Dead Space has been heralded at time as a groundbreaking experience for the survival horror genre, and a new direction for Electronic Arts in gaming.  With such lofty expectations, it would be difficult for a game to reach such ambition, but Dead Space has found a way not only to meet those expectations, but really sets itself up as the torch bearer of what games will have to do to provide a genuine terrifying experience.

Survival horror is a tough genre to work with when it comes to a video game.  You are trying to give the user an experience that shocks them out of there seat, while making the hairs on the back of their neck stand on end.   While film seems to perform this task without any issue, when the genre moves to a virtual arena, it never seems to click.  Some games have come close to the success, but more tend to fall flat, not getting the general gist of what is required for a game to scare: pacing, music and solid story.   The Dead Space team seems to have identified this, by crafting all three of these components into a fantastic and horrifying experience.

Dead Space has you playing the role of Isaac Clarke, a deep space miner, who is attached to a rescue team to find out why the USS Ishimura has lost contact with the its corporate owners.  It is suppose to be an easy in-out repair job, but that would make for a short game, so, on your approach to the main ship you are hit with an energy bean that forces your ship to crash land on the deck of the Ishimura.  You inspect the ship, but are shocked when all you find is blood and body parts strewn around the first entrance of the ship.  Before you can assess the situation, you are attacked by a group of twisted, mutated creatures, the Necromorphs.  From that point, you mission is to find a way off of the ship, while trying to ascertain what happened to the crew and where did these Necromorphs come from.

While Dead Space has its roots set in the horror genre, the time that is spent putting you into a believable world that can scare you is a credit to the development team.  Everywhere you go, you get little visual clues that piece together the story.  Audio, video and text logs are littered around the ship, letting you into the horrors that occurred on the Ishimura before you arrived.  You get the feel of a detective that is trying to piece together clues along the way, always wondering if your fellow crewmates are giving you the straight story on what they know.

Atmosphere breeds suspense and this is the goal of Dead Space.  As you walk down corridors, you hear noises coming from all around.  Occasionally, you catch a glimpse of a shadow, or worse a shape of something crawling back into a wall, to wait for unsuspecting prey.  The best part of this suspense is the breeding of misdirection.  A good example is one point where you are walking down a corridor, and the lights flicker off, leaving you in pitch black.  You wait walking slowly with only a flash light at the end of your weapon guiding you.  You expect the worse, but the lights come back on and nothing has happened.  And when you start to get comfortable, a Necromorph jumps out of the ceiling right in front of you, making you jump out of your seat.  Some would look at this as a problem, because eventually, just as I did, you start to predict these events, and you no longer fear the unknown, until you get some new creature attacking you in a whole different way, and that puts you back on your toes.

The Necromorphs themselves are a tough breed to take down, requiring the use of strategy to defeat each unique foe.  That strategy revolves around dismemberment.  Yep, if you want to stop an angry Necromorph, don’t shoot it in the chest, but instead you look to removing its appendages, slowing down its advance, and eventually killing it.  This strategy of dismemberment is a different tactic that keeps Dead Space from becoming a run and gun shooter.  You have to access your target and go for its weak spots.  Judge wrong and you end up out of ammo and dying in a rather gruesome death sequence.

Sound as mentioned above plays a huge factor in Dead Space.  While your character seems to be a mute, as we never really hear him speak, your other crew members give very credible voice overs, delivering their lines with tension and emotion.  Creatures all have specific noises that they will make; helping you distinguish what is attacking you.  It is nice to see that the development team did not just reuse the same sounds for all the creatures.  Background music is largely absent from the game except when you are attacked, or nearing the end of a level.  Ambient sounds are where Dead Space earns its keep.  You hear static audio echoing through corridors, or a growl.  Maybe just some taping as something moves in the walls around you.  It keeps you guessing as to where danger lurks and ratchets up the tension meter to 11.

The new “in” thing in gaming is the lack of a HUD, or a clean screen to immerse the player into the game.  Dead Space goes for this HUD free approach, but does it in a more believable way.  You health meter is no longer a guessing game of colors on the screen, but the bar that runs up and down Isaac’s  back.  If you get hit too much, you will see your health go down, but Isaac will also start to stagger as he walks, and his breathing gets harsh and shallow.  All guns have ammo counters built into them, so you see right in front of you how much firepower you are carrying.  Inventory screens, along with video logs are played out like a holograph, popping up in front of you in the game world.   All of it works and just ties into everything that Dead Space does so well.

It would be remiss of me to not mention the superb job done with the visuals in Dead Space.  From Isaac Clarke’s mining suits to the unique disfiguring look of the Necromorphs, shows a lot of time went into crafting a look for the game.  Isaac’s suit is upgradable and each upgrade brings a new style to his suit.  Little visual details like the health bar and face mask glow, to the grime that comes off of a boot when it is stomped, it just shows a lot of visual polish.  Environments benefit from this polish as well, as you see little details that show someone put a lot of work into making the Ishimura look like a ship in turmoil.  Going into the hydroponics bay was an awe inspiring site, when you see these growth chambers, and little signs showing off what kind of vegetation are inside.

While everything seems to have been a gush fest of love up to this point, there are a few items that irritate and kept me from fully enjoying Dead Space to its fullest.  One thing that developers need to learn is that while changing up a situation is good and can change the pace of a game for a little bit, it does not work when it goes against the primary function of the game.  Not to spoil the game, but there is a time when you end up having to play through a shooting gallery, and it is just a jarring experience that completely takes the player out of that suspense mode of gameplay.  Also, some of the boss fights tend to lack a clear point of attack, having you learn what to do by endless trial and error. Overall, these are minor complaints, and they hardly kill the game when it comes to scoring it, but it is more of an irritation that did not need to be in the game.

Upon finishing Dead Space, you will find yourself at the end of what could be a strong contender for game of the year honors.  Its fluid pacing, suspense filled gameplay, and raw horror prowess, make Dead Space an anomaly for the survival horror genre.  That rare example of how to scare a player with an interactive game experience that puts you in the game with its immersive style.  The fact that it is a single player game that will have the player yearning to play again, due to it expertly crafted design.  Dead Space gets 5 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.