A few weeks ago I finally got a chance to dig into the game Dead Space (I'm playing the 360 version). Obviously I love horror games, and so far this one doesn't fail to deliver the goods. I'm about halfway through it and I'd like to share my thoughts on it so far. The team at EA Redwood Shores have crafted an amazingly terrifying experience through their excellent use of atmosphere, immersion, and pure vileness.
The first thing that struck me in Dead Space was its sense of atmosphere. I have a 5.1 setup at home, but since I tend to play games late at night when my wife and kids are sleeping, I use a pair of Tritton AX360 5.1 headphones, and all I can say is, holy crap! The use of audio is simply astounding. As you make your way through the Starship Ishimura, your heavy footsteps echo through the cold metal hallways, and you can hear the enemies crawling through the vents all around you - it's quite unnerving. There is nothing like hearing guttural groans and sloppy squishy noises as you approach the bend in a hallway to know that you're about to face something horrendous.
In addition to the sound effects, the game sports a fantastic musical score by Jason Graves (a good interview with him can be found at Fangoria), whose influence comes from classic horror films such as The Shining and The Exorcist. As you make your way through the corridors, you get low, sinister cues that build as you get closer to key confrontations and events, at which time you really get blasted by the frantic percussion and slashing strings. Very appropriate for the game's enemies.
The design of the game and the interior of the Ishimura create an immersive sense of isolation and foreboding that make every move you make through the ship that much more tense. At any moment you feel like something could just come leaping at you, and that is often the case. Fortunately, the pacing is so good that you never feel like you are just endlessly mowing through the same annoying enemies over and over. Each encounter with the game's enemies is quite unique and fits it's respective environment well.
Reinforcing this sense of immersion is the fact that the main character of Isaac never speaks, save for his grunts of pain as he struggles against the Necromorphs aboard the ship. You really feel like you are the one navigating the ship's environment, and it makes the experience that much more unnerving.
Speaking of which, the main stars of the game are the hideously vile creatures that roam the corridors. There is something that I find just completely disturbing about parasites that take over the body, and all the variations of the "Necromorph" enemies are all just completely disgusting. I would specifically like to call out the "Infectors," which are bat/cockroach type creatures (see the image above) that scour the ship for corpses to "infect," i.e. transform into new Necromorphs. The underside of one of these things makes me want to puke. A writing mass of cilia like tentacles, pulsating sac-like organs, and a huge proboscis that is injected into the forehead of the poor Necromorph-to-be make me cringe just thinking about them. In fact, it was because of these creatures that I had to initially stop playing for a few days. I literally dreaded running into them. Of course, this is always the case for me with any kind of Alien face-hugger derivative. I hate the goddamn things.
I'll post my afterthoughts on the overall experience once I finish the game.
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