WAA - Dead Space

It only makes sense to end my Dead Space series with a spot in WAA.

The "One With Combat"Award: "Pack Rat"
You just have to store 25 items in your safe. Between enemy drops and the copious number of item caches to be found around the ship, you can squirrel away 25 items within the first two levels.

The "Mile High Club" Award: "Epic Tier 3 Engineer"
You need to beat the game on "Impossible" mode, which isn't even available until you beat the game on another difficulty. It's far from impossible, but the enemies are faster and tougher, while ammo and health packs are harder to come by. This difficulty definitely puts the "survival" back in Survival/Horror. My advice is to finish prone enemies with the foot stomp to save ammo, and don't be bashful about using stasis to slow the faster enemies.

The "Seriously..." Award: "Maxed Out"
None of the Achievements require that much grinding, though this one will force you to do another half playthrough past your first. You have to accumulate enough Contact Nodes to fully upgrade everything in the game, and there aren't enough in one playthrough to pull it off.

The "Little Rocket Man" Award: "Ragdoll Check"
For this one, you need to find panels on the floor that jam enemies into the ceiling, a fate which is 100% lethal for them (and you!). You can either maneuver them into the panels while fighting, or you can use stasis and then give 'em a good shove!

The Scientist Gone Gamer Award: "A Cut Above"
The Ripper is one fun little gun.



Achievement Set Rating - 7
This is a fairly standard set for a shooter, improved by the presence of varied, colorful icons and the absence of multiplayer Achievements. They aren't breaking any new ground, but most of the bases are covered and I never felt annoyed while completing the set.

Achievement Difficulty Rating - 3
You can get all but one of the Achievements on the Normal (or even Easy) difficulty setting. It's a straightforward set, though you'll need two and a half playthroughs to get them all. It's probably about 25 hours for the full set. Plus the game is fun, which always helps!

Dead Space - Nitpicks

After nearly 2.5 trips through Dead Space, I've accumulated some petty gripes. Remember that these are just nitpicks...overall I really liked the game and will almost certainly play the inevitable sequel.

- Isaac is you typical mute protagonist, so it's hard to feel strongly about him one way or the other. But your two "sidekick" characters during the game are gratingly obnoxious. The female computer expert is a hate-filled harpy and I actively rooted for her death throughout the adventure. Fortunately they aren't around much, mostly filling the role of narrating what your next objective is.

- The monsters in this game can continue to attack even after losing limbs, and even their heads. That's fine, but it's really hard to tell when they're dead versus when they're just reeling from getting a leg blown off. Some kind of death animation would help to prevent situations in which I unload an extra half a clip into a monster's corpse because it's still twitching a bit.

- The game uses a strange offset camera where Isaac sort of stands off to one side a bit (the left), and you see past him. It's almost like someone is filming his exploits from behind (like an episode of COPS). It's not a big issue but it takes some getting used to, especially because it means you have far less peripheral vision on one side than the other.

- The object physics in this game are a little...touchy. For example, if you bump into a dead body it can flip and careen around the floor, sometimes knocking limbs off for no good reason. It feels like environmental objects don't have the proper weight, as if gravity isn't working properly.

- The game has several sections where you move around in zero-G. This is actually pretty cool, and there's even a boss fight where you have to jump around to the walls and ceiling during the fight. Two issues though. One is that it's really hard to tell what constitutes an "allowed" landing point and what doesn't in this game. The other is that trying to run around a wall and fight monsters while hanging upside down with a whirling camera can be disorienting at best, and nausea-inducing at worst.

- The weapon progression is a little bizarre. Usually you start with a weak weapon and find better ones as you go. In this game, I found that the starting weapon (the plasma cutter) was the most effective in the game. It's accurate, it fires quickly, it carries a lot of ammo, and after a few upgrades it's pretty powerful. Most of the later weapons didn't impress me much, though the ripper certainly has its uses (what is it with me and chainsaw weapons...I was getting Dead Rising flashbacks!). I guess this isn't really a complaint, but it seemed strange to toss all the other guns into storage and stick with the original weapon.

- Finally, a quick note to whoever came up with the little creepy-crawly enemies that march along the floor in a swarm, are nearly invisible in a dark hallway, and jump onto your back, forcing you to hammer on the A button while Isaac dances around in a pitiful attempt to dislodge them: WHAT THE FUCK???

Dead Space - Gameplay

Comparing Dead Space to other Survival/Horror games, one bullet point at a time:

- Typical S/H games have gimped controls, with controller inputs that are purposely awkward to make the game less about twitch reactions and more about...well, survival. Dead Space largely breaks from these traditions by featuring tight, intuitive controls. The camera does turn slowly though, occasionally creating issues in those "There's something right behind you!" moments.

