dead space by b-real

PLATFORM: PS3
RELEASE DATE: 10/2008
DEVELOPER: EA
PUBLISHER: EA
ESRB RATING: M

Progress: 100%

Are you tired of having to shoot zombies in the head to take them out? Has firing 10 rounds into a Nazi’s chest become lackluster? Well then, Dead Space is the third person shooter for you! The name of the game is to amputate the limbs of the aliens, any way you can. Thus, Dead Space is all about precision. It’s not tedious precision; it’s more like really scary carnage, with a bit of surgery.

The hero/victim of Dead Space is Isaac, a space engineer. The game starts with Isaac and his two compatriots, Hammond and Daniels, answering a distress call on a mining ship named the Ishimura. Isaac’s love-interest is also somewhere on the space ship. Soon you become separated from your ‘friends’ and you learn that the Ishimura is infested with Necromorphs; the nasty, relentless, species, which can only be killed through dismemberment. Not just one limb, but 2-3 limbs need to be severed to kill one alien. You can choose to take off the head, a claw and a tentacle or two legs and one arm. How you choose to dismember is entirely up to you! The Necromorphs are just enough human so that you can’t really tell if they are born out of human flesh or pure alien. But they most defiantly eat human flesh, so watch your F*CKing back! The creepiest enemies are probably the baby Necromorphs because they look like a human baby, with chubby baby arms to match. But don’t worry, they want to eat you too…

Because Isaac is an engineer, all the weapons you acquire throughout the game are construction themed, and each weapon has two firing modes, as well as upgrading capabilities. You first get the plasma cutter which is the most versatile weapon in the game, but is basically like a handgun which slices through limbs, with three small lasers. You also get other weapons, like the force gun (similar to a shot gun), pulse rifle (like a machine gun) and a flame thrower type weapon. My favorite weapons are the plasma cutter and the ripper! The ripper is a buzz saw and, let me tell you, gnawing off those Necromorph’s limbs with the buzz saw is a beautiful thing. There’s nothing like the sound of bones cracking in the morning! You also have 2 melee attacks a ground stomp and a gun slap. Throughout the game there are dead humans lying on the floor and you must stomp off their limbs or a Necromorph will later be birthed from one of those dead bodies. Therefore, I spent a good portion of the game stomping on dead bodies…I’d rather have a bloody leg for now than be sorry later...

One of the best parts of Dead Space is the bloody killing carnage. There’s nothing like dismembering the limbs of an alien, who wants nothing more than to eat your face off; especially, after the aliens have scared the S#*T out of you. The Necromorphs have mastered the ventilation system, thus they fall from the sky, pop out of the ground or are waiting around the corner. Oh, I forgot to tell you, I have never played a game so scary! I’m serious! I literally jumped every 10 minutes and even screamed like a little girl once or twice. One of those times, a toilet exploded on me... Dead Space is full of these “scares,” where something pops out at you, but it’s not an alien you can kill, it's just part of the game. It is even scary when, Hammond or Daniels contacts you! Therefore, Dead Space is perfect to get you into the Halloween spirit. It’s like playing a horror movie.

Throughout Dead Space, Isaac travels to different parts of the Ishimura killing stronger and stronger Necromorphs. Isaac has the power to stasis things, to freeze objects and aliens in place and slow them down and to levitate objects. (It kind of made me feel a little like Jean Gray.) Isaac uses these abilities to solve some “puzzles” along the way, but nothing too crazy, mostly levitating objects into place or throwing asteroids into space. Isaac also plays around in zero gravity, which makes the the player have to learn to adapt to a different style of game play and master zero-gravity jumping.

At first I was skeptical of Dead Space because shooters are just not my thing. But Dead Space rocked my world and has gotten me excited about the third person shooter genre. Dead Space is a very put together game. The graphics are great. The music is eerie and the noises the aliens make are spine-chilling. I truly enjoyed playing this game, and was quite sad when it ended, because I’m fan of horror and being scared S#*T-less...

Dead Space 2 is said to be coming out in January 2011. I guess EA is coming out with two versions, a limited edition version for the PlayStation Move controller, which includes the prequel, Dead Space: Extraction. I don’t believe that the other version will come with Extraction, but we’ll see. I guess Dead Space: Extraction works with the PlayStation Move controller because it was originally made for the Wii… I am not too keen on sensor motion controlled gaming, but I am very excited that the developers will be adding a multiplayer feature to Dead Space 2!

A

Play Dead Space for Halloween and you will not regret it!