The game pits you as Isaac Clarke, an engineer that is sent to fix a communication problem with the Ishimura. You are accompanied by team of people to aid you, such as Kendra Daniels, a tech spealist, and Zack Hammond, a security officer. Isaac also seems to have another reason to go on this misson; his girlfriend Nicole Brennan is on the ship. In the opening cutscene, where you first see the Ishimura, I was instantly reminded of the movie Event Horizon. A big creepy looking ship in the middle of all kinds of debris. Once you board the ship, thats when the team discovers something is teribly wrong. There is no one around and it’s a mess. You rather quickly get sepparated from everyone form an atack by awesomely designed creatures that are reffered to as Necromorphs. Isaac must use his tools to defend himself, and while they’re all used as weapons, these are honestly the tools that Isaac would use on his job, such as a buzz saw and plasma cuter.  Unlike most shooter games, you don’t shoot these monsters in the head to kill them, but rather, you must take their limbs off (arms, legs, tentacels). I feel this added to the gore of the game and also made it a little harder cause the Necromorphs are smart and like to flank you a lot.

Necromorphs are the infected crew who have died. They first become Slashers, which are most human like, and the most comon, though you’ll find some that will crawl at you, while others will run right at you like a madman. There are also the Lurkers which seem to be infected infants. They like to crawl on the wall and shoot shit at you while being jumped by Slashers. There are also Peregants, these baddies will lunge at you and go in for a deadly attack. Despite what they are, they can be either male or female. They are the most anoying monsters however. If shot in the stomach, they will release little creepy Necormorphs named Swarmers. Swarmers look like body parts that have tentecal legs. When they atack you they can easly be the most deadly from there shear numbers. There are a few points in the game that you will face an epic boss. Most of them with hugh tentecals and extreamly large bodys. The most memorable for me is the boss that you fight from a big gun teret. The bosses in this game are easly the most epic I have faced in any surver game. They are hard and take a good amount of strategy to overcome. 

One of the most noticeable thing Dead space does diffrent than most game is you have no HUD. Instead of the norm of having a health bar placed in the corner of the screen with your ammo count, etc., Dead Space puts all of the info you need like Health and ammo along with other useful information right on your RIG or gun. This adds to the horor feel of the game as you’re completely immersed in it. The RIG is your suit which can be upgarded throughout the game, to increase the armmor level. The down side to this is that some times you cant see your back so it’s hard to know how much health you have left, though this does not happen often.  Regardless, when it does, it sucks!

Your guns and RIG can also be upgraded at work benches that are placed through out the game. To do so, you will need power nodes which are scattered across the levels. These power node can do many things to help you. You can increase the ammount of damage you do with your weapons, increase health you have on your RIG, and there are also a few doors in the game that can only be opened by using a power node. I should also note that these power node are few and far beteewn, so the only way to upgrade every weapon is to play through more than once. Can you say replay value?

 

The main goal of the game is to simply escape from the Ishimura, and find Nicole. But nothing ever comes easy. One of the first things you have to do is get the engens back online so you don’t crash into the planet. After that the ships goes into an astroid belt and deffence systems are off line, and you must go fix that.  Each chapter consists of you running around a part of the ship trying to fix something. This makes for a little repeitiveness, but the story remains really good so it is a small down side. You do remain in contact with the party you came with. even though you’re mostly by yourself the whole time. You do run into some survivers but they have loss there minds and are gone for all intentse and purposes.  Dead Space has some of the best eviroment audio I have heard in a long time. You can hear those damn necromorphs in the wall like they are going to jump out and get you every corner you go around. You can even hear screams from a person getting killed by one every so often. This game will keep you entertained for around 15 to 20 hours just going through it once. I say it has more replay value than most game do. I would not pass this game up, especially if your looking for somthing to hold you off till RE5. This game get two thumbs up from me.