Dario on 20/10/2008 at 00:50

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'Gonna take (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=123420) Digi's idea for a spin, and start a Dead Space mini-reviews thread. This is for people who have played the game, and would like to post a review (of any length/style) for others to read, without having to weed through posts in "discussion" threads.

I'll start...

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Dead Space Mini Review, Xbox 360 version

Gameplay: 8.5/10
Emphasis:
- Burly, gritty, highly satisfying combat (this is 75% of the game right here). A Resident Evil 4 clone.
- Your usual "wander around picking up stuff, while finding ways to open doors that are naturally locked"
Failures:
- Brain-dead button/item-finding from beginning to end
- Little character-interaction or "extra" dialog intended solely to deepen the experience (aside from what is absolutely essential to make a game like this work). Ie, a very lonely game, save for the black guy and annoying girl constantly radioing you to talk about pushing buttons and opening doors.


Sound: 9/10
Emphasis:
- Masterful weapon and combat sounds
- Your usual scary ambient tracks (ranging from okay to good)
- Scary clamoring/thumps/monster-growls coming from the structure around you
- Best "sounds" of being in airless space I've ever heard (realistic would be totally silent... this seems even better, IMO)


Graphics: 8.5/10
Emphasis:
- Good portrayal of space/planets/asteroids (though pathetic stars)
- Excellent lens flares (lights) absolutely everywhere
- Endless piles of good-looking blood/gore covering 99.2% of all surfaces in the game
Failures:
- Large, fat stars in space


Horror Quality: 7
- Those susceptible to horror will quake in their boots.
- A bunch of well-done hearing-the-enemies-moving-through-the-structure parts, and many other distant noises of often unknown origin.
Failures:
- Too much "haha, made you jump" BS. Even video transmissions later in the game often begin with an obviously-ill-natured *BOOSH* sound that could make one angry at the game for taking such cheap-shots.
- (subjective) No freedom to "encounter" any scares your way, and likewise no contrast between horror and non-horror parts (there aren't any). Scares are expected on the clock, without fail or question, and thus are usually more stressing (in a bad way) than exhilarating.


Setting: 8.5
- The patented "Infestation-Took-Over-The-Ship" setting, just presented with a little more class than the last 5 games/movies.
- The ship/space setting is mildly fresh, and sometimes comes in with a large dose of legitimacy (space feels real), which is a plus.
- Space setting portrayed with a sense of respect for science, for once. (no sound in space, proper air vacuums, etc = good immersion at those parts)


Story/Dialog/Writing: 4
- Actual story is paper-thin (all hell has broken loose, and everyone's dying. Now shut up, shoot, and push buttons), but beside the main point, which is to experience the setting.
- Dialog is far better than Gears of War (obviously written by an actual writer this time), but scattered throughout the game in painfully conservative amounts, consisting of 99% "push-the-button" orders, and "they're coming / we're not alone in here / [insert something spooky that you thought you said if you ever heard it again, you'd get on a plane and go administer some slap]"
- Audio/video logs showing what happened to the ship's crew, featuring more calls-for-help-cut-off-halfway-through-by-attacking-monster than Cheerios in a cereal bowl.


Level Design/Layout: 6
- Picture a game where you're in a high-tech space-ship, shooting zombies/monsters/etc. That's how everything's laid out: room, corridor, room, room-with-branching-corridors, occasional very large room with big button at the other end...
- Fortunately, the "I'm lost" factor is very low, due to extremely handy objective-pointing ability thingy that puts a temporary trail on the ground for you to follow. Most useful when trying to escape bad guys in room-with-branching-corridors, and can't figure out which is the right door without losing too much expensive health.


Music: 6.5/10
- Mostly consists of very high-quality (full, real orchestra), but supremely annoying "BOO" hits, and "FRANTIC VIOLINS TRYING SO HARD TO SCARE YOU WHILE THE MONSTER LUNGES FORWARD" cliche rubbish.
- Not much actual "music", if any.


Overall Cliche' Intensity: 9
- See story/writing sections above... although bear in mind that the quality of the writing serves to negate a healthy portion of each cringe. Don't think anything is going to be like "The Nexus" in Quake 4.

