[Goosebumps theme to 0:25:3] [distant wail] Ehh… Halloween is right around the corner. But instead of checking on an indie horror title like I did last year, I thought this year I’d look at a more mainstream one. My first encounter with “Dead Space” was the commercial for it. I knew nothing about it, but, man, did it draw me right in. ♪ Twinkle, twinkle, little star. ♪ ♪ How I wonder what you are. ♪ ♪ Up above the world so high, ♪ ♪ Like a diamond in the sky. ♪ There would be just a long shot of a spaceship area, and then BAM – cut to violence. I was really curious, and I ended up buying it not long after that. So, what’s this all about, and how does it hold up nine years later? To start with the “How does it hold up?” part, I need to talk about the PC port. Unfortunately, this game is possessed by the devil. [screaming] Luckily, I have a few tricks to exorcise him. “Dead Space” is a console port, and it has a lot of framerate-specific issues. The input time and the speed of mouse movement are affected by the framerate, so your movement can feel different depending on the room you’re in. To make matters worse, the better the game is running, the more physics will start to brake. The physics issue can kind of be solved by using the in-game V-Sync option. But if you use this, then your game is locked to 30 frames per second and the mouse issue gets even worse. You would think that locking the framerate would fix that, but... it doesn’t. But if you leave it off, you may run into even stranger problems, like not being able to go through one of the first doorways in the game. So, do you want 30 FPS with awful input lag, or do you just want kind of bad controls with the game going haywire? I’d recommend neither. Download the “Dead Space mouse fix”, and most of your problems go away. Turn off in-game V-Sync, force it with you driver control panel, then cap it at 60. Now you can aim without feeling like you’re in a syrup bottle, and a lot less people will be flying through the floors. Now we can get into the game proper. I’ll take it from the top. You play as a ship engineer named Isaac Clarke in the far future. He’s part of a repair team sent to a mining ship. USG Ishimura was mining a planet, when suddenly it stopped communicating with its corporation. So, instead of an action hero or a soldier, you’re essentially playing as an employee of space Geek Squad. When things go wrong, you end up stranded on the ship. It turns out they have a bit bigger problems than a broken Wi-Fi. So, it’s up to you to find out what happened and fix the Ishimura. That’s all I’m going to say about the plot for now. Let’s look at the visuals. “Dead Space” looks incredible. I was actually a bit shocked at how well it held up. This is a port of 360 game that looks great, so what went right? Two words: “lighting” and “effects”. I love this one bit where you are on a gondola, and the fog moves away and reveals all the enemies. It’s just great. Using smoke and darkness to hide shortcomings wasn’t a new trick, but they mastered it. The few times there are brightly lit areas, you can tell how low-res the textures are, but this doesn’t happen often. It is a nearly decade-old game, but unless you are staring at walls up close, I think it holds up on the technical level. The attention to detail with the effects is fantastic. Speaking of attention to detail: I have to talk about the art style, especially with how the heads-up display works. KENDRA: “Hold still Isaac, I’m syncing everyone’s RIG with the ship.” That’s your health bar filling up. Where other games have some kind of health bar, it’s just right there on your body. If you want to read some logs, you just pull it up in front of you. No going into a menu or anything like that. KENDRA: “Is that the crew?!” Yeah, just move the camera around, it’s really there. How much air is left? The suit will tell you. Where’s the objective? The suit will tell you. If you’re really lost, you can always use the 3D map. That’s pretty handy. Check out the inventory. Isaac follows along with whatever you look at. How many rounds are left in your weapon? The GUN will tell you. This might not seem like a huge deal, but it does wonders for helping to draw you into the setting. All that video game UI stuff is just a part of their world. I mean, if you working in the Harris Teeter, you probably don’t need to wear a health bar, unless it’s, you know, the Sunday rush… But what if you worked here? A lot can go wrong in space. Maybe there’s some kind of solar flare, or a big rock knocks out the AT&T communication tower. Frank’s been awfully still. I hope none of those micro meteorites hit him. Well, now you don’t have to wonder. You’ll KNOW. You could be saying that’s a stretch, because there are better ways to do this, but they sell this to you right from the start. Right when you walk aboard, there’s a big display, telling you how it’s the oldest mining ship in the fleet, and how happy the company is you’re there. If you have worked in a retail or a call center, you