Developer: Electronic Arts
Year of release: 2008
Platform: Playstation 3
Official website: http://deadspace.ea.com/Default.aspx
Dead Space is the first game that I have finished since I bought my Playstation 3 in mid Oktober. I bought my Playstation 3 and the games Dead Space, PES 2009, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Armored Core For Answers in Hong Kong, where I was on vacation.
When I bought Dead Space I wasn't really sure if it was a good game. I didn't have time to check reviews on the internet to see if this was a game that I really wanted to buy. I was actually surprised to see the game lying on the shelves in Hong Kong. I was like "Wow I didn't know that it was released already!" The only thing I knew about this game was that it looks awesome and brutal and gore, all based on the few trailers that I have seen from the game. The price was also only 320 HK$ which is around 30 euro and that is cheap for a new game.
It was defenitly worth the money. The first thing that I heared about this game when I had bought it was: "it is Resident Evil 4, but in a different setting" and that is true. Dead Space really resembles RE4 and I'm sure that the designers at EA have taken some inspiration from RE4 to make this game. I loved RE4 and a game that is like RE4 in a different setting with some slightly new gameplay has to be good.
Dead Space consists out of 3 parts, the comic, the animated movie Dead Space Downfal and the game Dead Space, it is also the chronological sequence of the story.
Before I started playing the game, I first watched the animated movie Dead Space Downfall.
Dead Space is really a high quality game. Almost everything in the game is well designed.It doesn't have that much content, but you can still get some nice amount of gameplay hours, I did 15 houres to finish the game in Hard mode.
Dead Space has 12 chapters and each chapter only has like 5 rooms where everything happens. There are only 7-8 different types of monster in the game with a few chapter bosses. RE4 has way more content than Dead Space, but you don't miss it in Dead Space.
To me Dead Space is a game that proves that if you chose a certain theme and design around it, you can create a long experience with less content. In Dead Space the theme is horror in space.
In horror games you always walk a little slower with your character, because it's dark and you don't want to be suprise attacked by monster, that can kill you in an instant. You check everything twice and sometimes you stop just to hear clearly if nothing is coming your way. That is already some extra houres of gameplay. The other thing is space and space means emptyness. You are on a space ship with only rooms and elevators, so most of the time you are walking around in small areas and in small areas you can't put that many content.
The good:
- The horror, Dead space really has some nice moments where you really get freeked for a second. Even I who has played a lot of horror games sometimes got a scare moment. Especially when you play at night with the sound volume pumped up. Also the sound effects are done well, which enhances the scare moments.
- The different weapons, there are like 7-8 different weapons and most of them feel and play completely different, which is good. Some weapons work very effective against certain monsters. And you have the statis powers, where you can slow down enemies and pick up items and fire them off, like the gravity gun in Half Life 2.
- The different types of enemies, there aren't that many different types, but they are worked out very well. They all have their different specific attacks and movements and as the player you need to use different tactics for each enemy type. This really makes the battles exciting when different types of enemies are attacking togheter.
The Bad:
- There isn't really that much bad about Dead Space. The only things that I would have liked to see was more different types of enemies and some more boss battles. There are only like 3-4 big boss battles in the entire game. Also the final boss was a little disappointing with its simple attack pattern and the limited attacks that it could do.
- The ending of the game could have been better. After you kill the final boss, you get a 25 sec animated movie before the end credits, which is a little on the short side if you ask me.
8.8/10