Overall: 8.7/10
- Great fun for homicidal maniacs who like blasting things with fantastic amounts of gore, while scared to death. (scratch the last part if System Shock doesn't scare you)
- Between 9-14 hours long (can be a lot shorter if you rush)
- *BOOSH!!* "They're coming! I think they're in the walls. We're not alone here. Have I said those lines a few times already? Hang on, I see something... OH NO, IT'S-* AAACK!! [radio static]"

Volitions Advocate on 27/10/2008 at 00:48

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I Agree and Disagree with the Above review.

I just finished my first playthrough and I'd like to leave my impressions.

Graphics:
The game seems to jump from Dated to Next-Gen constantly. The shadows and the lighting effects (lens flares, moving lights etc) are suberb. but the game lacks in the Texture department. It looks like a DX8/9 game with a few DX10 effects in it. No detail maps, so when you view textures up close they look very pixellated. The upside to this is that since the game is 3rd person you never really get *up close* to a texture because you're not viewing from the player himself.

Audio:
12 / 10
Theres no music really.. in the game. At least nothing inspiring, its all mostly ambient, very little thematic. But i'm not rating the score i'm talking about the use of audio in this game. I haven't been this impressed by audio effects before. There are a few passages where theres a malfunctioning door that is constantly opening and slamming shut again and making a great deal of noise, once you get through it and into the next room as soon as the door shuts behind you the malfunctioning door, really does sound like its on the other side of the bulkhead. Footsteps from the ghoulies sound distant and haunting like you'd expect them to if they were around but not in the vicinity. And the sound of a monster in the ducts above your head are very convincing.

Sound in Vacuum is how I would expect sound in a vacuum to be. Non existant. Mostly all you can hear are the muted sounds of your own feet hitting the deck and Issac's struggled breathing. Since sound is just a vibration it makes sense that the sound that you "hear" in a vacuum is supposed make you think its just a vibration.
Fighting enemies in a vacuum can be frightening because you can't hear them coming till they're right on top of you.

There are lots of ambient tracks running throughout the game, distant computers giving diagnostic reports, as well as what I could only think are voices inside your head. (since everyone is supposed to be going insane). While these create gobs of atmosphere it would've been nice to give the voices a little more variety in what they say.

I suppose for implementation and quality I would give sound a perfect score. but less so if we were talking about quality of content.

Interface
When I bought the game I thoughr the lack of Hud and how everything in game was to be done in context I thought it would be a gimick. But after playing It for a few minutes I realized how well done it really was. It's designed well enough to not leave you wanting for anything (not giving you enough information) while at the same time not even really noticing the gimick.

The ammo counter on your gun shows up when you ready it to shoot, but it doesn't show the amount of ammo you have in your inventory. I think this works really well because IRL if you were using a weapon, it would most likely not have a readout to tell you this, and it adds tension to your encounters because unless you know exactly whats in your inventory, you've got that risk that you may run out of ammo if you're not paying attention. I like this little touch of realism.

The 3rd person camera behaves itself mostly. You can use it to turn Issac left and right as well as pan around him if he is not moving, giving you the ablility to look behind without having to turn around. The only time I found difficulty seeing the action was when i was backed up against a wall. A behavior I foudn I did quite a bit because If you're against a wall nobody can get you from behind. When this happens the camera seems to migrate to right next to Issacs right hip. which can cause some confusion in really hairy battles.

Pacing
The game excels and stinks at the same time. You are on your toes constantly which isn't really great. The obligatory "safe zone" in survival horror games does not exist in Dead Space. In every level there is the area with a save point, store, and upgrade terminal which at first you might think is the safe area of the level, perhaps the place you come to for solace from the fighting. But you'll find that you get ambushed at the store panel sometimes or you'll come back to the area after a long haul of objectives to find the place infested with baddies. Othertimes you'll be entering an area and have to fight pretty hard and by the time You finish killing everything you realize you're in the "safe area" already and you've been fighting for your life. This can be a good mechanic to keep you on your toes. but I think some moderation would've been a little nicer.

