Fear is often a difficult feeling to create in a video game. Some recent attempts at horror have fallen spectacularly on their arse (Alone in the Dark comes to mind), which leaves Condemned as the only actually scary next gen horror series. Fear not though, Dead Space is here to save the day, and it is scary. So very scary.
The story on offer here is generic spaceship gone wrong, and all seems very Alien influenced. You play as Isaac Clarke, an engineer sent to try and repair a derelict spaceship. Of course things are not as they seem, and it turns out that the crew have all been genetically mutated and turned into Necromorphs, which are reanimated dead bodies.
The scares here are provided almost entirely by the environment, which is brilliantly crafted and very believable. The ship (USG Ishimura) is a sprawling, epic environment which just begs to be explored. It makes for a superbly atmospheric experience which keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time, and there are wonderful little touches to keep you guessing. Lights flicker as you approach, malfunctioning doors make repeated unsettling bangs, and chunking noises are pretty much a permanent feature of the Ishimura. In fact, the sound design here is some of the best ever found in a video game, it manages to take the atmosphere of Rapture in Bioshock and ramp it up a notch for truly superb results.
The game takes place from the Resident Evil 4 over the shoulder perspective, which seems to be the favourite amongst 3rd person shooters these days, and features mostly combat with some puzzle solving thrown in. The Necromorphs themselves are agile and quick, and make for formidable opponents. Killing them requires carefully shooting off their limbs rather than the more straightforward ‘shoot until dead’ approach, and this gives the gameplay a more measured feel than most shooters. However, the fine aiming and tactics often go to hell when several enemies attack at once, and in this instance the game reveals another problem. In an attempt to remove the HUD, the health bar was put on the back of Isaac’s suit. Fine in theory, but when the action gets particularly chaotic, the health bar can be obscured. Fortunately, this is a very minor complaint in an otherwise excellent game.
So, in short, Dead Space is scary, but not as terrifying as it could have been. It seems that scares were sacrificed in favour of better cinematography in some cases, such as the camera willingly swinging round to show you enemies. Having said that, this is still the best horror game available for the next gen consoles, and fans of the genre should definitely consider picking this up.
[Out of Five]
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