Dead Space does a great job of initially engaging the player. The action picks up in the first few minutes of the opening cinematic, and it's all hell throughout after. And what the game does well is packing a variety of great movies and games into one. Most critics didn't even have to read much into the title before the comparisons between it and Event Horizon started to run ramped. Aside from the obvious comparisons, Dead Space takes elements from Doom 3, Resident Evil 4 and Bioshock and incorporates them to make an excellent survival horror title.
And instead of a being a simple clone, Dead Space improves on what it borrows from. Although these are only initial impressions, after already completing chapter two, I have a sense of how the game operates and -- hopefully -- what I'm in store for. The controls are very reminiscent to those of Resident Evil 4 with the over-the-shoulder style, however, it does it in a manner that's designed to add to the scary ambience. You are free to rotate the camera 360 degrees without moving your character using the right analog stick, but while running or walking, the camera purposely rotates slowly so you can't see what's immediately around you. This simple trick of the camera adds to the already-creepy atmosphere of the game, and is why I run around with my gun out 90 percent of the time.
"Oh my, there's backtracking! Backtracking sucks," say many gamers and critics -- not this time.
Dead Space does have backtracking, but it seems to be done correctly. Again, I've only completed chapter two and haven't gotten a full scope of the Ishimura's size, but the times I've had to backtrack seem relevant to the mission. It would be tough to imagine a person [in real life] in a similar situation that didn't have to do any backtracking and visit previous spots on the ship. Your mission, after all, is to find out what happened and do a little repair work along the way. But so far, I haven't been bored or annoyed with the backtracking.
These tasks -- some not so simple -- consist of finding repair modules to open new doors, finding parts to construct bombs to blow apart locked doors and a multitude of other tasks. And word to the wise, just because you already cleared a room, don't go running through during the backtracking segments expecting no surprises...
The last part I'll touch on is the combat, which I had my doubts on after seeing initial gameplay footage. The 'monsters' you kill have to have their limbs cut, shot or blown off to be killed. Using the Resident Evil 4 camera style (over the shoulder) for aiming, it's done fluidly. You have the option of meleeing them to death, and subsequently knocking their arms and heads off, or you can shoot them, piece by piece. The choice is yours, but as I've discovered so far, a mix of both works quite well when you get swarmed in all directions.
A neat twist EA added to combat and even puzzle elements was Stasis, which is an option to slow down time by pressing the X button while you are aiming your weapon. This allows you to pick them off, limb by limb in slow motion and then sit back and watch their decapitated bodies hit the floor in real time. It's quite satisfying. The aiming system works well, and like I said, I had doubts before, but after playing Dead Space, those doubts have been erased.
Thus far, Dead Space is impressive. The story is slowly unraveling itself with clues along the way, such as audio diaries and video and text logs, and I'm eager to play more to reveal more of the mystery. For now, Dead Space is certainly in contention for game of the year.
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