already know what’s up. Hey, my space suit kinda looks like a pair of pajamas with some plating on it. Did they cut some corners? Then you find the limb replacement lab. They wanna keep you working. They’re growing fetuses to harvest the stem cells for this, I think. Concordance Extraction isn’t a good company. You’re not getting workplace insurance. You lost it when you dragged that ladder that one time. Details! The ship and everything on it has very cool industrial look. I’ve seen Ishimura compared to the Nostromo from “Alien”, and I agree. There’s a lot of inspiration from that there, though “Dead Space” certainly looks a bit more modern. I was really satisfied with how they presented the ship. It seems practical, like this bathroom. Here’s where they grow all their food. Here’s where they process asteroids. Here’s where the crew blow off some steam. Some all-American zero-G hoopers. In case you couldn’t tell already, I really like the world of “Dead Space”. I think it’s unique. It’s also very well animated. I love how tense Isaac looks. He’s always suspiciously looking around. I can’t really say I blame the guy. [screaming and struggling] The sound of the game definitely matches the visual quality. This goes double for some of the enemies. [guttural moan] [sharp shriek] [cries of agonizing pain] [angry slurping] [irratic slurping] Just the sound of Isaac breathing is great for building up tension. The sound changes depending on how much health or air you have. [tense breathing] [stifled gasping] “Exiting zero gravity." [stifled gasping] "Exiting vacuum.” [uneven breathing, pounding heartbeat] So, all around this is some top-notch presentation! There’s a bit more to touch on there, but that weaves into the gameplay, so let’s get started. “Dead Space” is third-person shooter first and foremost, but they changed it up a bit from most shooting games by not having you aim at the center of mass or the head. Instead, you go for the limbs. These are necromorphs, not zombies. To put it simply: every single cell in this thing wants you dead. I’m not sure this is really killing them. The game is pretty adept at teaching you this. All the enemies have very dangling or kind of lanky limbs to aim at. Chopping off the head won’t kill them. If anything, it just pisses them off. [clicking of empty clip] It’s simple to learn through trial and error, but “Dead Space” doesn’t do that, and I actually kind of hate how they introduce it to the player. This is right above your first weapon. Not exactly subtle. I definitely can’t miss the big window telling me to cut off the limbs. Okay, I got it. RECORDING: "Listen, forget about shooting them in the body! You gotta cut off the limbs!" RECORDING: "Grab a cutter or anything like that! Cut them apart!" Okay, three times the charm, now let’s find the ne… HAMMOND: "Isaac, be careful. Shooting them in the body didn’t seem to work." HAMMOND: "Go for the limbs, dismember them. That should do the job." I understand, everyone’s telling me… “…by dismembering enemy limbs…” Oh, come on! I get they didn’t want the players to miss out on this, but this is all within about three minutes! That’s five prompts in a row. You’ve only fought about two enemies by this point. It’s unnecessarily heavy-handed, and that’s gonna be a theme here. It’s an action-horror game, so I’m gonna take a look at the action first. It’s pretty damn solid. As the engineer, your main task is to get the ship working again. The necromorphs aren’t making this easy, but you have some weapons to dispose of them. Instead of guns, most of your weaponry is mining equipment. But this is dangerous future space mining equipment. They had an arm factory after all. When gravity-tethered buzz saws are a part of your equipment, it makes sense to have an arm factory. The seven weapons in the game, each feel very different, and they’ll all have multitudes of roles you can use them for. You can carry four at a time, so that leaves a lot of room to experiment. It’s all about preference. The one gun in the game – the pulse rifle – needs a lot of ammo for these little enemies. There could be a better way. Or even better than that. Each weapon also has an alternate fire mode, so, depending on what you’re carrying, it can feel like having eight weapons. The variety in weapons is perfect for matching all the different enemies. If something is giving you trouble, maybe some new hardware will do the trick. This is a bad mindset to have in real life, but here it’s good. It’s neat to think about the practical uses of these tools before they were being used to slaughter monsters. The pulse rifle does raise some questions. [rapid fire and screams of necromorphs] It’s possible to beat the game with just plasma cutter, but you’d be missing on all the fun in the variety. See, I got that bad man. Besides conventional weapons you have some other tools. You have this stasis module that will temporarily slow enemies down. This is useful for getting out of a tight spot. You especially need it for dealing