Dead Space Community Days

By Joe Haygood | August 8, 2008

With the release date of Dead Space fast approaching, Electronic Arts invited several blog sites, horror sites and some honest to goodness real game media to check out the game first hand at their Redwood City Studios.

Just for a quick catch up for anyone that has not read anything about Dead Space, you play as a deep salvage crew that has boarded the USS Ishimura.  Your character, Isaac is tasked with trying to solve the mystery of what happened on this ship while fighting off what can only be described as deformed monstrocities that look like they might be human in nature.

Andrew (looking quite stunning in a miner helmet) along with Ben and intern Dan put together a great set of community days that will be covered in this and several other articles, as there is way too much info to cover in one article, unless you want your eyes to melt out of your head as you read.  So continue reading and see what we actually got to do over our two days of fun at EA Redwood City.

Our day started on August 5th at approximately 4:30 PM where all of us bloggers, horror nuts, game journalists and three Dead Space forum fans that were invited, had a quick meet and greet and shared a few laughs, after which, we headed over to EA headquarters for the festivities of the evening.

 Immediately entering the auditorium and lunch area of the main Electronic Arts building (there were five that I counted), you can tell that this is not going to be an ordinary work experience.  Imagine coming to work with a huge 100″ screen showing off a game that you are working on, like Dead Space or Boom Blox.  also to our right as this picture was taken, there were some huge stills of games EA has made that were illuminated.  From here we walked through some double doors that look like the ones in this picture to get some food.  We had BBQ catered in along with some beer…..I mean soda and water.  Afterwards around 7:00 PM we got ready for our double feature, which included a showing in Blu-ray, of both Evil Dead 2 and Sunshine, complete with fresh popcorn and candy favorites.  With the films complete, we headed back to the hotel where we proceeded to discuss all things Dead Space for a few hours.  All I know is that it was 2:00 AM by the time I got to bed.  It did not make for a good morning the next day.

The next day was the core of the Dead Space event.  After a rousing breakfast full of Egg McMuffin like creations, we alternated between hands-on gameplay and presentations.  The presentations covered several facets critical to the development of Dead Space, including Art Direction, Lighting (so awesome), Producer and serveral others.  There is video of all the presentations, however two of them will be under embargo for a few weeks, so if you see some out of order production videos, you know why now.

Gameplay has been quite nice, with Dead Space definitely taking a cue from several horror and space faring movies, yet putting a unique spin on the whole genre.  Our time was split over three diffferent levels of the game.  The first segment was embargoed, but it involved the first level of the game, and was a lot of fun, but not much else can be said at this time.  Our second segment focused on the different weapons you can get in the game, upgrades that can be added to your suit at Upgrade Workbenches, and new and improved types of creatures for you to attack.  At one point, you see a baby that looks like it might of just been from the womb, until its back opens and tentacles shoot out of it, spitting acid in your direction.  Our last section took place in the Hydroponics bay and was a level that was shown at E3 this year.  The level really drives home the point of strategic dismemberment.  You are literally swarmed by all different types of enemies, and each will have different weaknesses, so you are really challenged to use everything at your disposal.  One of the more enjoyable aspects has been freezing an enemy with your stasis charge and then dismembering them while they are in mid-air.  It makes for some awesome thuds when they are removed from the stasis field.

There were a few graphical hiccups that came up during the event, although my session went pretty smooth.  I did have an issue where I could only turn on the inventory menu with one button and off with a different button, but not a critical issue.  There were some texture bugs and a couple of models that would have parts disappear, but all of these were identified and were in the queue to be fixed.

To keep Dead Space always in your face, the development team kept a pledge of removing all sense of an on-screen HUD, and that the inventory, cut scenes and anything else would happen in the game, without going to frozen scripted events.  Health is indicated by a segmented bar on your back, so you always know where you stand healthwise, but the health is integrated into the game.  When you have contact with your captain, or anyone else from your ship, it happens with a holovid that follows projects in front of you.  You can still move while the projection is up, which adds to the immersion factor of the game.  Inventory is presented in the same manner.  As a matter of fact, the game really will only take you out of of the game on two occasions, pausing or when a gameplay tutorial comes up.  Otherwise, you never leave Isaac’s shoulder.

Survival horror is very difficult in my opinion to pull off, because the genre never works as well on a console or PC as well as it does on the big screen.  The Dead Space dev team had a concept and some films that would help inspire them in finding ways to terrorize the player.  Using Event Horizon and the Aliens series as a jump off point, the team spent two years crafting their own world to scare and frighten the person.  Seeing shadows of creatures on the ground that you cannot visibly see, while hearing eerie sounds around ever corner of a dark spaceship just adds to the suspense.  The first intense moment came when I got focused on an enemy in front of me that I did not notice that I had been flanked and I got hit from behind, causing me to jump.  At one point, I found myself shifting in my seat trying to avoid the attacks, which is always the sign of a game grabbing you and pulling you into its grasp. 

Dead Space is coming into a genre that has not been served by many games.  Resident Evil and Silent Hill are two franchises that come to mind, but while both franchises are great games, they never grabbed me like Dead Space did.  You always feel like you are immersed in the universe, and creeped out at some of the disturbing imagery that was created for Dead Space.  The game is shaping up nicely, with the feature lock stage being hit a few weeks ago.  A few bug tweaks aside, it looks like Dead Space could be a great game for the holidays and a nice change of pace from the company people love to hate, Electronic Arts.

I would like to take this time to thank everyone at Electronic Arts, including Andrew, Ben, Dan, Glen Schofield, Tracy Espeleta and the rest of the developer team.  No disrespect for them, but there were so many that I Have forgotten most of them, but thank you for a great time, and we look forward to the final release of the game.