Last Impressions: Dead Space

This is my full review of Dead Space 1, the survival horror-3rd person shooter, from Visceral games and published by EA.

Dead Space is advertised as a survival horror game but sadly does not live up to the potential scares as something like Slender does. On the other hand some of the game's mechanics can instill a real fear in the player. If I had to sum up Dead Space in a quick statement it would have to be: badly paced. A more detailed explanation of my pithy review after the jump.
I decided to separate my thoughts into headings to simplify my thoughts and your navigation. (for the record I played this on the 360)

Mechanics: I have heard that the point of a horror game is to have crappy controls thus instilling in the player a sense of urgency; I find that argument absolutely insane, to give games a break because their controls are horrible AND its a horror game does not make any sense to me. No matter what controls should be straight forward and (relatively) simple. The controls in dead space are not complex nor sticky you'll be happy to learn but rather attempt to instill more fear in the player as he wanders around the wrecked ship. This works to some degree but is lost when the atmosphere as a whole is broken. Controller wise the mechanics work but there are several better, more common options that can be used to make the game flow easier.

Speaking of flow,  liquid can't flow in space, space is in free fall BAM perfect segue to the zero mechanic. which I find amazing and appropriately confusing, in a good way. Zero G induces a sense of not knowing which way is "up" or "down" Dead Space does this very well and in fact makes the game confusing and annoying (in a good way) simulating a little bit of real life.

Batman Arkum Asylum had Scarecrow gives the player as Batman a "Gameover" screen, a sort of false positive. This is a great example of using meta-game applications to induce fear or a sense of frantic nature in the player. Dead Space kind of misses the bulls eye but hits the target as a whole by using a limited number of saves. This, I think, is to prevent save scumming but also adds a hardcore approach to the game. And it succeeds but I never felt pressed like I do in a game where there is choice. In Fallout or The Walking Dead I can see save scumming but in this game where there are no choices only deaths it does nothing to add to the tension. In fact I felt myself saving more and more often and had to force myself not to save some times.

Atmosphere: The atmosphere of a horror game is the ultimate deciding factor. For me there was no atmosphere (haha space joke), this may have been because I was playing in my dorm room where people congregate. The atmosphere is horribly passed on top of being ruined by my horrible location; instead of drawing out at least to first encounter and increasing the sense of horror and dread. Then BAM! necromorph out of no where in broad light, it then proceeds to walk across the room a skewer your allies. The horror is not so much horror as much as surprises; Slender did this as well but kept up the sense of oppressive dread and some serious surprises. While I understand there needs to be times of non-oppressive action going on as well to balance everything else out. The closest Dead Space came to having a true horror experience, in my opinion is the 10th level which shows people laying around, after being shot in the head. In this atrium area no enemies attack you, there is a nice background  music that adds to a sense of dread. You expect necromorphs to attack you as they have been for the past nine levels but they don't which makes it probably the scariest part of this rather un-scary game.

Story: The story is a bit convoluted, part of this I think is because Isaac does not speak and when there are plot points of any detail another character needs to speak. The most I got out of the story was that a bunch of people called the unitologists believe that, despite the horrible changes that this alien life form can cause, it is still the path to salvation. But on a much more basic level the plot is to get the hell off the Ishimuru. This basic plot device is a good motivation but the greater story about markers, unitologists, and Isaac's missing girlfriend is confusing and just obnoxious partly because he can't speak. If this explanation for the story seems bad its because I really don't understand it. Horror games can have epic and sweeping mythos behind them but they are all about the emotional response rather than sweeping stories.

Recommendation: Play this game only if you want to see what the fuss is about but other wise give it a miss.

What's Next: So this is my first official review so after this I am going to do a write up for one of the hiking trips I did recently and then I think I am going to do a "Lets Play" of Crusader Kings II so keep your eyes peeled.