with level hazards. Pretty handy. There’s also a gravity-manipulating kinesis module, also used for dealing with level hazards. It also manipulates small objects, so you can throw some explosive barrels at necromorphs. This is effective, and it doesn’t waste any ammo. Or throw explosive enemy parts at other enemies. Throw their own blades at them. Throw blades you found on the ground at them. Why reach for anything anymore? This is your life now. You can find health packs, ammo and money by searching around the ship. Most ammo you find is based on what weapons you’re carrying. This way your loadout won’t affect your salvage rates. You’ll always need to be on the hunt for boxes and lockers – they’re your lifeblood. This is another bonus to the breadcrumb system. You always know which way you need to go, so you can go another way. There is no worrying about which way is the right way and which way is the explorer’s way. The game tells you. On top of that, it only tells you if you ask for it. If you don’t want directional help, the game never gives it to you. Looking for health and ammo is a given, but there are a few other things to keep an eye out for. Every once in a while, you might find a new item, weapon or armor schematic. These items can be brought to a store, and once it’s there, you can buy the items. Then you go on the hunt for the money, or valuable items you can sell for the money. Anything you find can be sold, no trip is wasted. A better suit means more damage resistance and more inventory space. It always feels like a major accomplishment when you get some new threads. It’s a progression milestone. You can make smaller ones along the way. Scattered through the levels, or on tough enemies, are power nodes. There’s also an option to buy them at the store, but at 10k a pop they’re expensive. If you find a workbench, all of your weapons, your suit powers and the suit itself can be upgraded. The items are upgraded with a circuit system, so you might need three power nodes just to get to first upgrade. So, making your health bar bigger would cost three power nodes, but if you improve a weapon, it might cost less power nodes to get upgrades. A capacity upgrade fills your weapon with ammo, so it might be a good idea to wait until your ammo is low before upgrading your capacity. That’s saving some money. I think it’s a good system, because you can’t just rush something like a damage upgrade. You have to think about it a bit. As an added bonus, it’s not just numbers. When you weapon’s upgraded, you get new visual and sound effects. [pewpewpewpewpew] [slightly faster pewpewpew] There’s also the option to spend a power node to open a power-locked door. These have all been worth it from my experience. These systems all together are excellent, but they work their best on harder difficulties. On easier difficulties enemies drop more ammo, are more likely to drop ammo, they take less hits to kill, they dish out less damage and rarely dodge your attacks. All these systems work together because of scarcity. If someone’s playing on “Easy”, they can kill the enemies with a few hits, they have more ammo, which means they can sell it for more money, and they have more upgrades. You don’t need to scavenge as much, you’ll always have stuff on you. It completely dissolves all the tension. As much as I love the game, it has a commitment problem. So now I need to talk about the horror aspect of “Dead Space”: it’s not as strong as the action. Really good works of horror take a long time to build up tension. “Dead Space” has about two minutes. JOHNSTON: “The hell?” KENDRA: “I don’t know! Something’s in the room with us!” HAMMOND: “Jesus! Open fire, open fire! Kendra, power! Kendra!” KENDRA: “Come on! Come on!” I do like this sequence, but it’s very apparent this isn’t gonna be a very subtle game. Listen to how much is going on. [screams, dramatic music, vents breaking] KENDRA: “Run, Isaac! Get the hell out of there!” I can barely hear myself think. [more screaming and music] The game feels so tense during the quiet parts. The problem is when the game does build up to something that has to be as loud and over the top as possible. It’s also very reliant on jump-scares. The first time that I shot an enemy and it played dead, it caught me off guard, but I figured it out quick. I get that horror is subjective and something that scares me might not scare someone else. The issue here is using the same tricks over and over again. That looks kinda suspicious. Yeah, he was just faking it. There’s another one. Okay, this one has a spotlight on it, so, let’s check that out. Wow, they’re really focusing on this one. Even if these things terrify you, you’re gonna figure them out quick. Even that sequence in the beginning kind of lost its magic with me. It wasn’t the sequence itself, but the game kept showing scary things behind glass. CREWMAN: “Let me out! Noooo!” HAMMOND: "Get that core to the shuttle!" HAMMOND: “Don’t wait for me! Oh, fuck me…” MERCER: “She had faith. Now she awaits