Dead Space

Story
You play as Isaac Clark, a poor slob who gets stuck on a derelict spacecraft, which is teaming with ravenous “necromorphs,” reanimated corpses made by some alien lifeform.

Gameplay
This is quite a creepy survival horror game. Now it usually takes a lot to scare me, but it does make me jump. The music really sets the stage with lots of tension and leaves you on edge, very threatening atmosphere. There’s just something about it that sends terror shooting through you at the beginning of the game when you’re being chased to the elevator by the aliens.

Dead Space is a third person over the shoulder shooter. It has an interesting mechanic where you tap the right thumbstick, which sends out a holographic line to your next objective. This really helps keep you on track. There’s also a holo map which is kind of annoying, but you get used to it. As you go through the game you want to keep an eye out for power nodes, which can be used to upgrade your weapons, suit and abilities. Isaac aquires a stasis module, that temporarily slows objects and enemies. There’s also a kinesis module which allows him to pick up things, like ammo. You can even pick up your enemies severed claws and hurl them at the necromorphs. When I really started to try that strategy I was playing on the highest difficulty, therefore it took a while to kill any enemies.

In this survival horror game there are some very unique weapons. Most of them are mining tools, which also work quite nicely for dismembering limbs. Now this is important since the necromorphs are very hard to kill, you literally need to tear them apart. Shooting off appendages does extra damage and slows your enemies down. I usually try to cut their legs off and then pick them apart as they crawl towards me.

The game has a very satisfying ending, and the last boss isn’t overwhelmingly hard. I actually managed to beat him on the highest difficulty without dying.

Replayability
Medium replayability, there’s no multiplayer in Dead Space. One nice thing about the game is that when you beat it you can play through it again with all your guns; as well as all your weapon, suit and module upgrades.

Overal Rating:9.2/10
One of the scariest games out there, if you like being creeped out, Dead Space is for you. Go ahead, play it at night with the lights out.