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Graphics: The world that Dead Space inhabits is compelling, with a great, ghastly ghost ship that displays some wonderful design choices. There isn’t an area of this ship that doesn’t invite exploration, from the dank, claustrophobic hallways and catwalks that lead to massive, cavernous cargo holds, to decaying floral terrariums ruined by the chill of outer space. At the beginning of the game, the influences on loan from other games are abundant, and I feared that I was just playing a prettier Doom 3, but the developers have placed us into familiar (yet disturbing) environs, letting us get a little bit comfortable before pulling out the rug and revealing how deeply their madness runs. Early on in the game, I was traversing my 13th successive industrial hallway when I came to a door, expecting more of the same on the other side. As the door slid open and revealed a massive control deck, with a window open upon vast alien worlds suspended in space and a hail of asteroids raining down upon the hull, I just stopped and took it all in. The imagery was so potent it took my breath away. Of course, stop and stare too long and you’ll learn my hard lesson. Within moments I was eviscerated, but my exposed entrails never looked so good.

Interface: If the survival horror genre has had one consistent weakness, it’s in the area of control. Essentially, there are too many possible actions for too few buttons. Dead Space is not immune to this criticism. The various primary and secondary attacks, health recharges, environment navigation, sprinting and context-sensitive actions create a steep learning curve. The developers have done an admirable job of trying to keep you in the game as much as possible by keeping every ancillary element (recordings, inventory, HUD) organically tied to your RIG suit. These systems can all be called up and explored with the click of a button, meaning you can continue navigating a besieged sickbay and paging through your list of Med Packs without breaking from the screen. The controls eventually become second nature, but they are far from elegant. A fact learned very quickly when you are on the run from a horde of Necromorphs and are clumsily fumbling with your onscreen inventory to recharge your Stasis meter.

Gameplay: Action games require a variety of interconnected systems to sell the surreal life, a challenge that Dead Space meets by marrying exploration elements with visceral combat thrills. While there is often only one set way to get from Point A to Point B, the dynamic events that crop up during your travel between waypoints (including a number of surprising confrontations) lead to increased tension every time you open a door. There are also a number of creative puzzles that employ “real world” physics-based solutions to hurdle the various environmental hazards that crop up. In addition, you gain access to two special powers: Stasis (which freezes enemies) and Kinesis (which works like the Gravity Gun in Half Life 2). These abilities go a long way towards helping you overcome some of the brain-teasers.

Sound FX: The sound design in Dead Space is astounding. It employs a minimalist approach in some key stretches, and it really works your nerves, and makes the spine-chilling screams that echo throughout the hallways all the more frightening, as you never know for sure if there is an enemy ready to pounce or if the sound guys are just up to their old tricks. Also, the fact that you can’t hear the creatures coming when you’re outside the ship creates some really uncomfortable moments in which you are trying to forge ahead, but you keep glancing behind you to see what’s there.

Music: The music is appropriately moody, with menacing orchestral themes mixing with industrial-sounding thrash whenever enemies drop in unexpectedly. That said, a lot of this is indistinguishable from the soundtracks that have backed other survival horror titles. These scores are designed to set a mood, goose the flesh and get the heart racing. To that end, the music works, but none of it is memorable enough to haunt your dreams afterward.

Intelligence: Dead Space features some of the most intelligent enemies I’ve encountered in a long time. Forget the fact that they only get angrier the more limbs you slice away; these creatures also display a devious intelligence that always had me second-guessing my actions whenever I entered a new area. Sure, many of them tend to bull rush you the second they spot you, but they also have a knack for getting behind cover, scurrying up walls and away from your shots, and even diving into the ventilation systems to creep up behind you. I would often exit a room when the going got tough, assuming that I could hunt down some ammo or health and return to the battle when I was good and ready. Unfortunately, these demons were always one step ahead of me, popping down from the ceiling or through the floor no matter how many rooms away I was. I never grew bored of the combat, and no matter how much I upgraded my equipment, I always felt slightly outmatched, which created a nice challenge that carried through the entire game.

Difficulty: After years of aiming for the head, I’ve found my mad skills useless in Dead Space. These aliens don’t go down easily. You need to systematically excise key appendages to stop these critters from charging. Each enemy type has a different weakness that you can exploit through deft use of your tools and weapons, but until you find it, the enemies will scare the hell out of you. You’re often low on ammo, light on air and just far enough away from a supply center to feel uncomfortable. Fortunately, save spots are liberally placed throughout each of the game’s 12 massive levels. Finally, there are a handful of boss battles that exist on a scale (in terms of sheer size and depth of complexity) that rival some of the epic battles in the Legend of Zelda series.

Overall: While Dead Space doesn’t fully reinvent the survival horror genre, it does take familiar elements and cobble them together to create a new and exciting game that has a lot of potential. The Resident Evil series reinvented itself in its fourth installment, and Dead Space takes its cue from what worked in that title, adds its own flavoring and actually throws a shout back to the game-design choices of the original RE to create a survival horror game that should not be missed. This is one of the most engaging titles of the year, a scary and exciting thrill ride that takes us to some familiar destinations, but always finds new and exciting ways through which to view them.

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