Survival Horror, the genre that had us mowing through crazies in the early Alone in the Dark games, boxing with mutant bears in Ecstatica, and blowing zombies away in Resident Evil just had EA Redwood Shores crown it a new king.

   If I were Yoda I'd say, "For more talk no need there is," and then proceed to force slap you silly until you play this game. And then I'd do a double somersault just to show you how much I mean business.

Gordon Freeman Walks Into a Bar and Says...

   The game stars the mute protagonist Isaac Clarke, who (much like another famous character from a very different game we won't mention) wields a high-tech suit and balls of solid steel into battle.

   You'll spend most of the game exploring the mining vessel USG Ishimura. In case you're wondering, Ishimura is Japanese for "a huge arse space ship that cracks planets and then mines the bejeezus out of them." (If you don't believe me and want to elaborate on our brief excursion into the ancient tongue of the sword wielding men of the past, try asking me what "Pokemon" stands for. Just don't forget to wear a blast helmet.)

   Anyhow, all transmissions from the ship mysteriously cease some time before the game starts, and Isaac and his colleagues are dispatched on a routine repair mission to this floating planet cracker. Through some fantastically incompetent teamwork, the people piloting the repair vessel manage to crash it into the Ishimura. After the dust blows over, Isaac and his colleagues venture deeper into the mining ship in their attempt to figure out what the hell happened to its communications.

   Not much deeper, though, because that's when the monsters decide to show up. Half the crew is promptly slain. The three people standing after the gore fest are systems engineer Isaac Clarke (you), the repair vessel's captain, and the annoying communications array specialist, so it's up to you three to clear out the uglies and repair the Ishimura. Or, as the saying goes, die trying.

The Great and Terrible Tale of Isaac Clarke

Off With Their Hands!

   The majority of the Horror in this Survival Horror game is delivered through the Necromorphs. These are the USG Ishimura's transformed blood-thirsty crew, and one of Isaac's main concerns throughout the game. All of the creatures look original, if a little sickening, and even the most basic of these can prove to be lethal if they catch you with your pants down, so here is hoping you took a nice long crap before you started.

   In addition to his suit's built-in powers that let him slow down time and telekinetically throw stuff around (this isn't the kind of suit you get at the Men's Warehouse, mind you!), Isaac dispatches the creatures with plasma cutters, ripper blades, flamethrowers, contact beams, and other home-defense inventory items. The catch is that to bring down your foes in Dead Space you have to cut or shoot off their limbs before you stomp them in the face. Shooting them in the head or torso doesn't quite do the trick. Dismemberment is the fad of the day, and all the young kids are doing it. To make things even more interesting, some of the battles play out in zero gravity, having you leap wall to wall, Necromorph legs, arms, and other unidentifiable body parts flying around while you squeeze off shot after shot from your Plasma Cutter. It's a sight to behold.

Dead Brains

   Necromorph AI is generally good, and in Dead Space they can travel through Ishimura's ventilation system, sometimes popping out from a vent behind you. The game doesn't go for Doom 3's cheap scripted scares with monsters constantly falling on your head out of nowhere, though, and that gets my seal of approval (at least as soon as those guys from PETA give me my damn seal back).

   Sometimes a Necromorph will get too close to Isaac for comfort, initializing a mini cut-scene where you have to keep tapping a key to throw him off. Depending on the Necro you're fighting, Isaac would either just smack him back or brutally execute the fool.

   Most importantly, though, fighting these bastards never feels like a chore. It's both fun and satisfying and that's what good games should be all about.

Blood Aesthetics

   From level design and weapons effects to the enemies that look like they just stepped out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting, Dead Space looks absolutely gorgeous. Graphics are fantastic and the animations are great.

   The game sounds amazing, too.

   A good example would be when Isaac has to venture into the cold of outer space. The screen gets slightly tinted and all sounds not coming from the inside of his suit are muffled as the asskickery continues in Zero G. It's smooth, baby, smooth. One of the very few complaints I do have about the game has to do with the physics engine, most notably, the rag doll corpse behaviour. It seems that as soon as Isaac's foot comes close to a dead body (Necromorph or otherwise) the corpse is auto-kicked away from the character model, sometimes bouncing off doors and walls and whatever else it will touch. In lack of a better explanation for this strange phenomenon, I blame the gravitational fields of Isaac Clarke's giant balls.

The Final Verdict

   Dead Space is not exactly revolutionary. What it is, however, is a clever, beautiful, and exciting game. And above all, it's a hell of a blast to play. I think it's worth mentioning that there had been numerous times on my first playthrough where I thought, "Okay, if this was your average game, such-and-such is bound to happen right about now. So let the zombie face-pouncing commence." And the game proved me wrong almost every single time. Revolutionary or not, it's most definitely not your average game, and everything it tries to do it does exactly right, without having to rely on cheap tricks to make things work.

   So go on and buy it. Because if you learn from Isaac Clarke's example, and all of a sudden monsters from a strange alien dimension eat your neighbor's cat and piss in your teacup, you'll be able to ruin their shit in a heartbeat.

       ... Max Salnikov