Dead Space

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Right, having bought and beaten this in one day. (Starting 11:30~, and ending 23:30~) I can safely say, this game is awesome back to front.

The story begins as such: The Planet Cracker class mining ship USG Ishimura has gone dark shortly after a the mining op it's class describes. You're Isaac Clark, (yes, after the two authors) an engineer on the Kellion, a shuttle sent in to assist in repairs.

Of course, anyone who knows anything about the game knows its not going to be that simple. Things only go downhill from there. Throw in a mysterious artifact, a cult obsessed with said artifact, and a ship the size of a small city, capable of pulling a small continent into space...


Graphically, the game is downright beautiful. The lighting effects especially grab me. There was no pop-in that I saw, and everything is skinned very well. Artistically, they seemed to have drawn a lot from Alien, the Thing, and Event Horizon.

The weaponry is derived from fairly plausible, if decidedly powerful, tools. Aside from the ever present in sci-fi pulse rifle, all of Isaac's equipment is supposed to be heavy industrial tools. I'll admit not messing around with much more than the Line gun and [Pistol Cutter], as these served me in pretty much any situation.

There is a store, but it starts off with next to nothing to it. You have to find, and haul back to the store in your general inventory, design cards of the other items available. They are missable, but not terribly hidden. The main issue arising from having to give up an inventory slot until you can make it back to a shop. They're usually in a central location on the first few levels... But they're not common enough to make them infinate ammo pools.

To balance out the severely limited inventory. The store also offers a free storage service. I don't know what it's slot limit is, as though I started out with tonnes of ammo, I had shot my way through it by the mid way point, meaning aside from the odd 'rainy day' item (Like large health kits or stasis rechargers) I never had much in it.

The music is nearly non-existant. There's a very subdued danger score that I didn't notice until near the end, and in vacuum you hear nothing but Isaacs heart beat/muffled screams and foot steps. But the sound scape is put to better use than any other game I could name off the top of my head.

Speaking of which, Zero-G and Vacuum are handled very well. I forgot to whip out the flamer in Zero-G, but they've said it looks different, as it should, and it's unusable in hard vacuum. The controls in zero-G are mostly the same, due to Isaac's magnetic boots. However, a new option opens up, holding the aim button and hitting (Y) sends you leaping off in the direction you were looking. You can't do anything while coasting, but you travel very quickly.


As for how scary the game is... There're the usual scares. Yet, unlike a lot of "scary" games where you have guns, they really do manage to keep your paranoia up.



As a side not: I dubbed the last boss "Chuckles" while I was fighting him.

[Vympel]

What platform did you play it on? Would you recommedn X360/PS3 or PC?

[Andrew_Fireborn]

I played on 360, there's supposedly performance parity between PS3 and 360. Don't know anything about the PC performance, scalability and so on.

I do hope they use the engine more. It seems to do a LOT of things well. (There're fairly large spaces, the lighting I've mentioned, and the dismemberment of the enemies. Ragdoll physics still kinda suck... but I think they always will honestly.)

[Vympel]

Do you think it's the kind of game where keyboard and mouse would make a significant difference? I'm trying to weigh up the atmosphere difference in playing it on my 22in LCD at my desk with two speakers and a woofer with KB/mouse, or with a dual shock, a 46in HD LCD TV and a 5.1 surround system.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I've just ordered a new TV as my old Sony finally gave up the ghost after a good innings. I'd consider this the kind of game I'd rather play on the sofa, in front of a decent sized screen with surround sound, more than at some computer desk. It's about atmosphere from what I gather, and a scary game demands that, not that System Shock 2 wasn't as scary while being on the PC.

[Zixinus]

PC release delayed. Damn it.

[born in shadow]

I finished the game only a few hours ago on the PS3 and found that it was quite amazing. I clocked in at just over eight hours, but I'll be damned if I don't go through it again. The game just oozed atmosphere, some of those areas were just fucking awesome to go through. It's probably a minor thing, but I liked that the various areas you go through don't just feel like "ship interior, plus plants" but rather like they were distinct areas. I dunno, I thought that was cool

Also those parts where the tentacles grab you were FUCKING AWESOME Maybe that was just me too though.

[Spoilers] Though I was annoyed by the Valorous (whatever the military ship was called) being taken over by the one stupid little necrophage. I mean, they couldn't stop it? Don't they only produce more with the bats? One of them taking down an entire ship on their lonesome, especially one full of armed military personnel, just doesn't jive with me. [/Spoilers]

-Aaron, happy to finally post

[wautd]

Look interesting (apart that you can finish it in less than a day)

[Andrew_Fireborn]

[Spoilers][/Spoilers]

Aye, that kinda cheezed me off too... especially since if you find one of the logs, it basically says they new what they were up against going in. Even if they didn't know the specifics, they were likely told to either not rescue anyone, or light the survivors up like a christmas tree... Bad horror cliche, but at least it got us our ride. as badly as that turned out for us.

Also, set size to 25~ for ultra unreadable spoiler text.


Edit: I think I'll add: There's a hidden code in the game. A guy's stumbed onto a listing of the strange symbols and what they represent A-Z 1-0 style. And noticed that there's a URL message With ^V<> scrawled under it. Well, if you put your weapons light onto it, one of the arrows turns green. This forms a code that supposedly can be put in at the Pause menu. (They've already found quite a few through permutative testing. Including several 1 time codes for nodes and money.)

But this ones twelve in length. Admittedly, it's a binary code (X & Y or O & /\ depending on your system...) but that's still some 4k combinations... [If I'm remembering how to do that right... 2^12... >_> ]

[Max]

I love this game, I'm playing through it again.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'm torn. On the one hand, I want to play this game because my brother is going to get Drake's Fortune instead of me on platinum, but on the other, I don't want to spend £40 on barely ten hours of gameplay, even on hard.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Well, there's probably no danger in waiting for it to come down in price. I'd imagine it'll start to fill up shelves in a few weeks. (I'm not gonna trade in my copy, but I imagine a ton of folks will be cashing out after getting their fill.)