On the other hand. I've never played a game with such a great sense of dread. To use an example, Playing AVP2 was a fast paced slaughterfest where you were usually killing aliens left and right. While the action and gore is an important part of Dead Space, you are not often greeted with a small army of aliens to kill. All of your targets feel meaningful and prioritized as you're fighting them and you get the strong sense that you fight for every foot of ground you gain. In the infirmiry level near the beginning of the game You enter a U-shaped hallway. As you go down the first section before the 90 degree turn, you fight several monsters as they attack you from ducts or other hiding places. You finally make your way to the turn and straight ahead there is a door you can go through to continue to your objective, or you can go down the other side of the 'U' to get some powerups. You can see that it is a dead end. and you've killed everything you've encountered so far, but now you're faced with a dilemma. You can skip that last section of the hall and continue without a fight, or go get the powerup. The hallway is perhaps 25 feet long from where you're standing, but you know that you will have to fight for every couple of steps you advance. You begin to feel that the 5 foot radius around where you are standing is the "safe zone" but the other side of the room is completely dangerous. This plays on some very deeply rooted psychological fears of mine and I think that it enhanced the gameplay for me tremendously. And it may be something many gamers do not really notice or care to notice in the same way.

I had no planned outline for this review so I think i'll just make a broad summary here.

The story is superb and very multi faceted. Though you wouldn't know it if all you did was pick up the game and play it. Without the backstory the game would seem very thin to me. (like playing SS2 without ever knowing anything about SS1, though I played ss1 first I never beat it, I did beat ss2 before I beat ss1, and the shodan reveal was lost on me that first time... as an example) If you want to play the game. Watch the animated comic series first. theres only 6 episodes and it might take an hour or so to watch. As well you should play the (www.noknownsurvivors.com) No Known Survivors game, to further expand on the story (though somewhat vaguely) the backstory does not spoil anything you learn in the game and the continuity between the comics and the game is solid. I even picked up an audiolog at one point that came directly from the comic.

about half of the audiologs are pointless screaming as the previous reviewer said but there are some good meaningful ones. The lack of character interaction Fuels the feeling that you are alone, although it is never as scary as a lot of parts in avp2 or ss2, because you do meet up with people at various parts. Although there are several encounters to be had with npcs that were part of the disaster, most of them are completely insane, and even though they are still human... there is no psychological comfort to be gained from it.

the progression through the ship is something I didn't like very much. There are lots of locked doors that only unlock for some arbitrary reason once your objective takes you that direction, which leaves much exploration out of it. And having Chapters as you run through the game rather than being able to free roam the ship is a turn-off for me.

If you were worried about how 'console-dumb' this game was, put some of your fears to rest. Its not without its console-itus but it is still a great game. And its great from beginning to end. Theres no section that I think they fell short on (to use another ss2 example, the rickenbaker) And The enemies keep you thinking on your toes. You can stash your inventory at the beginning of the game and end up having to dig into your cache and use it towards some of the later hard parts.

All in all, its a game that could've looked better, but didn't look bad.
Had great pacing, although it woudl've been nice to have a break for a couple minutes here and there.
Has a touch of console-itus but deserves cudos for being 'smart' like a PC title.
Every action you take in the game feels meaningful. from what gun you buy ( there are 3 in the game I didn't even see) and how you upgrade them (which is done in much the same way the "sphere grid" from Final Fantasy X is done) to what enemy you decide to shoot first in an encounter.

If you're a fan of survival horror, get the game.
If you're a fan of System Shock... get the game. (and dont get too upset when you realize they ripped off a great deal from it)
Whether you're a console player or PC player.

This is more the "spiritual successor" of SS2 than BioShock was for me.

I'm sorry that was probably really disorganized, but I just finished playing it and I've got a headache... probably from sitting at the computer for too long.

I'll go be a real person for awhile and come back to play it again from the beginning with all my equipment already there at the start on the newly unlocked "impossble" difficulty.

Volitions Advocate on 27/10/2008 at 04:33

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Like I said. mostly impressed with the physics of the sound engine rather than the actual sounds themselves. except I didn't really put it that easy to read did I?