Did They Hear Me Scream?

After a bit of a blogging hiatus from the holidays and a period of time where I was pretty convinced that I wasn't going to write any more new entries, I've decided to recant and start posting again. Looking back through some of my old posts, I realized how much I enjoy logging this stuff and think it's interesting. Even if nobody ever reads this or comments, I'm going to keep writing.

Today's post: Dead Space.

Dead Space was one of the games I picked up as part of the Black Friday Steam deal and I finished it back before Christmas. It was either $10 or $15, either way it was an absolute steal. The premise of the game is pretty straight forward, you arrive as part of a rescue operation for the Ishimura, a mining/salvage ship orbiting an out of the way planet. You quickly discover that the ships inhabitants are no longer in top notch condition and work to fix the ship and eventually to just escape. This game was really good and would have been a contender for my game of year for 2009 if not for the fact that it came out in 2008. The highlights:

Loved

• Setting. The space setting was absolutely superb. The ship felt gritty and real, the weapons made sense, and the enemies (necromorphs) were gruesome and frightening. This was the kind of game where you find yourself looking over your should then realizing that the monitor is in front of you. They did an outstanding job at making that ship "come alive," if you will, despite the fact that most of it's inhabitants were dead. In the horror game genre, the environment/atmosphere are everything most of the time, and the developers absolutely nailed it here.
  
  
• Weapons. Dead Space had some of my best weapons found in any third/first person shooter. On the low end, you have the simple plasma cutter. A pistol like weapon that shoots three bullets in a line, either horizontally or vertically. While it seems simple and weak, it was easily one of (if not the best) weapons in the game. Versatile and quick, the plasma cutter killed everything. On the high end, you have the contact beam. The contact beam is this game's answer to a rocket launcher. It has a bit of a charge up time, but when unleashed, it knocks just about anything back and onto the ground. My personal favorite, however, was the ripper. This weapon shoots out a saw blade that levitates in front of you for a while. It's then your job to guide it to the correct spots to inflict maximum destruction on your enemies. It was wildly fulfilling when done properly. The weapons in general were all quite good (except perhaps the flamethrower), and the ability to upgrade them made them all that much more interesting. I did a second play through of the game just to spend more time with the weapons I hadn't used.
  
  
• Enemies. Horror games also can fail if the enemies don't work. Too often, designers go over the top when designing them, too bloody or just cheesy. I loved the necromorphs in Dead Space. They were creepy and had a lot of presence. I can't count the number of times I jumped when I turned a corner or opened a door and had an undead mutant staring back at me. The other thing I really liked about the enemies was their weaknesses. Instead of merely shooting them, all of them were weak on their limbs. You couldn't just headshot someone and move on, you had to carefully shoot off their arms and/or legs. It was a very unique idea that made a lot of sense in the context of the game. Using the previously mentioned ripper to saw off both legs then both arms of some of the nastier baddies was awesome.
  
  
• Hud. I'm a huge fan of games that make the in game hud more interesting or try to incorporate it into the game some how. It was one of the things I liked about Far Cry 2, if you wanted to see a map, your character held up a map in front of you. Dead Space took that idea to all new levels. Every hud element presented in the game was tied to the environment or your character's suit. If you wanted a map, he'd project a map. If you needed to save, you interfaced with a save station. Even things like gun ammo and health were handled elegantly; gun ammo would show as a read out on your gun when aiming and health was an obvious bar that showed on the back of your suit. It was a great mechanic and really helped the immersion of the game.

Hated

• Mouse Lag. I always feel like I have to put something down here, so this is a minor nitpick at best. When I first started the game, I had vertical sync on. Apparently, this causes your mouse to have a lot of lag in the game. It was terrible; I considered swapping out to a gamepad. I Googled the problem, found the obvious solution, and played the rest of the game very happily.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I liked this game. A LOT. Quite honestly, I can't think of anything I would really change in the game. It was just a lot of fun with a great, creepy atmosphere. I'm now REALLY looking forward to Dead Space 2. With how cheaply you can find this game now (even regular prices are in the $20 range) there is no excuse to have not played Dead Space. It is definitely one of the best games of the last few of years.