Dead Space

Third-person shooter with elements of horror and survival Dead Space — a completely revamped version of Dead Space (2008), featuring a new engine, modern graphics, updated cutscenes, a number of adjustments to the storyline, and all additional content.

Full of misadventures, violence, and dismemberment, Dead Space tells the story of survival in the cramped spaces of a ghost ship that sent out a distress signal from deep space. The main character, Isaac Clarke, volunteered for the rescue team out of fear of losing his beloved, who remained on the ill-fated ship. The spacecraft, seemingly come to life, resists any attempts to escape. It is overrun by necromorphs — dynamically changing zombies that can only be defeated by shooting off their limbs. This is more difficult than it seems when only engineering tools are available.

The near future. Humanity is struggling to venture into space, building space stations and colonizing planets in nearby systems. Expansion is hindered by a shortage of raw materials, which must be covered by colossal ships that grind planets to dust. One of them, the "Ishimura," somewhere in deep space, began harvesting the planet Aegis VII and stopped communicating. This triggered a chain of fatal events that can only be interrupted by the player.

The lore of "Dead Space" is well-developed, both in general and in detail, swelling with info from the depths of the past to the beginning of the game. In the first hours, players can learn about the political system here, major corporations, the cult of fanatic Unitologists and their influence on all areas of life, how the world's economy works, what technologies have been invented, and even the everyday problems of future people. All this helps to better immerse oneself in the atmosphere and events.

The plot of Dead Space generates intrigue and many questions, but the writers meter out the answers and slowly immerse the player in the story, unraveling it fully in the last quarter of the playthrough. The story, while linear, is unconventional, with a couple of plot twists and unexpected betrayals, keeping tension until the very end.

The presentation successfully conveys how Isaac Clarke, finding himself in a stressful situation while descending into the depths of the "Ishimura," reaches a peak of nervous tension and experiences horrifying hallucinations of the mind, but finds the strength to fight for his life and sanity.

In addition to the main quest, secondary plot lines develop around Isaac: the relationship with his girlfriend, communication with allies, survival itself, the struggle against the ship, and the antagonist. Additional characters in cutscenes will explain their motives on the "Ishimura" and show their character. Following the horror canon, much of this information can be gleaned from text, audio, and video recordings.

Dead Space changed the traditional rules of shooters. Isaac is far from a fighter; he is an aging engineer, so every action is difficult for him — movements are slow, he can only shoot when aimed, recoil hits his hands, and he strikes with all his weight. This characteristic of the protagonist creates tension in any skirmish, especially when different enemies attack.

The roster features about a dozen types and two categories — regular and enhanced. Combat is built on the mechanics of severing limbs from the torso, aided by the heavily altered forms of humans turned into necromorphs, and an arsenal represented by mining tools for working with rock.

Cutters, saws, impact tools, and pipe cutters deal damage not at a point but release it in planes, the angle of which the player determines themselves. Over time, the weapon of last resort appears — the military assault rifle. All "guns" can be upgraded to improve their basic characteristics. The alternative firing mode has expanded their application area.

Enemies are very resilient, knocking out health points or aiming for the head is just a waste of ammunition. Even when losing "parts," they won't die immediately but will continue to attack for a while. More advanced ones regenerate severed parts due to necro-mutations and become even more dangerous.

Melee combat is rudimentary — hooks with hands will push back close enemies, while stomps will finish off crawling ones. They will also allow you to knock useful items out of enemies or boxes. A necromorph that gets too close can trigger a QTE, and failing it will show the player a brutal fatality from the protagonist.

The hero's engineering armor is equipped with stasis and kinesis modules. The former slows down moving objects, from fans to necromorphs, while the latter allows lifting certain items and throwing them at the same enemies.

Playing Dead Space is a linear progression forward with the crushing of the undead and clearing locations, searching for secrets and additional rooms with resources, solving engineering tasks and puzzles. Variety is introduced by zero-gravity levels, where you need to walk using magnetic boots, and levels in open space, where you must conserve oxygen.

All collected resources go into a compact inventory and are spent on various upgrades at the workbench, while credits can be spent on equipment, medkits, and ammunition in stores.

You will need to visit every compartment and repair numerous systems — fighting for survival, the team has brought the Ishimura to a critical state, the ship is ready to fall apart. The compartments of the futuristic spaceship look convincing, its structure is logically thought out and well interconnected, although the visuals suffer from monotonous execution.

Suspense is built up through all channels of perception — manually crafted, dark and sinister decorations; nauseating enemies; a pile of scripted jump scares and QTEs for any reason; appropriate sound accompaniment for each moment. Hellish screams and wails of necromorphs behind the bulkheads, the sounds of bursting flesh, the slamming of doors and grinding of mechanisms, ambient noises and more, instantly instill a sense of fear and constant danger.