EA games have typically been questionable. As a publisher, EA has managed to piss off a huge portion of its fan base. As a developer, it’s been known for pretty lackluster titles. EA’s head hauncho, John Ricatello, said that he regrets some of the choices that EA has made in recent years. He felt that EA had homogonized their development studios and stifled their creativity. He pledged to turn things around and give more freedom to the devs.
The developers of Dead Space were practically given free reign while working on this game, did EA’s change in philosophy help to create a good game, or is EA still struggling with it’s 180 degree manuever? Hit the jump to find out.
Like many people, I wanted to like Dead Space, a lot. Fortunately, EA didn’t disappoint. Great gameplay mechanics, an incredible atmosphere, and a fairly immersive story make Dead Space one of EA’s best games…ever.
The basic story is that you play Isaac Clarke (get it? Isaac Asimov…Arthur C. Clarke? Yeah, it’s not very clever), an engineer dispatched with a team to track down the Ishimura, a Planet Cracker class mining vessel that they had lost communication with. When you board the Ishimura, you find that the crew has mutated into horrible creatures bent on killing or assimilating anything they come across. There are a few twists in the plot, some predictable, a couple of them not. The characters, unfortunately, are mostly unlikable. Isaac must be a descendant of Gordon Freeman, because he doesn’t say a single word in the entire game. Other than that, there are two characters you are working with from the original team that are almost always in another room chatting at you over comm channels.
Some would argue that the story feels derivative. Some say that it’s an homage. Either way, Dead Space will feel familiar, especially if you’ve seen Event Horizon and Alien(s). It came across as paying tribute to it’s influences more than stealing from, so it ended up working for me. But each person will probably have their own take on it.
The game focuses on “tactical dismemberment”. Headshots and bodyshots will do little to stop the oncoming tide of enemies. Removing their arms, legs, and sometimes heads are the only efficient way to stop them. The weapons you are given consists of a variety of engineering tools: a plasma cutter, line cutter, flame thrower, saw, and a few others. The only real “weapon” you get is a Pulse Rifle, presumably from the security staff on board. The gunplay is pretty standard fare for a third person shooter. It features an over the shoulder perspective and most weapons have a laser sight to show you where you’re aiming. Turning is slow and cumbersome, but I think that was a concious design decision because it increases the sense of claustrophobia and makes for some pretty intense moments.
One of the highlights of the game, and something the dev team should be lauded for is the HUD…or lack of one. All of your relevant information is viewable on Isaac’s RIG (read: space suit). His health is a glowing indicator on the spine of the suit, ammo counter is displayed in a hologram above your weapon, etc. There is no meta-data presented on screen for the player. Even terminals, videos, and your inventory are displayed through holograms in game in real time, meaning you can’t pause the game to track down something in your inventory that you need. You either need to be prepared before hand or be able to move quickly and track it down in your inventory while your enemy catches up to you.
Overall, the game isn’t “scary”. There are a couple of times where I practically threw my controller at the TV when something jumped out, but those moments were few and far between. Most of the time was spent staying on edge, always waiting for something to jump out at me. After an hour or so of keeping your nerves on end like that will make someone rather anxious. I could really only play for 1-1.5 hours at a time before I got too uncomfortable to play anymore. I’m not sure if this was the developers intentions, but the anxiety was palpable…though at times, a bit distasteful.
There were a few things that I found to be rather ridiculous. Imagine that you just beat the game. The game tells you “Congratulations! You won! Here’s some stuff, you get some credits, this neat teddy bear, and some pie for your time spent warding off this horrible alien infestation.” You think to yourself, “Fantastic! This is great, this pie will really come in handy on my next playthrough.” Then you are presented with the option to play on Impossible mode! Oh yes…that oh-so-frustrating difficulty level needed to unlock the last of your achievements/trophies. You fire it up only to find…your inventory is empty…your upgrades have been reset…nothing carried over. In Dead Space, items and upgrades only carry over when you play on the same difficulty. Now, I understand this was to prevent people from fully upgrading their items and equipment on Easy then jump into Impossible mode to tackle it…but they could have balanced Impossible with that in mind and let us keep our stuff.
That brings me to ridiculous note number two. Impossible mode unlocks when playing through on Medium and Hard. This makes me question why anyone would bother playing through Hard at all. None of your items carry over, and you can unlock the rest of the game on Medium…so what’s the point?
In either case, gripes aside, Dead Space far exceeded my expectations. With a full series of animated comics, an animated film, a sequel, and a movie all in the works, this franchise looks as though it’s going to be around for a while. It might be the shot in the arm EA needs in order to kickstart their in house development teams into producing some quality games. Between this and Mirror’s Edge, I’m hoping the trend continues!