- Dead Space really de-emphasizes melee combat. You can pat impotently at enemies with your gun, doing negligible damage while they gnaw your face off, or you can SHOOT THEM. I recommend the latter. There is a footstomp which is occasionally useful for downed enemies, but it still isn't as effective as bullets.

- All the "enemies jumping out of nowhere" stuff that you've seen in other S/H games is repeated here, albeit more often. Those evil aliens have a real knack for falling right out of the ceiling on your head, eliciting a startled jump and a bunch of panic fire from the player.

- Despite that, the enemies are not terribly competent at dealing damage, at least at the normal difficulty level. They telegraph their attacks, they back off after they've hit you once rather than finishing the kill, and unless you get swarmed you won't die often. While this may sound boring, it actually fits well with a theory from one of my favorite game bloggers Shamus Young, who once wrote about how "perceived danger" is more scary than "deadly danger" in video games. The idea is that it's far scarier to feel like you ALMOST died in a video game than to actually hit the game over screen and realize that now you just have to reload and replay that section. Dead Space hits this note well.

NOTE: Shamus Young's site gets my highest recommendation for people who are interested in video games or other aspects of geek culture.

- Speaking of reloading, most S/H games have infrequent save points so punishment for failure is high. Some even tie saving to disposable items (ex. typewriter spools in Resident Evil) so you have to decide for yourself when you should use a precious save. Blech! Dead Space has frequent save points that you can use freely, as well as checkpoints between saves. Death means replaying just a couple minutes tops.

- The difficulty settings are also well done. My playthrough on normal was pretty simple...I only died a couple times due to environmental puzzles, and not once because of enemies. I'm a pretty experienced gamer, so most people would be mildly challenged. There is an easier setting as well for beginners. I'm now playing on the highest difficulty, and it's very challenging. I wouldn't say death is "frequent" but I do need to replay certain sections a few times to pass. For those who prefer a challenge, it's definitely available.

- NO QUICKTIME EVENTS. That's so important that I feel like I should say it again. Quicktime events are (unfortunately) a staple of S/H games. They are not fun. They are the opposite of fun. Dead Space doesn't have any. Three cheers for Dead Space!

Overall, Dead Space is a very well made game and a solid example of the S/H genre. It's without a doubt one of the best S/H games on the 360 (not the highest praise in the world, but still sincere). Just bear in mind that it leans more towards a shooter than a Silent Hill clone and you'll be on the right track.

Next time, nitpicks!

Dead Space - The Survival/Horror Genre

One quick note: I passed the 80,000 point mark while playing Borderlands last night. Six figures is definitely in my sights.

I've been pretty negative on the blog lately owing to a string of frustrating or outright crappy games. So I thought it was time to talk about a game I'm enjoying: Dead Space.

Dead Space falls into the Survival/Horror genre (at least, to the extent that you can shoehorn games into categories these days). I like this particular genre, but I'm forced to admit that for every gem (Silent Hill 2, Resident Evil 4) there's a lot of junk (the other Resident Evil games, anything featuring the words Alone in the Dark). Dead Space happily resides much closer to the "gem" side, not really in the same class as the two aforementioned Hall of Famers but a strong candidate for the All Star team.

S/H games fall into two broad categories based largely on gameplay. The first is the "Badass in a Freaky Situation" game (example: Resident Evil 4). In this one you'll usually play as a special forces operative, a police officer, or some other character trained in combat. The game will feature a number of weapons (probably guns), and the main character will be proficient in each of them right away. The game will play a lot like a shooter, but the controls will be a little awkward (purposely so) and the enemies will come lurching out of the shadows or popping out of closets to scare the player. Essentially, these are shooters with "atmosphere"...they're scary because of the ambiance but get less frightening as you realize that your character is equipped to handle the waves of enemies that they'll face.

The second category is the "Wrong Place, Wrong Time" game (example: most of the Silent Hill games). In these games, you usually play as a helpless civilian with little combat training. Weapons are mundane, generally melee (bats and crowbars are common), and the resources are carefully portioned to insure that you're always one major screw-up away from death. These games are emphasizing the "survival" portion of the genre by giving you a few enemies, very limited resources, and a sliver of hope that you can make it through alive. The gameplay is usually very awkward and unintuitive, especially in combat, to capture the feeling that you're controlling a helpless idiot that has wandered into a situation well beyond their abilities. These games are most closely related to adventure games, because they're less about killing enemies and more about exploring the environment, solving puzzles, and advancing the story.

Dead Space falls into the "Badass in a Freaky Situation" category. The protagonist, Isaac Clarke, may be a space engineer (I'll get more into the story in another post), but he acquits himself pretty well with the weapons you'll find. The game involves a lot of fighting, a little light puzzle solving, and a horde of monsters that love to leap out and say "Boo"...then tear your face off.

Next time I'll talk about how Dead Space went right where a lot of games in this genre go wrong.