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3.
Dead Space - 12 hours
As someone who's playing a lot of "old" games, I can confirm that some of them might not age well. Not just because of graphics - shitty controls or outdated gameplay could make even highly acclaimed games of the past almost unplayable now, especially if you don't have nostalgic feelings about them. But while such disappointments are bound to happen, I've experienced completely opposite situations as well, when instead of clunky artifacts from the past, I was discovering games that were easily overshadowing even the latest releases on the market. And Dead Space is one of them, a timeless masterpiece that took me by complete surprise.
Back in the days when Dead Space just released, I didn't play it because I was not a big fan of the horror genre and reviews in my local magazines on this game were not very glowing. Well, I'm not sure if it really was not that impressive back in 2008, but now Dead Space feels like a breath of fresh air. It's such a well-crafted game that has so many amazing ideas literally in every aspect, from gameplay and narrative to UI and sound. It's hard to believe that it was published by EA, a company that to these days are more interested in milking their sports licenses than in greenlighting original ideas.
There are so many great things in Dead Space, I honestly don't know where to start. Well, let's start with something that is usually being the last priority for most of the game developers - User Interface. Don't know about you guys, but personally, I play games to immerse myself in their virtual worlds - but all those minimaps, life bars, and task lists are always getting in the way, and in most cases disabling the HUD makes the game unplayable. Developers of Dead Space solved this problem in a clever way - they've simply turned almost the entire UI into the part of the game's world. They've put the protagonist's healthbar literally on his spine, and all those inventory and map menus are floating in the air in front of you. And it works like that not just for the player, other characters have the same health indicators, and you can see NPCs using the holographic displays for video calls just as you do. Such small details significantly add to the Dead Space atmosphere, and honestly, it's a shame that most developers are not trying to make something like this in their own games.
Almost everything in Dead Space is working for creating the right mood and atmosphere - graphics, sound, level design, all of this help to create a dark, dreadful feeling of constant danger and despair. The sound design in this game is truly its second biggest achievement - all those scratches and screams that unexpectedly breaking the silence will make feel uneasy even the biggest horror fans. And at some point, you'll start hearing indistinct voices and whispers, which will only make you doubt your sanity even more.
The game is doing an outstanding job in terms of atmosphere and immersion - though the world of Dead Space is not the one you would want to be part of. You are taking the role of Isaac Clarke, who's just a simple engineer that arrives at the spaceship called USG Ishimura as part of the rescue team. So basically, your job was supposed to be about fixing stuff, not the combat operations. Indeed, you'll have to occasionally do some repairs - but your main goal is going to be survival on the ship that is flooded with alien life forms that are using dead bodies for their reproduction. There's a lot of enemies in this game, starting from "common" mutants with sharp blades on their hands, and ending with huge brutes with heavy organic armor in the front. In most cases, you'll be attacked by large groups of different mutants from every direction, including from the air and vertical surfaces.
Surviving in such intense situations is hard, but it's possible - in Dead Space you have 7 types of weapons at your disposal, but you can carry only 4 of them at once. Each weapon has an alternate fire mode and they'll be useful against different types of enemies. My favorite weapon in this game is The Ripper, which launches a remotely controlled circular saw blade that is cutting everything on its way. During the first levels, you will also acquire two special "skills" - Stasis Module, which will allow you to "freeze" the enemies and objects, and Kinesis Module, which is working kinda like Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2. Along with combat, those modules are used for removing obstacles and solving simple puzzles. You can also upgrade your gear with Power Nodes that you can find on the levels or buy in stores, but there are not enough Nodes to upgrade everything within a single run, so you need to think carefully about what to upgrade next.
In most cases, it's not enough to simply shoot at the enemy - in order to destroy those mutants quickly you have to cut off their limbs. Dismemberment process is well animated and opens possibilities for a more strategic approach like you can slow down fast enemies by shooting down their legs and then deal with other treats before finishing them off. There are also boss fights that will require you to figure out a specific strategy in order to beat them. The combat in Dead Space is very aggressive and always keeps the player under heavy pressure, so it forces you to act quickly and use all available tools in order to survive. And such unpredictable and violent fights makes the gameplay extremely satisfying and fun.
Even the most praised and acclaimed story-driven games rarely have such things as great pacing and direction, but even there the developers of Dead Space managed to outdid themselves. It's a very solid and balanced interactive story that instantly hooks the player and keeps providing interesting situations during the whole playthrough. It's literally perfect in terms of pacing, the game skillfully rotates intense combat moments with episodes like Zero-G basketball match. This game has never ceased to amaze me and provided so many unique situations, that even the stuff I showed you in this video is just the tip of the iceberg. Another thing that Dead Space is doing on an impressive level is such a rare thing as environmental storytelling - it's not just about cutscenes and audio logs, you can learn a lot about the game's world just by looking at decorations of places you are going to visit during your playthrough. For example, all those weird writings on the walls that you can find almost on every level - it's actually possible to decipher them and learn interesting details about what happened on that ship. It will take you around 12 hours to complete this game, which is quite a lot for a linear story-driven game, but this time will pass quickly, believe me.
There are a few reasons to criticize Dead Space, but they are all just minor flaws. Like, for such an action-packed game, lack of a button for a quick 180-degree turn is rather inconvenient. But my major problem with this game is the fact that developers turned Isaac into a silent protagonist - it's just strange that with all that crazy shit going on around him, he doesn't say a word. Yeah, his cries in pain and anguish when he's getting assaulted by monsters, but outside the combat, he just always remains indifferent and allows himself to show emotions only during the ending. Perhaps, by making Isaac emotionless, developers tried to make it easier for players to identify themselves with the protagonist. But it didn't work very well in my case, because if you want me to feel like I'm the protagonist, then you also need to give me more freedom in making choices. In many situations, I personally would have acted differently than as I was forced to act because of the plot. Like, if I had found my girlfriend whom I was searching for so long at this damned ship, the first thing that I would have tried to do was to at least give her a hug, not just silently stand nearby as I've just met my coworker during lunch. And given that all entries in the journal are written by Isaac himself, it means that he actually has his own personality and thoughts about what's going on, so it's just strange that he doesn't express them in the game itself. Anyway, I'm not a big fan of that design decision about making him mute all the time, and I think it's more hurting the narrative logic rather than helping in immersing the player into the game.
But overall, Dead Space was a damn pleasant surprise for me. I was expecting to see a generic western clone of Resident Evil, but instead, I've discovered one of the best story-driven games I've ever played. Dead Space aged like a fine wine and it feels especially good when you compare it to those soulless, tasteless surrogates that many modern AAA games have become. It's obvious that this game was made by a team of passionate people, who carefully thought out even the smallest details of this game and filled it with a tense atmosphere, engaging story, fun gameplay, and outstanding sound design. If you just like me missed this amazing game back when it was released, then I highly recommend you to fix that as soon as possible, because Dead Space is an absolute must-have for everyone who loves good singleplayer games. It is a pity that this series ended up in a typical EA manner, but I've heard that at least the sequel turned out to be a good game, so I definitely have Dead Space 2 on the list of games that I am going to play in the near future.