles in outer space, where the player is as threatened by suffocation as he is poisonous barbs or exploding globs of acid. So, while Dead Space’s action scenes are as obviously-engineered as its sliding block puzzles, they are well-made enough that over-designing works in its favor.
As an added bonus, Dead Space features boss fights, which many modern action games leave out. Some are better than others, but the best are some of the most exciting battles in action gaming.
My largest issue with Dead Space is its overwhelming sense of hopelessness. The game takes place in a run-down, slime-soaked space station with dismembered corpses and angry monsters in every direction (there is an obvious parallel to Resident Evil’s famous mansion). There is no positive imagery in the game. Almost every other human being in the game world is doing something disturbing, such as shooting herself in the head, or nursing the wound that has impaled him to the ceiling (in the latter example, the player can hear his pathetic moans for twenty-five minutes while exploring a ransacked cargo bay). The game’s other characters - the people who are there to construct a narrative, and not to make the game gross - are either: villains, insignificant to the story, or are going to die soon. Dead Space is a truly, unrelentingly depressing game.
As dark as it is, Dead Space is as good as horror-action video games can be. Even though the game somehow makes the player feel strangely unhappy as he plays it, it rests assured that he won’t be able to resist coming back for more. Not only are its action sequences phenomenal, but the technology powering it isn’t too bad, and its simple puzzles are pretty creative. It might be a little bit like Resident Evil, but it’s a little bit better.
Rating: 
/ 5