4/5 ★ – ColeTrain's review of Dead Space.

I totally wasn't expecting to enjoy Dead Space as much I did it actually has a really interesting story that kept me engaged and made wanting to discover more and was an interesting take on  a Scifi/horror combo with a universe that was laid out in it.The story takes place in the year 2508 you play as Isaac Clarke an engineer rides a matienence shuttle called the Kellion to see his Girlfriend Nicole Brennan the chief medical officer as well as to work on repairs to the USG Ishimura a mining ship known as a Planetcracker which are used to gather resources from planets after Earth's resources had become so depleted that it can't support life anymore.The ship travels to a planet named Aegis VII to conduct mining operations there  that are " legally questionable" to put it lightly. Isaac has others that are coming along with him for the ride as well Zach Hammond a chief security officer and Kendra Daniels a computer technician. On the ride there Isaac watches a video message from Nicole that she had sent him when there's suddenly a docking malfunction and the Kellion crashes into the Ishimura and Isaac finds out there's more to this ship than it just needing repairs as some of the people aboard have mutated into humanoid abominations known as Necromorphs which are zombie-like alien creatures some of which have two long arms with one long claw on each arm and walk around on two legs like a human  ( or at as close to human as these weird bastards can be considering their umm ...condition to put it kindly.) While others have taken other forms which lets just say definitely won't be winning them any beauty contests. Isaac and his crew enter the flight lounge and he goes to check the damge report of the ship as he's looking them over the ship goes into quarantine and locks down then more Necromorphs break in and kill two members of the crew while Hammond and Kendra are able to make an escape telling Isaac to run through the unlocked door as they do so. Isaac then runs into an elevator and takes it down to get away from the Necromorphs one of which nearly makes its way on to the elevator before being crushed by the elevator door and goes down to a lower level on the ship once there he decides to look for a weapon eventually coming across a Plasma Cutter on a table Isaac picks it up and so finally having a suitable weapon and getting a call from Hammond suggesting to try and get the ships  systems back online Isaac decides to also give the Necromorphs a Plasma covered eviction notice from the Ishimura. Ok gameplay talk time Dead Space is a third person shooter that interestingly allows you to be far more aggressive than most horror games to start your  basic attack is a punch which is done by pressing the right trigger without aiming  which is actually a pretty useful and damaging attack when trying to save ammo. There's also a stomp for dealing with crawling enemies and can allow you to get ammo and health pick ups from dead Necromorphs. But what about the shooty patootie machines you say? Well I'm glad you asked! The guns in Dead Space are quite different from what you would normally find. The first gun you'll get is the Plasma Cutter which is the "pistol" of the game and is surprisingly pretty solid you can change the angle on it to be vertical or horizontal by pressing the right bumper which can be helpful as depending on the enemy you're fighting making it be easier to hit certain limbs on them like having the horizontal angle for enemies that stand upright to shoot their legs off and using the vertical angle for shooting off arms or for hitting weak points on certain enemies. There's the Line Gun which is a little bit like the Plasma Cutter except quite a bit stronger it shoots a very wide projectile which is its primary fire and its secondary can shoot a grenade out blowing off enemies limbs. The Plasma Rifle which is basically the machine gun of the game and a pretty solid one at that deals good damage and shoots really fast working well for cutting a swath through groups of enemies this gun also uses a grenade as its secondary fire. There's the Ripper a mining tool that holds out spinning saw blades a few feet in front of you that damages enemies over time as it spins and the secondary fire shoots the blade out. The Flamethrower which uh.... throws flames as you can imagine but only at short distances and the secondary fire shoots out a ball of napalm that explodes on contact  setting enemies ablaze. Lastly  the Contact Beam which is rather appropriately named as basically everything the beam comes in contact with dies taking off limbs in a single shot. The primary fire works similarly to the Spartan Laser in Halo 3 hold down the right trigger to charge it then let go to shoot the laser and the secondary firing mode is a bit weird with you putting the end of the gun on the ground and shooting out a blast of energy that is supposed to damage enemies in a certain radius I think? I couldn't really figure out how that worked and didn't use it all that much. To use the alternate firing modes you have to press the left trigger and then the right bumper. Other things you'll gain are the ability to use what's called Stasis which you press