It had already gone Gold from preorders alone. So it's not like you'll be hurting their sales if you do hold off.

And while there is a NG+ for whatever difficulty you finish it on, (Clear file load type.) it doesn't allow you to skip cutscenes or turn off the tutorial boxes on the first two stages... (It would be hard to skip the scenes since they're in engine entirely, but there are a few points that're tense the first time, and a little long the second.)

Still, it's a fun ride, and I'd say at least rent it.

[born in shadow]

Ah thanks for the spoiler help =D

Insert spoilers here

I remember finding a log that said the Valorous (it was the Valorous right?) was obviously there ready for a tussle, but I don't remember anything more than that. Wasn't it Hammond saying how their magazines were full of live rounds and the heavy hitters rather than just defensive stuff? Still bothers me though, you see the pod leave and the military ship comes in like...what? 2-3 hours later? I think the only way for the whole crew to die would be from shock

Edit for spoilers MK II: Also, if Natalie was able to get a message to Issac that was basically "Oh, things are FUBAR here" then shouldn't more people know what went down? If only a little? I mean, the crew (aside from Kendra) went on to the place thinking it would be a cake walk. As far as I can tell, they didn't get any info aside from the fact there was a ship that was messed up and needed help...maybe I just missed something.

Also, anyone know if there's any real differences between the downloadable suits, the New Game + suit and the Level 5 (whatever the last one you get in the game is) suit? I hope it's not just cosmetic, though I do like the colors on the PS3 suit if nothing else. As far as I can tell, there's more armor on the NG+ suit, but it's probably just my memory being terrible

-Aaron, making sure to hit preview this time

[Max]

I think it's mainly cosmetic, and gives your armor a small boost.

My one issue with the game was the asteroid shooting portion. I'm sorry, but that kind of crap really takes me out of the 'moment' in a game. I mean, if it was a side mission for extra nodes, fine. For me, it just sucked. It took me a fucking hour to do. Not only that, there's an acheivment you can unlock if you retain 50% hull integrity...but I can't seem to do better than 12%. Fuck that.

Anyway... that's my only real issue.

[SylasGaunt]

This is easily one of the better games this year despite the length issues.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Spoil?

Yeah, the Valor's orders were to "Deep Clense" the Ishimura... Which to me reads as 'Kill EVERYTHING.' It's also spelled out quite clearly that "Infection by a dangerous lifeform is a distinct possibility." So yeah, they new what they were going into and still fucked up on an Aliens level...

Edit for spoilers MK II:

It's unclear how much actually got through, Nicole's starting message was obviously composed post necro-rampage... Which makes you think someone could have gotten a better description of the dangers off. One of the back story logs mentions that they couldn't find much information on the Computer specialist on your team, but she was clearly a Uni. It's unclear how much of the CEC is controlled by the Unis, but it's clearly a large amount of the higher ups, as they selected the crew for that mission as almost 1/3 of the ship (and most of the bridge crew) were Unitologists.

Of course, another log details the events of the original marker experiments on Aegis 7, and Altman was one of the people on that project. Though he was removed before the place got out of hand. At which point he founded his cult. So, this is indeed what the Unis were waiting for.

The new logs are all text, and they're located in the chapter 12 section of the archive menu.

Also, anyone know if there's any real differences between the downloadable suits, the New Game + suit and the Level 5 (whatever the last one you get in the game is) suit? I hope it's not just cosmetic, though I do like the colors on the PS3 suit if nothing else. As far as I can tell, there's more armor on the NG+ suit, but it's probably just my memory being terrible

The Elite/Obsidian have all of their 25 inventory slots, and supposedly only 10% armor (but I haven't checked myself, I had thought it to be higher than the level 5. You start with 0% on the level 1 suit.)
The scorpion has around the same inventory, and 35% IIRC.

The level 5 suit has 30% armor. The "level 6" or military suit has 40% armor.

My one issue with the game was the asteroid shooting portion. I'm sorry, but that kind of crap really takes me out of the 'moment' in a game.[/size]

Yeah, I didn't have it too hard myself, but it is a huge difference from the rest of the game, and there's very little time to react. I'm not sure it counts as spoilers, since it happens in the fourth chapter... but I'll go with it.

[born in shadow]

Hm, going through my database stuff, I found those chapter 12 logs so thanks for that! I also noticed a handful of missing logs in a couple of the chapters so I may have to go looking for those, it would explain some of the stuff I missed.

Oh well, not like that's an issue, game is quite awesome enough to where I don't care about going through it a few more times

Still, Aliens level screw ups with these people

-Aaron, about to start in again

[weemadando]

Roughly how long is it? People say length issues and finishing in a day, but are we talking a solid day of playing or a 3-4 hour session?

[born in shadow]

Roughly how long is it? People say length issues and finishing in a day, but are we talking a solid day of playing or a 3-4 hour session?

I finished it on normal in 8 hours or so, so there's that for a run through. That's like, 8 hours of playing, not just an 8 hour span with a 3 hour nap or anything

Edit: Also, it appears that the Military suit has 30% and the Obsidian has 10%. I was hoping it'd go up as you got further in, but whatever. Still a sexy suit.

-Aaron, just found that log about the Valor

[Feil]

I can't play a horror game for more than forty minutes at a time before I need to take a break to cool my nerves, anyway. Might be worth a buy when it gets to PC. Or I could figure out which of my friends has a 360 and play it on that.