her transport…” Howdy. I’m not even gonna test this one. A lot of the Ishimura is very tight hallways. So what happens is you’ll be going down chasing an enemy, and then they’ll spawn one behind you. I’m not gonna make a montage of those, because it’s so constant, but basically, whenever you fight, look over your shoulder, there’s probably something there. RECORDING: “This is Benson. Everybody, listen up! They use the vents! That’s how they’re getting around the ship!” They’re gonna be popping out of the vents a lot. Bursting out of the vent is their main method of spawning for the whole game. I know, the phrase “Don’t let them see the monster” won’t work in “Dead Space”, but another method does. I get that the necromorphs are mainly based off of the alien in the movie “The Thing”, but there’s some key differences in execution. Both, necromorphs and The Thing are grotesque alien monsters, both of them appear completely in the light. But what made The Thing scary is that it was unpredictable. It had multiple forms it could take and methods of getting around. The Thing didn’t burst out of the broom closet every time it appeared. “Dead Space” is fully capable of making this work. It does it a few times. [sharp shriek] [guttural moan] While it has all the issues I listed before, there’s this one level I really like. It’s all a buildup to a boss fight. There are some necromorphs in this level you don’t see anywhere else in the game. The area is tinted differently and looks like nothing else in the ship. There’s a long, quiet walk to it. You’ve only heard about this thing through audio logs and text. You have no idea what to expect. I’m not gonna show it, but it’s a fantastic buildup to the fight. It makes me wish that more of the game was like this. What if the beginning was different? How about the glass scene never happens, the lobby is empty, and the team splits up. Player learns how to use kinesis and stasis modules to move around the environment. There’s no blood or writing on the walls, it’s just kind of quiet and creepy. Where is everybody? They recall you back to the lobby, and you’re just walking down the hallway. What the hell was that? It wouldn’t have to be long. You could go back to the lobby and replay the glass scene like normal, but maybe a little bit of buildup would be nice. I felt more tense when the necromorphs weren’t attacking me. That’s spooky. The combat is really fun and tense. I just wish some of the elements weren’t so repetitive. The fact that you go back to the levels several times makes this even more detrimental. It seems like the game can be edited down a bit and not lose much. Quiet “Dead Space” and loud “Dead Space” feel like two completely different games. It kind of is, in a way. I read an article that explains a lot. When “Resident Evil 4” came out, it was (no pun intended) a game-changer. The offset, over-the-shoulder camera would go on to influence a ton of games. So, you have a horror title relying more on action elements that becomes wildly successful. When this happened in 2005, the “Dead Space” team was the “System Shock 3” team. The team was so impressed by it, they decided to make their own “Resident Evil 4”, but put it in space. I’m not exaggerating that. There was a lot of clunkiness in “4” they wanted to improve on, but it’s safe to say: without “Resident Evil 4” there would be no “Dead Space”. The setting of “Dead Space” and the concept are very similar to “System Shock”, so that all makes sense. It’s really not a hard stretch to make if you’ve played both games. “System Shock” is much slower than “Resident Evil 4”. I can’t even say that I think one game is better, because they’re so different in how they presented. This completely explains why I find some parts of “Dead Space” to be really jarring. It’s like one moment it’s quiet, tense and slow-building, and then BAM, you’re in “Resident Evil 4” mode. There were a few parts where I felt like I could see it happening in real time. Like, necromorphs would just be quietly stalking around with no music, then one sees you and it all shifts. [sudden and obnoxiously loud screaming] There is a saving grace to this. If you can accept “Dead Space” as a haunted house ride, it’s a ton of fun. Because when they go over the top, they don’t hold back. You can find montages that are only scenes of Isaac dying, because they’re just so well-made. [desperate screaming] [screams of panic and vicious screeching] [pulse flatlining] Yeah, there’s no coming back from that… I guess, my point is that there are a lot of ways they could have made it scarier, but they didn’t. At the same time, I don’t think it’s a huge issue, because the game’s fun, and that’s what’s all about. Don’t play to be scared, play for a good time. You can still pretend to be scared on Twitch. I also find the “space” part of “Dead Space” to be a bit of a letdown. You leap around from surface to surface with magnetic boots, and you can’t fly around in zero-G. The camera can also flip out a bit during this. It’s not