ELECTRONIC ARTS, FOR many years the laughing stock of the gaming world. Pointless sports title after ever more pointless sports title. Many of us wondered how the company that brought us Desert Strike, Road Rash and the Buck Rogers games could have sunk so low in such a short period of time. And, somehow, still stay in business.

And then, last year, out of nowhere, the old EA suddenly came back. Announcing a plethora of new, and extremely inventive titles for the following (now current) year. Amongst them being Dead Space. Originally it seemed to be a Playstation 3 exclusive, though this ultimately proved not to be the case as it was simultaneously released both on the X-Box 360 and a week later for the PC as well. Though it was originally intended for a worldwide release on October 31st, it was put forward (likely due to a rather significant demand from the eagerly waiting players) to the 14th.

So, that begs the question, was it worthy of all the fuss?

Well, I can’t speak for the console version of the game, but the PC release certainly kept me entertained. It’s somewhat clichéd and formulaic, but unlike many such experiences, does not suffer from such as it was clearly intended to be so. From the initial, unarmed mad dash to escape from the first Necromorph, who almost catches you, but is crushed in the closing of an elevator door, to the “shock” twist in the closing cinematic, there is little that could be hailed as truly original. But it at no point ever really tries to be. EA have taken a tried and tested formula, thrown in some new characters (the protagonist taking after Gordon Freeman and never speaking) an impressive array of environments (especially considering almost the entire game takes place aboard a self-contained space craft) and some top-notch scripting and voice work.

It’s a combination of each of those things, along with the understated score by Jason Graves, the constantly oppressive atmosphere and the outstanding quality of the visuals which are all the more impressive considering the surprisingly low requirements for the game. Even on my decidedly sub-par rig it ran at a smooth 25+ frames per second with the settings maxed out at a 1024×768. I could even run at full 16×12 without noticing any significant slowdown, but I prefer the latter resolution for some reason. Though, it’s worth noting, that in some of the areas where there was a lot going on, such as environments with mist or lots of particulate matter in the air, my framerate took a bit of a dive. But even at it’s worst if never dropped below 16. Which is really, really impressive since I’m only just exceeding the minimum requirements.

The basic premise of the game is straightforward enough. Our erstwhile hero, Isaac Clark (a lowly repair tech) is sent to the USG Ishimura, a planet cracker (which does mean what you think it means, the planet crackers literally blast planets into asteroid chunks which can then be mined for raw materials) after all communication is cut off. Even before they dock with the ship the problems start as an impact from space debris forces an emergency landing. And then inside the space dock the crew are set upon by the Necromorphs, the pilot co-pilot is killed, and Isaac is separated from his crew mates Kendra Daniels (a tech expert) and Sergeant Zach Hammond.

Unarmed and alone, thinks don’t look so good for our friend the technician. But fear not, he quickly procures a plasma cutter for himself, and steels himself for a slaughter fest of suitably and satisfyingly gruesome proportions. The game is even designed to encourage dismemberment of your opponents, unlike those which have such features included for the sake of a little gore, with Dead Space you are actively encouraged to shoot off the Necromorph’s legs, arms, heads and…other appendages rather than just pumping a stream of bullets into them. This actually makes your initial weapon, whilst slow and theoretically weak, your most useful tool as it is designed, as the name implies, for cutting and features two firing modes. One for vertical cutting, and one for horizontal. Each of the weapons you will procure feature alternate firing methods, but the cutter, in my opinion, has the most useful as ammo is plentiful, and it can be adjusted for maximum efficiency in any environment. Such as when traversing a zero gravity environment where up and down are subjective to where you want them to be.

Overall, the game was pretty straightforward and didn’t really feature any groundbreaking ideas or new concepts in gameplay. It simply stuck to a refined, well rehearsed method of tense wanderings and intense bouts of action, with a few bits and pieces of mild puzzle solving along the way. But it is clear from the outset that the atmosphere of the game is the most important thing, and in this regard it succeeds magnificently. Easily elevating a truthly quite plain game into a thoroughly enjoyable survival horror, one of the few that actually succeeds in finding a good balance between the two. There was only one problem I could find with the game, and this came in the form of the aiming controls. A bane I usually associate only with console games (showing that this was clearly moved to the PC second) but it would at times be either much too slow, or far too fast, resulting in a number of irritating deaths when I found myself blasting the wall, or the floor at my feet instead of the slavering un-dead alien/human/monster thing only two feet away.

Simply put, Dead Space is an entertaining, replayable and cheesy as all hell (seriously, you can see the plot twists coming hours in advance) zombie romp with an, actually almost completely unimportant, alien flavour. And it’s a combination of all these things which makes it so much fun, because it never claims to be anything else. I would recommend before you do play the game that you track down and watch the six video comics that give details of the events directly leading up to and causing the problems aboard the Ishimura. They are all available for download on the Playstation Network, and I would assume on the X-Box Marketplace as well. They are not really integral to the plot, but they do add some interesting backstory, and will avoid those little moments where you sit wondering exactly what everyone is talking about.

Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Audio/Music: 9/10
Plot/Scripting: 9/10
Overall: 8.5/10