Dead Space. Drop-kicking babies in space.
 

Alternate title: "Holy Shit EA makes an orginal game and it's GOOD!"

I picked this up last week after I saw the trailer and had a sudden craving for some ultraviolence. I expected a fun zombie killin' spree, but what I got is the sci-fi horror equivalent of Bioshock. It's that good. The graphics, audio design, and plot are all polished to a level synomymous with EA's ridiculous sums of money. Hopefully this isn't just a fluke, and EA will continue to make quality games instead of the quantity of carbon copy games they are known for.

Granted, it's not all original. The camera angle and gamplay are very reminiscent of RE4, but oddly enough, EA has improved upon it instead of copying it directly. Dead Space has a great sense of immersion as the HUD is completely removed. Instead all useful info you need is shown on the back of the main character's suit, or in holographic displays that pop up in front of him. Also, the kinesis module is basically a grav gun. But hey, Bioshock's telekinesis plasmid was the same thing too.

The necromorphs are not typical zombie fare either. Sure, some of the basic ones will walk up slowly, but more advanced versions will sprint up to you, or even leap across rooms at you (especially in Zero-G environments). Also, the standard zombie-killin rules need not apply. Shooting the torso or removing the head often just pisses them off. Hacking off the legs and arms is where the big damage is, and different types of necromorphs are best handled in different ways. You quickly learn that shooting the bloated belly of the necromorph dubbed the "Pregnant" leads to a nasty surprise.

What really amazed me was the quality of the sci-fi. When you are in a vacuum, you can't hear anything except your own breathing and the beating of your heart. The only other sounds you hear are vibrations that come through your suit, be it a necromorph ripping into you, the firing of your weapon, or vibrations through the hull you are standing on. Another nice touch is that the flamethrower doesn't work in environments without oxygen.

Long story short, go buy it if you are a survival horror fan. We need to let EA know that we like it when they put out a quality game, and EA listens best to the type of talking wallets do.

For more info on drop-kicking babies, see this dev diary video.

Edit: For those of you who get it for PS3 or 360, there are DLC suits available, so far they are all recolors of the level 5 suit. Each console gets one suit themed after the console (black armor, blue-glow visor for PS3, white armor, green-glow visor for 360), and these suits are free to download for a couple of weeks from the game's release date. A third DLC suit that you have to pay for is the Scorpion suit, which a red recolor with a red visor and a scorpion logo on the helmet. I guess the scorpion suit also came for free with preorders.

Just thought I would take a moment to clarify this because on the EA forums there are tons of questions about the suits. Also, copy-pasta from journal entry:Another edit: Trailers for you! (go to youtube page to watch in high quality)

YouTube Video

YouTube Video

YouTube Video

Yep, just as HE said. I thought a lot of the stuff was pretty friggin neat. :D The sound effects specifically in zero gravity. That's just quality right there! But yet somehow, even then I am TRYING to hold my reservations towards this game and see how it turns out to the end.

I want to say its fucking awesome that its impossible that EA did this game. But I have only watched SD play towards the third chapter? Where he meets the first "boss".

OH YEAH. X-AXIS, Y-AXIS AND Subtitles approved. :D

SD and I actually enjoyed the dummy mechanics with the dead. IE In Zero Gravity, when you shoot a baddie at the NECK, its body propelled while the head is just suspended at least floating towards you. xD We also enjoyed reading the writings on the walls as well as the loot! We'd kid each other when we saw they carry MONEY.

I have this as well and agree with the posters above. I'm pretty impressed. I love the combat, sounds, graphics and the holographic menus. Monsters seem pretty interesting as well.

Well, they were all crew members once, and a lot are still wearing tatters of their former uniforms. It seems plausible enough they'd have money or ammo left in the pockets.

There's only one part that I thought was kind of a ridiculous plot point in terms of plausibility, and that's at the very end of chapter 8. I won't spoil it though.

I don't know if you've watched them or not chanic, but do you know how much the plot of the animated comics is related to the game? All I know is that the events of the comics take place before the game, but I don't know how integral to the plot of the game they actually are (it mostly just seems like it's general backstory, not anything you need to watch in order to understand the game).

Yeah, I watched those. They aren't crucial to the plot of the game, but the game does occasionally reference something from the comics. And yeah, the comics do take place before the game. They tell what happened to the colony on the planet, and how the infection spread to the mining ship the game takes place on.

Not sure where all they are available, but I watched them from gametrailers.com.

Gametrailers.com - Dead Space: Reviews, Trailers, and Interviews

Even babies? XD I still fucking laugh at that. "HEY there's a baby, shoot it, lets see how much it'll cough up. OMG A Statis pak, just what we need to fill up our limited inventory!"

Still, I love it. :D I can see the inventory will become an issue if its not upgraded later. I imagine it's part of the suit and when you get an upgrade, you'll be able to carry more?

