Review: Dead Space (PS3)

It has been a long time since I have had a game creep me out like the original Resident Evil did when I was a kid. Within the first twenty minutes of playing the game I felt the blood pumping with anticipation and a little excitement. And this isn't even anywhere near into the story at all. Pretty much, by this point you get off your ship look around and ask a few questions. Then out of no where the lights go out and you have to run for your life. Topnotch.

There is little to say bad about the game, but it does have it's flaws as all games do.

The Good:

So from the above paragraph, you can see that they nailed the horror aspect of the third person action game. The game environments and audio effects add to this. If you have a surround system hooked to your console, you will find yourself getting up and looking out a window every now and then. Or at least turning the lights on to look around the house.

There is also a great level of detail to the character models in this game as well. Which when you hear about their source material you can understand that. For instance, the 3D artists actually reviewed and studied car accident and war images to get a perfect grasp on what the human body looks like when it goes through certain things. Something that is not to easy on the stomach for many people. But you can totally see that this effected the way they designed their models. They are really intricate and interesting. Definitely adds a sense of realism.

The controls for the game are also pretty clean and easy to use after a small learning curve. But once you get a bit of practice, they feel almost second nature when compared to other games in this genre.

The Bad:

As stated above, the controls are easy, but only after getting a hang for them. But there are a few things that just bothered me about them after getting the hang. Like for instance, you can move your view away from "cut scenes" and the menu if you are not careful. Also, it seems odd that there is no pausing when going through the inventory. This is kind of a mixed thing for me. While it does hold true to realism that the world doesn't stop while you are drawing out a weapon, it just feels like sometimes you need that security when going through the inventory. Like I said mixed.

Another thing that is kind of weird is that the gravity seems to be turned off on the dead. By this I don't mean they start floating once they are dead, but when they fall to the ground there is little to no friction applied to the corpse. If you walk on the body, it gets drug along with you like a very light paper tube. Yet while alive, they all move with perfect gravity. It is a bit nit picky, but it seems a little off to me to have dead bodys able to be pushed around like rag dolls with no gravity.

 

In the end, this game is completely worth the buy. If you are even a small fan of the survival horror genre, this game will bring you to love the genre. Totally pick this up if it is on a console near you.

The Rating:

10/10