horrible, but vastly improved in the sequel. As for the story, the character parts are kind of weak. Isaac is also trying to find his girlfriend on the ship, but he’s a silent protagonist. I mean, technically, he has some journal commentary, but I was way more invested in the mystery. We’re gonna talk spoilers, so go to here if you don’t want to see those. Are they gone? Thank God… KYNE: “We have to assume that the colony’s problems are somehow connected to the Marker.” MATHIUS: “You can assume all you want to. I do not. The Marker is glorious and divine. You… You know that.” As you progress, it becomes apparent that this wasn’t a normal mining operation. Something was very off. Even before the necromorphs showed up, the crew on the ship and the crew down on the planet were committing suicide, suffering mental illnesses and other, you know, red flags… As bad as things were getting, the captain wouldn’t call in an SOS. Because it was an ILLEGAL mining operation. But they didn’t even call for help when the necromorphs were all over the place. Yeah, this is a really shady company, but they’re not that shady. If something like this is growing on your wall, I think you need to make a few phone calls. Strangely enough, the military just happens to be in the neighbourhood. So what’s going on here? “Dead Space” has a powerful religion called Unitology. They believe life on Earth was seeded by aliens. They claim an alien artifact called The Marker was discovered on Earth, but the government covered it up. Well, you’ll never guess what they found on the planet. A fresh, new, crayola-red Marker. Its discovery driving people insane or turning them into monsters is a bit of a test of faith for the crew. Not all of them are unitologists after all. The ones who are, feel conflicted about it. Is it supposed to work this way? Is something going wrong? Or is this always how it was meant to be? So, naturally, you get some power struggles. It’s nice that you can put a lot of it together on your own before the game outright tells you. I’m usually not a fan of scary graffiti, but if you want to be a cereal box translator, you can figure out some elements early. I do like that being an option. But then the twist happens. The captain was sent there to retrieve the Мarker. The church and the company have pretty close ties, and so when the survey team found it, they rang the church, the church rang the captain. The last captain just didn’t have what it took. But then – triple twist: one of the repair crew members is a covert agent. The Marker on the planet is actually an artificial copy of the real Marker. The government tested it on some barren wasteland world where no one would bother them. When it turned out to have issues, they made the zone off-limits and buried it. The scientists altered the marker so it would contain the necromorphs. That way the other undead scientists would be trapped there. But your crewmate wants to bring it back to the government and leave you to die. Some of these bits are kinda familiar… Oh right, you do find out earlier that your girlfriend is alive. There’s something suspicious about it, but I can’t put my finger on it. Alright, she’s been dead the whole time… As much as I think the character elements are weak, I do like this one little moment here. It’s not much. He’s still silent, but hey, it’s something. Isaac tries to return the Marker, but things don’t go as planned. The whole game built up to this and it’s worth it. [ungodly shrieking and deafening primal roar] It was so worth it to be here. This thing is amazing. The Hive Mind isn’t the most challenging fight, but as far as the final boss goes, it’s pretty incredible. Compared to everything else in “Dead Space”, the Hive Mind is on a completely new level of spectacle. You made it through everything else, now your reward is getting to fight a giant monster. You escape the planet, get a jump-scare, and that’s “Dead Space”. Despite it having a lot of clichés, I enjoy the story of “Dead Space”. It’s a very satisfying game. It answers questions, but not all of them. What exactly are the Markers? Who built them? What’s their purpose? Why does it make necromorphs? My theory was that it created more of the host race, but something went wrong with the process. After all, it’s a copy of the real Marker. The necromorphs could be “Marker DRM”. You better not copy this illegally. Who knows… Beating the game unlocks New Game +, a new difficulty and a bunch of goodies for your New Game +. It’s time to win the war. [bloodthirsty cry] [rapid fire] Despite its flaws, “Dead Space” is a solid game, and I highly recommend it. Just remember to tweak your settings a bit. Next time I’ll be going over a game that I think is better than this one. I’ll see you next time when I… Wait. I forgot to mention a secret. “Dead Space” has twelve named chapters. If you put together the first letter of each chapter, you get a secret message. With that out of the way, thanks for watching! I’ll see you next time. [manly grunting]
