Dead Space First Impression

Well, I finally decided it was time to buy myself another game and after no consideration at all decided to get myself Dead Space (The Xbox 360 version). The reason for this is that all of the reviews were extremely positive and I felt like a good scare (to be honest I had also considered Fallout 3, but not really feeling like a sandbox RPG at the moment).

So yesterday during lunch I quickly dashed out to the stores and picked up a copy for R555*. Not too bad if you consider that most other titles nowadays cost between R600 - R700. Anyways, the rest of the day turned into a drag after that until it was finally time to go home and play. After firing up the Xbox and launching the game I realized it was time to finally unpack my 5.1 set of speakers to truly experience the wonder of the game. Getting them set up took some time, but I think it was worth the effort (despite the fact that I'm only running a 3.1 setup at the moment, don't know where to put the rear speakers in my room.)

Well then, on to the game. To be honest it is scary from the moment the disc launches, the eerie intro music and then of course the haunting voice singing "Twinkle, twinkle little star" if you just leave the game, intermixed with splashed of Isaac's (the main character) death(s). The game itself (after you start) is creepy from the moment go. The (extremely well detailed) interior of the UGS Ishimura is littered with blood and bodies. Enemies start off easy with one or two attacking at a time but by the time you reach the second stage they are often coming to you in droves and you have your hands full trying to handle them all.

The pace that the game set is quite hectic, yet somehow you feel like sticking around in areas for a while (whether to hide from the Necromorphs or simply to read what people have written on the walls), the sound effects keep you on your toes with pipes and metal constantly clanging in the background (presumably as things walk/shuffle past it), Necomorphs growling in the airducts and so forth. I must say that there were quite a few moments where I looked back, thinking there was something when it was just an empty corridor.

Overall so far the game experience has been what had been promised in the reviews. Lots of pretty corridors to walk through, eerie sound, dismemberment (yes, for those who don't know yet, you need to dismember Necromorphs to kill them even taking off a head often doesn't stop them) and an apparently decent story (haven't gotten far enough to be a good judge of this).

Well, that's about all I have to say for the moment, if you really want to know more go and read about it on Wikipedia (Spoilers!!) or simply do a Google for "Dead Space Reviews" to get a more thorough overlook.

Now I really can't wait for this day to go away so I can go home and slice up some more Necros. If you haven't tried this game yet, go out there and buy it! If horror is not your thing though, I strongly suggest you give it a miss.

*R = ZAR (Currency of South Africa)