Dead Space Review - PS3

8

Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 8
Audio: 8
Innovation: 7

Introduction

Gamers draw a morbid enjoyment from being scared, with franchises like Silent Hill, Resident Evil and the epic Doom selling to millions of players looking for the eerie suspense and adrenaline rush the genre brings. EA’s new title Dead Space, developed by Redwood Shores, ups the bar by launching players into a salvage mission that goes tragically wrong. Trapped in the coldness of space, you must fight your way through the horrifying swarms of misshapen undead to save yourself, and your crew, from a fate worse than death.

Gameplay

Dead Space places you in control of Isaac Clarke, a salvage engineer assigned to investigate the planetary mining freighter USG Ishimura, after a total communications blackout. What you find instead is a ship devoid of life...or so you think. The draw of Dead Space is that while it may seem like just another survival horror title, it brings so much more to the genre. Electronic Arts' Redwood Shores has put together a truly terrifying storyline with a phenomenally a well made game.

As the game starts up onboard a salvage ship about to dock with the Ishimura, you can’t help but let your jaw sink as you look out the window at the colossal ship orbiting the planet below. The graphical detail is just unbelievable, and it’s all running in-game. As you get over the shock, you might start to notice that you can see the main character. The game, unlike tradition survival horrors, is in third-person. While at first this seems very strange, it works, and goes to show the innovation from the developers.

Once you land on the ship, the captain instructs you and the crew to get aboard and work out what has happened to the communications. As you begin the search something goes wrong, and you end up separated from the rest of the crew. All of a sudden a firefight erupts and after prolonged screaming over the comms, there is silence. I'll stop here so as not to give away any more of the plot, but I will say gamers will be pleased with the length and depth of the storyline and game; this game isn't clockable overnight.

As you continue through the game, you’re given objectives on your HUD to get the ship back online and work out what has become of both your crew and that of the Ishimura. The HUD system is truly a thing of beauty. Rather than stopping the game to access objectives or inventory, Dead Space has an amazing holographic display. This lights up in front of the player, and allows you to continue to walk and fight, rather then stopping the action just to use a med kit. This was a highlight of the game – not only is it graphically stunning, but its design means you are never safe from the action. You don't realise how much using a menu removes you from the game until you get attacked while using it, and Dead Space's unique in-game HUD means you're always on your ...