IN EXTREMIS
Also for: Xbox 360, Windows
In space, no-one can hear you scream. But onboard the Ishimura, anyone can hear your heart beat through your bulky suit, as you fight your way through a waking nightmare. Dead Space arrived to a lot of
fanfare in the late aughties, scaring the shit out of people with its
Alien-inspired spaceship claustrophobia and an onslaught of disgusting
monsters. I bought a copy for my PS3 ages ago, but never mustered the courage
to play it - until now, that is. And having finally finished it, I must say I
find it not quite as horrifying as I'd anticipated, which might not be a bad thing.
Granted, the atmosphere created by the setting is genuine. Running around
dark, narrow corridors, reacting to any noise as if it's the last thing you'll
ever hear, can be quite stressful. You constantly expect to see the silhouette
of a monster against the dim, flourescent lights. Before you know it, Dead
Space starts sending enemies your way, from air ducts, through the floor, or lying in wait right around the corner.
Eerie silence become deafening noise. The soundtrack starts blaring out strings of horror. It doesn't take
long for the atmosphere is drowned out by gunfire and roaring beasts. But whether they come in swarms or alone, there's always quite an easy way to win
- no less so if you upgrade your favorite gear with the power nodes you find
scattered around the ship. Once I got the groove, the monsters stopped being
scary. This helped me get through the game with my sanity intact.
As Isaac Clarke, an awkwardly silent protagonist played in third perspective,
your task is to investigate the strange events regarding the USG Ishimura, a
huge mining spaceship in orbit around a distant planet. You're part of a crew
that's come to fix it, but you quickly discover it's been invaded by an alien
life form, called the necromorphs. Let me just say this and get it over with:
I don't like a silent protagonist, at least not in a story-driven game where
he also has a name and where you actually see him. Why don't you
respond to questions or comments, Isaac? Oh right, because you can't.
Apart from that it's an amazing, Half-Life-inspired setup, bolstered by
great level design and progression. The visuals hold up well and the audio,
whether silent or loud, is tormentuous. But the promises of an intriguing
story devolves into predictable genre clichés. I cared little about it, and
when the final twist came, I found it to be one of those stupid ones that can
cast doubt on everything that's happened before, unless I missed or
misunderstood some crucial plot detail.
Poor overarching plot notwithstanding, there are some great, surprising story
beats that lead to memorable gameplay moments. Ishimura is in a state of
disrepair. Your progress is constantly halted by power failures, fallen
debris, malfunctioning elevators, etc. Every level of the game sends you on an
urgent errand to fix or stop something. Sometimes you need to get to the
ship's exterior, trying to navigate zero-g environments, with limited oxygen,
whilst looking out for enemy ambushes. Since sound doesn't carry through
vacuum, you'll get no heads-up and need to constantly scan your surroundings,
all the while minding your slowly decreasing oxygen supply.
All over the ship, the crew has been slaughtered. By listening to audio logs
and communicating with your comrades, you uncover the horrors that led up to
this. Although the story fails to surprise, the way it's told is marvelous,
all unfolding seamlessly without many gameplay interruptions (the only loading
screens I can remember were between levels). A fantastic design decision was
to use Isaac's suit to represent the HUD. His health and stasis meters can be
seen on the back, and the inventory is a holographic projection you sift
through, unpaused, while monsters roam around in the dark.
The necromorphs are a sight to see, a disgusting mass of organic matter
cobbled together into various forms. One familiar with John Carpenter's sci-fi
horror movie The Thing will have a pretty good idea of how they look.
They emerge from air ducts and lie in ambush around corners, or you might see
them walking aimlessly through office windows. Although their default shape is
humanoid they can seemingly adopt to take any shape, leading to a permeating
sense that you've not seen them at their worst yet.
The combat mechanic is great and, as far as I know, unique. By severing the
necromorphs' limbs, or anything that protrudes from their bodies, you can
inflict serious damage. This puts a lot of demands on your aiming ability
which, by extension, puts a lot of demands on your nerves. A handy stasis
module lets you slow the monsters down temporarily, giving you time to
straighten your aim. Should your ammo run low, you can utilize a kinesis
module to throw loose objects at them.
These modules double as tools for puzzle-solving, where you need to slide
things into place or slow down malfunctioning doors to run past while they
open and close at frantic speed. The puzzles aren't hard to crack, but are of
the kind where you often have to perform under stress, as monsters start
closing in from every direction. They shake up the formula in a nerve-wracking
way, as do the awful turret sections, tricky boss fights and all the various
situations where you're on a countdown.
Since the Ishimura is a mining ship, the weapons are all designed to be mining
tools, be it to cut through hard rock, blast it, or burn organic matter to the
ground. Some of them are amazing for severing enemies' limbs, whilst other are
great for hordes, and require less precision. You can only carry four at a
time, so buying more than that is a waste of money. Surviving comes down to
utilizing the right weapon for the right moment, be it a pulse rifle for
swarms of tiny wriggling lumps of flesh, or the powerful contact beam against
hulks.
Dead Space is one of those games that has weird anti-corporate overtones. New
weapons, health and ammo are sold for credits at terminals, things you'd
expect the miners be provided with as part of their contract. This sentiment,
naturally, also permeates the story, which is an effect of hubris, greed and
religious zealotry. It's another cliché at this point, that some human beings
are the real monsters.
Plenty of supplies are found by just exploring, though, and even as the GPS
pings the quickest way to the next objective, it's often worth exploring
offshoots for valuable items. Although I never ran low on supplies, Dead Space
has some of the survival-horror DNA. A limited inventory requires you to
assess the upcoming level, bring only what you need, and leave some room for
new items. It doesn't quite manifest as the anxious considerations of a
Resident Evil-game - you just find way too many items.
Playing Dead Space for the first time 17 years after its original release is
surprisingly fun. Its status of a classic is well-deserved. The
lingering impressions are the inventive take on third-person combat, cool
arsenal, tight controls, atmosphere, stressful zero-gravity sections and a
poor storyline told in a cool way. The ease of combat and my great surplus of
resources dampened the real horror for me. Still, this one holds up really
well. Even if the remake looks more appealing, I'd urge anyone remotely interested in the evolution of game mechanics
not to overlook Dead Space.
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