Dead Space. Amazing game. As a game, it is designed incredibly well. It provides a nearly flawless experience, fun to the point that you don’t pay attention to any of the flaws.

That is, unless you’re looking for an actual survival horror. See, there are plenty of design elements that work well for Dead Space as a shooter, but horrible for it to be the survival horror that EA Redshores Studio labeled it to be. While on harder difficulties these matters are less of an issue, they still interfere with the horror aspect.

Granted, what games like Resident Evil and other survival horror titles had going for them is considered bad game design. Poor controls, no checkpoints, limited saves, incredibly limited inventory, these all contributed to the horror in a different way than just making you jump. You were actually afraid of the next encounter, because you’d have to deal with clumsy controls, and if you died you would have to replay half an hour or more. Not to mention you aren’t sure if you have enough ammo to be prepared, or if you even have the right kind.

Dead Space eliminates all of that. Granted no game would be allowed to get away with horrible controls these days, and there are still great ways to balance that such as A.I., where the enemies come from, how quickly they move, etc. However, just about any other problem, and more, are eliminated from the equation.

Inventory

The inventory actually starts out with a limited amount of space, so this aspect works pretty well. The problem, however, more becomes the fact that you are given so much amunition and health at the start of the game that you have to store most of it away. Killing enemies often rewards you with more ammunition, and once you get good at the game and upgrade your weaponry, you’ll start gaining more ammunition than you expend.

Of course, as you progress through the game, the amount of ammo becomes a bit less of a problem, but not by much. You’ll never really find yourself running out. Of course, even if you do, you can always solve that problem with…

The Store

That’s right, the game has a store. Now, Resident Evil 4 itself had a merchant, and also had item pick ups, but you were usually limited to how much health packs you can buy and couldn’t purchase any ammunition. In other words, if you ran out of ammo, you were on your own, just you and your knife.

Dead Space doesn’t have that. As long as you have the money, you can buy as much health and ammo as you want. Granted, players that are good at the game won’t have to purchase either, except for maybe once in a while (note: this will change a bit when playing the Impossible difficulty). If you’ve mastered the art of effective limb removal, ammunition will be far from a problem. The good player will simply spend their cash on power nodes, better suits (unless you’re a cheating bastard and use one of the downloadable suits…which, on Impossible difficulty, you bet your ass I am) or more weapons. Even so, all of these purchasable items balance themselves back to being a playable game where you aren’t too worried about dying or running out of ammo.

Save Points

They are all over the place. The only time you see so many save points in a game is typically when it is built exclusively for a handheld, where sometimes you only have five minutes to play. Just about every other room or hallway has a save point. It completely eliminates the worry about dying.

Of course, it turns out you don’t even need to use these save points because of the…

Checkpoints

The game never actually tells you about them, but after dying a couple times (on the off chance you die at all) you will realize that the game will always restart you at the beginning of the room you are in. Just about every door you pass through is another checkpoint.

I imagine this is one of those things that arose from your average gamer of Phi Kappa Jackass after they played Resident Evil or Silent Hill. They didn’t like that when they died, they had to go back half an hour or more and replay from the last point they had saved. So, the developers decided to please them by taking away any real nervous fear you have of going into a room. No matter what happens, if you die, you’ll be ready for it when you jump right back into that room. It’s pretty much a respawn.

The Bottom Line

As I said earlier, these are only poor design choices in terms of a survival horror. If the game had simply been labeled “horror”, or “shooter/horror”, I wouldn’t have cared because then they’d be great design choices. Yes, even the store, because if you have to constantly buy ammo or health in this game, then you’re playing it wrong. Plain and simple. Go back to playing the latest Madden.

It isn’t just the game’s mechanics that make it incredibly fun, either. While it may not be the spine tingling fear of other horror games, they still managed to do an amazing job with the atmosphere. The architecture is very gothic in nature, where all of the walls and railings resemble a sort of bone structure. You might think you see something out of the corner of your eye, or spot a shadow on the wall, only for it to be part of the environment. The lighting itself does incredible work, often showing you shadows of potential enemies to come.

Unlike games like Doom 3, Dead Space doesn’t really follow much of a pattern that allows you to predict when there will or won’t be enemies. Sometimes you’ll see an enemy run right in front of you down the hallway, only for them to jump at you later. Other times, they never appear at all. The audio cues are masterfully executed, with the music playing at just the right volume for you to jump. Different sound effects are used for different environments, giving you the feeling of something roaming around in the dark. You’ll often hear random cries of the alien creatures, but don’t know if that means one is appearing or not. The game makes sure that every time an enemy appears, you hear it. This both prepares you for a coming fight, or makes you nervous when nothing seems to be there.

Dead Space is a fantastic gaming package, and definitely one of the best titles to be released this year. While the story is nothing amazing, it is still pretty good and certainly better than the trite horror coming out in theaters. This counts for the writing and voice acting as well. The game may not be the most frightening, but it does a decent job as you will probably still jump a few times when you replay it (and believe me, this game has great replayability. Especially if you’re a sucker for achievements). While the overall design doesn’t work as a survival horror, they certainly manage to do everything correctly in making it a good game.

If you’re on the fence about the game, I’d give it a rent. If you have other games you’d like to buy first, then put this one on your Christmas list. Just make sure you play it, as there is no good reason not to.