left trigger and X to use this slows down enemy movement to a crawl which can help you hit their limbs easier or make it easier to avoid enemies you don't want to bother wasting ammo on trying to kill however be careful with it as you can miss enemies with this if you aren't aiming at them directly. Another ability you'll gain access to is the Kinesis Module that can be used to pick up smaller objects like surveying spikes and explosive canisters by pressing left trigger and B to grab something then pressing right trigger to throw them. You can also use Kinesis to grab things that might be too far out of your reach to pick up normally and bring them closer then press A to pick them up. Another thing I'll touch on is stores you'll  find these scattered around the Ishimura they kinda look like futuristic broom closets where you can purchase things like ammo, health , new suits for Isaac which are known as Rigs that serve as armour for protection against enemies as well as have different amounts of inventory slots based on the level of Rig you have. You can also purchase Nodes which can be used at workbenches to give yourself different upgrades. As far as upgrades go you can upgrade  things like your guns to give them extra ammo capacity, damage, rate of fire etc. You can upgrade your Rig to give yourself a bigger life bar which is displayed on the spine of the Rig as a light blue bar when your health is full or almost full but can turn yellow when you're at half your life then orange once you're lower than half and finally red when you're near death. Other things you can upgrade on the Rig are the range that you can grab items with Kinesis. You can also upgrade the damage thrown objects do that you pick up using Kinesis. Stasis can be upgraded as well giving yourself a bigger Stasis meter , make things stay slowed down by it for a longer period of time and increasing the size of the area that Stasis can affect things and more. As far as the good and the bad of the game I found the storyline was really interesting with some unexpected twists that made me go "what? no way!" Another thing I really liked was the suits you get throughout the game they looked so cool like the helmets with the eye slits and glowing blue light behind them, the segmented armour plating it all comes together to make really unique  designs that make them stand out from other scifi universes. I liked how most of the weapons in the game weren't all just your standard affair of weaponry that you'd find in every other game but that you also used some that were mining tools giving a sense of using whatever you can to mount some sort of offense in a desperate situation to survive. I enjoyed that the gameplay was more aggressive allowing me to do things that I would be severely severely punished for doing in other horror games like using ammo slightly more liberally or punching through swarms of enemies to get through certain sections. Using the Kinesis power and throwing around random objects at enemies to kill them or just get them off my ass and create a bit of distance between us  was a really interesting addition to gameplay and was pretty fun to use once I got the hang of it. And without giving too much away I enjoyed how the gameplay changed up in some of the later stages of the game helping it to not feel too stale and become boring. As far as the bad goes I would say for one some of the areas felt really cluttered like for example there's bunch of tables in this one medical room you're in during a boss fight which I would end up getting stuck on a lot  that  caused multiple deaths for me because the boss would rush me down and kill me before I could get around the table to avoid them. Another thing I found a bit frustrating was that the range for picking up items with Kinesis was a bit hard for me to fully judge where I would think I could pick something up easily from where I was but couldn't and would have to  readjust where I was standing to be in just the right spot to get an item which caused me to die because it took too long to get an item or pull a platform towards me to walk on. I also found that Kendra and Hammond were kind of annoying as they mainly just gave you orders to do things but didn't do anything to help you  preferring to hide and hang out in areas instead without worrying as much about imminent death as you have to while doing everything yourself. I would have preferred if they did something to help you out like I dunno giving you some supplies each time you ran into them or come actually help you get things up and running in the ship but  instead just bark orders at you  like " Isaac you gotta get the power back on."  Or they'd tell you you have to clear out specific Necromorphs from a certain area in order to progress all while staying out of harms way themselves for the most part which ok at least they don't make extra work for you defending them or something like that but still it just made me just go " ugh really? Another thing I have to do myself on this ship? thanks for nothing guys." Overall though Dead Space was definitely a pretty solid experience for me and I would say if you're a fan of Scifi stuff you'll be able to sink your teeth  into this game pretty easily.