Dead Space

by Ashley Coomer - 2008/02/13 3:16am

You have to admit it, this world would be a very strange place without EA. While there would no longer be its franchises like FIFA and Madden lurking around, the games we’re grateful for would also be gone. Series’ like Burnout, Battlefield, Call Of Duty and SSX… what it would be like without them, we dread to think. So then with that said, what are you here for? You know, because you just clicked a link to this preview of Dead Space, possibly EA’s most self-explanatory title to date. Yes, in short, it’s about dead things, in space! Simple really.

Well, we say simple talking about the premise of the game, but Dead Space is a survival horror, instantly placing it in a market that’s not going to be easy to crack and one that is, some might argue, already monopolised. That’s why Dead Space needs to really go to town with original ideas and scares at every turn, and EA is going to do just that by fulfilling its goal of creating the scariest game of all time. Indeed, with these kind of expectations thrown in its direction, Dead Space has a hell of a lot to live up to, but we’re more than assured it will indeed be the scariest game ever if what we’ve seen of it thus far is anything to go by.

Taking place 500 years in the future, things have changed a lot and global warming is the last thing on everyone’s minds. Instead, people are thinking about planet cracking, a new process that involves enormous ships entering dead solar systems and taking great amounts of matter away for their precious resources. It’s not long before things to terribly wrong though, as you might expect from a game with the words ‘dead’ and ‘space’ in the title. The USG Ishiura, one of the largest ships in existence (it’s the size of a big city, don’t you know?) disappears off the map and all communication is lost… this is where you step up to be counted. Isaac Clake is an engineer sent to find out what the hell’s going on, and it soon turns out that the Necromorphs – an alien race – have overrun the ship. These nasty buggers can and will turn your men into their own if they manage to catch them, which is exactly what Isaac witnesses. It doesn’t matter that said man was once your friend; you’re going to have to kill him before he kills you!



In Dead Space there isn’t a wide range of modern weapons at your disposal and instead, you need to rely on things you collect as you go about your business. Sadly it doesn’t help that the enemies are as tough as nails, and even with a mining tool at hand, just slicing away at an enemy won’t going to do the trick. As we’ve discovered, you’re going to need to put up a real fight by using tactics. From previous encounters in the game you’ll get to learn the weaknesses of your enemies – if one of the Necromorphs can bolt round a corner at the speed of light (no, not literally) the best decision would be to remove its legs, for example. Another type of Necromorph might lunge at you, so for god’s sake, decapitate its hands! It’s thinking like this – or more appropriately, the lack of it – that will have a knock-on effect to your success.

That Dead Space has no HUD only goes to prove EA’s bold claims further. Yeah, you heard us right, there is no HUD in Dead Space, so it’ll be harder to know how close you are to death, or how much ammo is left in the barrel. Luckily you won’t be that oblivious as to what’s going on as everything you need is displayed on the screen, albeit in an entirely different way. Lights on Isaac’s spine show his health and an indication of how much ammo is left in the cocked weapon is displayed inside the target. The removal of the HUD will make the experience that much more scary for sure and it has been showcased before in games such as Fight Night Round 3 and King Kong. There’s something else about the graphical style that we’re quite fond of. It’s the camera angle, a third-person over-the-shoulder view reminiscent to that of Resident Evil 4, in our books, the best horror game out at the moment.



It’s not just the HUD that’s been removed from the game, though. Brace yourselves for this… the pause menu is gone completely. No, we’re not on drugs and we’re not pulling a joke, EA has decided to take away the comfort of being able to pause the game – whether it’s because you’re just too damn scared, need the toilet or need to get something to eat, you’re not going to be able to do it here! This is a bold move for the game and one we feel is justified to make it the scariest game ever. Apparently, though, you will be able to find places away from enemies to rest in the form of rooms without vents. This looks like it’ll work in the same way as the X360-exclusive title Dead Rising, where you need to find a place away from zombies, and we can tell you from experience, it creates a lot of suspense.

But enough of what’s not in Dead Space, we’re here to talk about what’s new and why you should buy into it. The big feature the game is being marketed on is zero gravity. There are times in the game when you’ll be let loose in certain areas and even outer space, where it’s your duty to forget everything you learned in physics. Gravity becomes no longer an issue but an ever-depleting oxygen supply does, and you’re going to have to solve those puzzles fast before you’re dead in space! One of the cool subtleties of zero gravity is the sound effects that accompany it. Muffled sounds and breathing like you hear from people with crap headsets in online games will make you feel uneasy when you’re doing too many things at once, no doubt… again, it’ll add to it all!

There’s no doubting it, Dead Space is looking incredible as far as a survival horror game can go. The only thing is, as we’ve already mentioned, EA has already set some pretty high expectations for it to be the scariest game to date… that’s not going to be an easy task, whichever way you look at it. We at PlayStationBeyond are convinced it will live up to the hype it has and will continue to receive. At the same time, for many gamers looking for their next horror fix, the storyline may be too generic. It’s about as far from original as you can get, though with that said, there are enough compelling ideas here to make it not just the best horror title of the year, but of this generation of games. If that doesn’t have you convinced then you’re dead to us!