Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 5:29 pm Post subject: Dead space Review: with extra
I sat and thought, it hurt but I did it anyway, with the release of so many games over the next few weeks coming out what is so special about them all. Fable 2 is another action RPG and we have had a ton of those this year, Fallout 3 falls into the same category, Mercenaries 2 and Saints row are more sandbox games to the pile, Red alert 3 is yet another RTS this year. This got me thinking what haven't we has for awhile?
The answer: survival horror or to be more precise 'Dead Space'. The best way of summing up this game has to be a message sent to be on Xbox live by a friend when I asked him what it was like while I was dragged in by the great but not as amazing as promised Fable 2. I give credit to the man for describing it so, 'It’s like Resident evil 4 and Event Horizon in a blender'.
Dead space has created quite a story for itself and its hard to know where to start but if you would allow me the grace of suggesting where you should, I would direct you towards the fantastic 6 part comic by Ben Templesmith that covers the events leading up to the game. Well not quite there is a DVD in-between that as well. All in all Dead Space is all but a void in terms of plot.
You play as Isaac Clark an engineer sent to fix the communications problem on the Ishimura mining ship. The stuff that will fill your pants consistently through-out the game hits the fan pretty quickly and your sent into the ship separated from your crew with nought but your hands until you find a handy little plasma cutter, normally used in maintenance. Maintenance is indeed what you use it for, if your idea of maintenance is removing limbs from the gribbly creatures that seem to inhabit the ship. A deep story that goes in a direction you will only see coming if you have read the comic is an unexpected one for people that take the game at face value.
Dead space is pulse poundingly well produced, from level design (apparently done by the genius behind system shock 2), the sound, and general polish. Everything the game does is well timed and never seems to remove you from the experience. The obvious start of this is the complete lack of head up display (HUD). Now when most games boast this it normally means the ammo count doesn’t appear until you fire, your health doesn’t appear until your shot. Not for dead space, your ammo is on your gun, your health is on your spine and your menu system is done in real time through a hologram displayed in front of you. This includes audio, visual and text logs you will find scattered around the ship, overall it makes for an immersive experience that never removes you from the action.
At first the 3rd person camera view will frustrate most people being very close to the character, but over time this seems more and more likely to be a design choice to keep a sense of claustrophobia and isolation. Coming back to the sound, sometimes the best sound in a game is the kind you don't hear or notice, but sometimes it’s the sound that suddenly comes out of the gloom like a shotgun in a church. You will find yourself jumping at shadows like a child home alone on Halloween after sneaking downstairs and watching alien.......I never did that, honest mum.
The creatures are well designed creepy and almost part of the level itself coming from seemingly nowhere, however sometimes coming from the most predictable places. Near the end of the game you could call most of the encounters before they even happen. Variation of enemy is something I have seen complained about in other reviews, I would argue anymore would have been too much and like all good survival horror games there is the one enemy that truly ****'s you off, I'm looking at you falling apart spider thingy monster **** face creature. Boss fights are few and far between, all but one have a trick to them and once discovered make them a piece if the proverbial which was slightly disappointing but for the epicness of the final level it’s forgiven.
The game play is solid, frame rate constant, graphics top notch. So what do I have to say against it? Not a lot, but something nagged me once it was over, strangely it was disappointment. It just felt at the end of the game something was missing, possibly that I had discovered the hidden message in the missions which ruined (ish) a plot twist or the fact the major plot twist is explained in around 5 seconds making the climax of your efforts seem somewhat redundant in a 'oh...' moment. My only other complaint was the difficulty; I played through on Hard and was constantly out of ammo, the fear and atmosphere got to me due to the resilience of the foe I fought. I then watched a friend start the game on normal and the jump was ridiculous, each encounter was casual rather than bowel evacuating. For those who can competently complete a resident evil game without much difficulty I suggest bumping up the difficulty for a true horror experience.
There is as always much I haven’t spoken about, like the range and customability (that’s a new Xeall word) of weapons, the obvious comparisons to a certain new religion that takes members money and is mainly for the elite of society, the subliminal messages sent at you through the game, but all of it is for you to find my loyal (pah) readers.
If there is one game you could pick up this fall you could do a hell of a lot worse than Dead Space, a professional such as myself took 10 solid hours on Hard to complete it and I’m pretty sure I missed some stuff. My first port of call would be the sublime comic followed by a lights out night in with the TV and a roll of double thick absorbing toilet paper. Dead Space - where no one can hear......your dead.....cos you haven’t fixed that communication error....yeah.......
Sometimes a game looks good but something niggles at the back of your head, you wonder if its actually gonna be up to anything. Now I'm not talking Gears of War 2, thats obviously gonna be a buy and there was nothing that they could really do to cock this one. I'm talking about Mirrors Edge, a game i have been pondering over for sometime.
A solid premise doing something new with what quite frankly is an amazing graphics engine pumping out pixels that most developers lose sleep over having. But Mirrors Edge always had that one thing that could let it down for me, the controls.
Sometimes the bravest thing to do is to release a demo to sweep aside peoples fears. This is exactly what EA have done or more precisely Dice. The result of my 3 times through the demo? It made me bloody play it three times!
The joy of playing something you always hoped was good is rare this year and to see others put it down for what you think is great is confusing. I downloaded the demo on my PS3 and can strait away see that the control scheme lends itself to the console. Somehow i can just see the 360 verison being a bit more fiddly.
The Framerate was steadily pushing out some of the most gorgeous Hi-def graphics I have ever had the joy to watch, the controls were responsive and the gameplay addictive. L1 is go up L2 is go down e.g slide under press L2. Your attacks and disarm are placed on R2 and triangle respectivly and thats all you really need to get going.
A couple of concerns still remain. One would imagine that after a kick to the family jewels now would be the best time to take the opponents gun, but it seems that you need the enemy to do something stupid before you can rather than your well timed acrobatic display that keeps the game flowing so well elsewhere. The best part in mirrors edge is the just mentioned flow, while running you never need to stop, the clunky combat only seems to slow down this dynamic system.
The other grip is that the game might not be for everyone, the game demands reaction, the demo doesnt show much of this but the difficulty has to ramp up as the game progresses and the idea of thinking 5 moves ahead while jumping through the air is just not something all gamers can do, i know my housemate couldn't, bloody hell he can only just manage to not blow my face off in most FPS while laughing like a maniac.
However what i wanted from the game seems to have been delivered, of course a demo is a taste and not the whole game I have played many a demo that turned into a poor game that my soul is tainted with doubt and cynisism for much of the gaming would (the other part of my soul is filled with childish excitement at the thing thats about to disappoint me).
Things are looking good for the game, lets hope in refelction it does not turn out to be blunt.
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