Dead Space

Let me preface this review with a sentence:

I love to shoot stuff.

There's no shortage of stuff to shoot in Dead Space. Mostly what you shoot are these strange mutant alien guys that die much more quickly if you aim for their limbs. This is one of the innovations that Dead Space brags about on the back of their box. They also brag about an intricate story filled with twists and turns.

Let's talk about the strategic dismemberment first. This is a novel approach to a shooter, considering that's I've been taught by video games since I was five to aim for the head or chest. It took a while to get used to shooting for the limbs, but it was fun and I hope like hell that i can deprogram myself from aiming for the limbs before Resident Evil 5 comes out.

The fact that I'm already talking RE5 should probably give you a hint that this is part where I'm going trash Dead Space, and you're right. While the controls are tight and the game play is solid, It's nothing we haven't seen done already or done better in games like Doom 3 or RE4. This could have all been fixed with the intricate story promised on the back of the box... However, the back of the box was lying about that... oh my God it was lying to me about that.

The story is non-existent at best. At the beginning you find out that you're an engineer sent to fix a broken space ship floating around a planet where people are disappearing and doing other random spooky things. (The animated comics that you can see on YouTube are great at setting this up and they basically fooled me into buying a game where I thought I was going to get a great narrative. Good job EA, you got me.) So knowing this the game starts. Your crew consists of two guys that are alien meat (yeah killed in the first five seconds) and two bitchy imbeciles that you just keep wishing would die... seriously you wish it. You want it. After the two pieces of meat kick the bucket the story stops. Immediately. There is no more story until mission 7... for me that was about six and a half hours into the game. Yeah mission 7happens but then it goes into lull mode until the end where you have a couple of plot twists that are obvious and overdone, and one plot twist that you get at the very end of the game that makes absolutely no fucking sense and it just in there for a cheap scare. Once the plot actually surfaces it's just a bland mix of Event Horizon, Alien, and Fight Club. So what do you get in the place of plot during all this?

Cheap scares. Things that make you jump the first two times, but seriously, you and I both know that the monster lying there isn't dead after the 27th time, and that when you get off the tram, you'll immediately be startled by tweeddle dee or tweeddle dumbass trying communicate via a loud and staticy comlink.

The other thing you get? Orders. You get two different supporting characters telling you what to do while hiding in separate closets shitting their pants throughout the whole fucking game. So let me get this straight, I get follow idiotic repair quests from assholes while getting randomly attacked by mindless monsters for no apparent reason other than I'm there. Wait a minute... I work in IT... THIS GAME IS MY FUCKING LIFE!!! Gaaaaah!

Weapons: The first gun in the game is the best on you'll get. The line gun and the ripper aren't bad either (who doesn't like shooting saw blades?) but most of the weapons suffer from Turok syndrome. Seriously a force gun that slightly nudges the enemy back as if to say, "Please good sir, you're encroaching my personal space, could you take two steps back?" Fuck you force gun. The upgrade system is needlessly complicated. Seriously that's all you need to know.

The lack of a HUD is actually pretty cool and I like the way your menus are handled by holographic projections from your suit. That's pretty sweet.

Zero G combat is fun at first but its novelty wears thin real quick. Trust me, get hit by enemies you can't turn to see is no fun.

So yeah, I pretty much just tore this game apart, but like I said earlier, I like to shoot stuff, and that's probably why I'm currently on mission five of my second round through this game. Either that or I'm an achievement whore. Or I like to come home and play my job after living it all fucking day. Or I'm just killing time until MK Vs DCU. (ED BOON DON'T YOU DARE BREAK MY HEART AGAIN LIKE YOU DID WITH MKA!!!!)

Seriously Who knows?

-M