Prepared to be scared?
Whilst it could be said that the storyline plays second fiddle to the high-octane action, it's still intriguing enough to warrant searching around the fallen ship, Ishimura, in search of the story-building text, audio and visual logs left by savaged crew members. It also helps that the presentation and production is nothing short of astounding and that the voice acting is believable and convincing.Following a frenzied, tense and thrilling opening, which sees you running for your life after the silence of your crashed ship is crudely broken by an initial onslaught of rabid creatures, the gameplay in Dead Space shifts pace regularly from intense battles, backed by a booming soundtrack, to quieter periods of slower game-play where you have time to search the ship, upgrade weapons and visit the store to purchase items.
Dead Space never sets into a particular pattern of gameplay and therefore keeps you on edge throughout. Just when you think you’re free to explore the vessel, a necromorph will drop through a ventilation shaft and lunge at you with its unforgiving claws, or a large room, where you'd assume you'll be under attack from all angles, remains eerily silent and nothing will actually happen. It’s this intoxicating blend of slow and fast-paced gameplay that keeps the action fresh and ensures that you're always on your toes. "Expect the unexpected", goes the famous quote from Oscar Wilde. This certainly applies to Dead Space.
From the hideous Slashers who lumber around with their bloody bones on show and tentacles that rip their way through the shoulders to create their gangling claw arms, to the powerful and alarmingly disgusting Brute - a combination of multiple hosts fused into one - the creatures that you encounter throughout Dead Space have been stunningly realized and designed.
Not only do they look suitably disgusting, but it's the way that they lunge at you and react so intelligently that makes them so ominous. Scuttling through ventilation shafts and dropping down on you when you least expect it, bursting through the ship's side-panels and frightening the living daylights out of you, or even pretending that they’re dead and then springing into life as you approach them, the necromaphs really do instill fear into your blood and help to create a sort of nervous excitement. Suffice to say, we played Dead Space with the lights turned on.
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