A disturbingly horrific deep-space adventure game that offers a very unique and memorable dark experience to gamers, leaving you want to explore everything dead space has to offer.
Overall Score 9.1
Gameplay 9.0
Dead Space is a third-person shooter game that took place in deep space where nobody is there to help you. The main character in this game is Isaac Clarke, an engineer assigned to repair Deep Space Mining Ship, the USG Ishimura. Something has gone horribly wrong when Isaac landed on Ishimura. The ship is infested with numerous of horrifying monsters called Necromorphs. You have to battle your way through these Necromorphs in order to unfold the story piece by piece.
The most interesting part about this game is that, you are out there alone in a Necromorph infested ship where they look for every opportunity to kill you when you least suspected and the best friend you have with you is the guns you are holding with scarce sources of ammo. The atmosphere of Deadspace is astonishingly creepy, there are lots of dark places that you need to go through hoping that you will not get ambushed by Necromorphs and few Ishimura survivors who have lost their mind and do something more disturbing than Necromorphs. The unexpected surprise element in Dead Space will draw you to the front edge of your seat and makes you terrified to even open the doors that lead you to undiscovered area.
As for the player control aspect, the PC version of Dead Space does not offer any flexibility in maneuvering Isaac because you can’t use the arrow key and use “WSAD” key instead.
Dead Space has another interesting system that lets you upgrade your weapon at the cost of money dropped by Necromorphs, it gives you a cafeteria-style menu choice where you can be specialized on a weapons or increasing your health to make you survive longer.
Graphic 9.5
The blood gushed out from the Necromorphs limbs that you cut using your specialized gun gives you the sense of how much realistic the graphic shows. The lighting in the Dead Space is very well designed that it creates a creepy atmosphere. The fact that every action/movements Isaac and Necromorphs executed are very smooth, which creates moments of adrenaline during the battle and turns into a big relief after all monsters are killed.
Dead Space offers innovative menu-view screen where the menu will be displayed in a non-full screen mode in front of Isaac and you can walk or run around the places while you still on the menu screen mode. This is very good to be aware of your surrounding in case a Necromorph jumps at you out of nowhere. The only drawbacks on the menu screen is that the text messages displayed are too small to be read.
Dead Space also introduce Zero-G gravity in some area as you play through the game. Zero-G gravity area do not have functional gravity, it allows Isaac to jump and land even on the surface above Isaac’s head using his magnetic boots. Suddenly the view turns 360 degrees, which very challenging at first but once you get the hang of it, it becomes very enjoyable experience as you leap from the floor to the ceiling. Zero-G gravity area gives you a breathtaking view from rainfall of asteroids to corpses spin serenely in the middle of zero-g gravity.
Sound 9.5
Dead Space has done flawlessly in creating the sound in every aspect of the game. As you walk through the corridors or in a big rooms, you constantly hear footsteps of Necromorphs above the ceiling or their hissing sounds behind the wall beside you. You know that you are never be safe anywhere in Ishimura when you constantly hear Necromorphs sound somewhere hiding and stalking you.
The sound of a gun you shot and the limbs separated from Necromorphs body gives you the sense of satisfaction and wicked at the same time. The most impressive part of the audio takes place in Zero-G gravity, any sound made outside Isaac helmet are muffled and barely audible from the gunshot you made to the screeching voice of Necromorphs are very well amplified.
Replay value 8.5
After you’ve completed the game, harder difficulties are unlocked to give you challenge you even further. The weapon customization upgrade Dead Space provided allows you to try focus and develop your proficiency over different types of weapon available. Each weapon provided gives you different experience as to how you kill the Necromorphs. Given the sheer depth of item upgrades and the harder difficulties should be good enough to keep you occupied for a long time. Dead Space is a fantastic game that shouldn’t be missed by players who thirst for horror games.
Reviewed by Yugo C