Hah, I just added the info about suits to my first post since it's such a common question. Yeah, you guess correctly. Level 2 suit adds 3 slots, level 3 suit adds 5 more, etc.Er, yeah. That's a bit harder to explain I guess. I dunno, babies put everything in their mouths right? I guess undead ones shouldn't be an exception. And hey, whatever they stuff in their faces wouldn't choke them to death, for obvious reasons.

What amuses me more is when you find a container marked "emergency supplies" and open it to find money. Different kind of emergency, I guess. "But I really really really need that pair of shoes! It's an emergency!"

Edit: Since the developers of this game are obviously fans of sci-fi, I wonder if the main character's name, Isaac Clarke, is a reference to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.

Another Edit: Looool, there's even an achievement for drop-kicking babies! I got it last night.

I also picked up this game and really enjoy it for the same reasons posted above. It was an extremely fun and surprisingly good game for EA.

Also, for those that finished the game...

Heh, nice observation. I totally missed that. I've mostly been scratching my head over the meaning of the ending. I mean, it's a great ending, it just raises a lot of questions.

Just curious, what difficulty did you beat it on, and which weapons became your favorite 4?

I beat it on Normal and my favorite weapons were the Plasma Cutter, Ripper, Flamethrower, and the Line Gun. I found the Contact Beam to be the least useful of all weapons.

I actually liked the contact beam, but I seem to be in the minority. I found myself calling it the "boss cannon" and the "brute rifle", as that's pretty much all I used it for. Unless contact energy started taking up too much of my inventory, then I'd waste some for extreme overkill on regular enemies.

It is ridiculously powerful though. I also played on normal, and even without any upgrades it could one-shot the final boss's weak spots.

My fave 4 were the Ripper, Force Gun, Line Gun, and Contact Beam.

Edit: A couple things I didn't realize until my second playthrough:

Yahtzee bump.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...333-Dead-Space

Don't get me started on ZP. WORSE THAN MOTORSTORM.

Anyway, I'm loving the game, but I still haven't had a lot of time to play it. I'm only on Chapter 6 at the moment, but it still hasn't got boring or anything. I do wish the story would pick up more, especially since I actually took the time to watch the movie, but they still have plenty of time to do it.

He's incredibly biased and rarely has anything nice to say, but he is amusing.

It is true though, the game is excellent at startling you, but not so good at scaring you. All the scariest bits are completely harmless. Of course, you don't know that on the first playthrough.

Sadly, i cant get the game here in Germany... Its banned from the BPJM ;(

Definitely a fun game with some great visuals and audio. There's a lot to enjoy just watching it. It certainly looks worth the buy.

If you have a PS3 this would be a good time to take advantage of the region-free functionality and import the game from some near-by country that hasn't banned it.

Surely a French or English version would work even if it was region locked? They're all PAL after all, I play Finnish games Qwarky sent me just fine on my PS2. The only difficulty would be finding an online store that'll ship cross-border.

Well the PS3 is region-free, so no need to worry there, so you can happily import from the States of Japan if you want. However, you make a good point, it should be possible to get the game for 360 provided you grab it from the UK or France, though I honestly don't know to what level the 360's region-locking works.

The version of PES6 I have came from Denmark I think and works fine although it's a promo copy which might make a difference. I'm pretty sure that EU trade laws would prohibit MS from region locking games between member states (Since you should be able to buy any product freely from any state, provided it's legal in your state). They can change the price in each country but you have to be able to buy a cheaper version elsewhere. Like I say though, the fact it's banned in Germany would mean major retailers like Amazon wouldn't ship it to a German address.

If MS have region locked it by country there's a competition case the OFT and it's European equivalent would love a go on I'm sure.

Favorite 4? I tried out the Pulse Gun when I got the schematics, but after that I used only the Plasma Cutter for the rest of the game. Best weapon ever created.

Dead Space is truly my favorite game this year. I haven't been playing a lot in the last months, only games that got me going to the end were STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky (still need to finish that one) and - Dead Space.
It does a great job of storytelling but I expected it to be a little scarier - not BOO I'M A NECROMORPH LOL scary but ... unsettling, creepy.
But nevertheless, it was a great game.

Great game, I finished the game yesterday. I normally never finish a game, but with this game I couldn't stop playing. The game for me was a combination of The Thing and Event Horizon with music from Aliens :)

Are the weapon packs worth the 300 or so points they sell for? I just got this game yesterday and spent all night playing it on Hard. I'm wondering if some more powerful weapons might help me out a bit.

This is one of the easiest survival horror/actioners in forever, Paco. The weapons are just skins with slight power boosts.

Just stick with the only good guns. Plasma Cutter, Line Gun, Force Gun and Contact Beam.

You could probably do without the Force Gun too, but it's grenades are great for taking out those screaming wall guys.