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Dead Space

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Ozymandias:
I'm going to play through "the right way" on Impossible. Streamlining achievements FTW.

Patrick:
I only saw about 30 minutes' worth of gameplay at my friend's house (his dad works for EA, lucky fucker). But I will definitely say that I am all kinds of impressed. EA's forte in shooter games seems to really be in their battlefield-simulation work, and they do a damn fine job of it, but it's amazing to see what they're truly capable of. They really seem to have found a niche in scaring the everliving fuck out of people. Those creepy fuckin' zombies behind you, throwing shadows on the walls in front of you? Then you turn around and nothing's there? Man, 3 years ago I was jumpy as hell when I played shooters to begin with. This would've had me looking like a crack addict 3 weeks into withdrawals.

The thing I liked the most was that they completely got rid of the HUD, and that's one of the things that I was discussing with my friends while we were testing it out tonight. Having to actually take storage space into consideration is a pain in the ass, but it brings as much realism as anybody can really manage when you're making a game with evil mutant space zombies.

Basically, the rave reviews are well-deserved. It's really funny to me how you can just KICK SHIT APART.

KvP:
The game really isn't that scary. In actual gameplay it's more action-y Resident Evil 4 than survival-y Resident Evil 1. There are a few reasons for this. Most of it has to do with the predictability of enemy encounters. Anybody who's spent a good amount of time playing games like this intuitively knows where and when enemies will pop up. There are no random spawns, and no random spawn points. If you've cleared a room there's no use being cautious until you've completed a new story objective, in which case you can expect new spawns. The vast majority of the time completing objectives presses the button on the enemy vending machine and you're hit with a few waves of necromorphs. Outside of that, you can run around at your leisure and nothing will sneak up on you or pop out. After the first hour of the game it became no more suspenseful than Painkiller. That might not be the case in higher difficulty levels, but I doubt it.

Some good exceptions were the encounters with the regenerating monster, which provided some nice chase sequences. But for the most part the boss fights are metroid-style "shoot the gaps in the armor" games, or more difficult versions of previous encounters. I really wish game designers could come up with more creative bosses than that, but they're everywhere.

Having finished the game I have to say it was serviceable, but nothing really special outside of its top-notch visual aspects and its 5.1 surround work. I was really optimistic about how the game would turn out before it came out, given the sheer amount of effort EA had put into fleshing out the setting and the backstory through a gratuitous number of comics / videos / what have you and the quality of that effort. Unfortunately, Dead Space suffers from Oblivion syndrome - the writers can't tell the difference between story and lore. All the established backstory barely factors into the game (this is understandable, given that it's supposed to have mass appeal) There's really not much story to speak of in Dead Space - the gameplay is objective-based in the worst way. After the second or third chapter the urgency becomes lost and you're restoring some vital ship system not because you feel like there's a need to but because... that's what you do in a video game. The major characters (that is, the ones you see in too-abundant Bioshock style "trapped behind glass" encounters and the ones that talk at you) are tired horror film stereotypes, and their fates are mapped in the stars. Minor characters, as explored through found audio logs, fared much better, but they weren't nearly as abundant or lovingly crafted as Bioshock's.

But the game is really fun. There's a nice progression in the equipment upgrading that keeps you occupied (I never came across a node-locked door that was worth  the price to enter) and unlike Bioshock there's a decent variety of enemies being thrown at you. I was really with it until the big "twist" towards the end of the game, which was so unsatisfying it almost turned me against the game completely.

That's all pretty negative, but the game was certainly worth the rent. Dead Space owes much of its flair and indeed, its very existence to the Shock games (I remember when it was being floated as System Shock 3, and it likely began its development life as just that), and it's fairly apparent given all the grooming EA's been doing that Dead Space will become a franchise in the Bioshock vein. Thus I can hope that the second time around they'll work out the kinks.

Ikrik:
I just finished my first run through on easy mode.  It was uhm....easy. It was incredibly, incredibly fun...but it's easy mode is way too easy.  I'll be gunning through it on impossible mode next...hopefully it'll scare my pants off.  I scare easy and so this game usually has me at a stage of uncomfortable but it's definitely not the scariest thing I've ever seen.  It's not survival horror at all, I sell SO much of my ammo and I still trip over the stuff.  The game is relatively short (8 hours for me) but definitely has replayability.

Johnny C:
you played it on easy

i played it on normal and literally have to steel my nerves whenever i enter a room

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