DEAD SPACE

(2008)

written by Warren Ellis, Rick Remender, &

Antony Johnston

published by Electronic Arts

platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, &

Microsoft Windows

 

reviewed by Adam Armstrong

6.12.10

 

 

Make your shots count; ammo is hard to come by.

 

A mining ship, Ishimura, sends out a distress beacon. As our hero Issac Clarke (an engineer, not a soldier) arrives with the rescue ship it crashes into the Ishimura. Issac quickly gets separated from the rest of the group where he has to find ways to repair the ship or one of the shuttles so they can leave. On the ship are reanimated corpses coupled with monsters called Necromophs. Issac has to use a series of modified tools (such as a plasma cutter) to dismember the Necromorphs, which is the only way to kill them. An alien artifact, called The Marker, is on board and is believed to cause the mass hysteria/insanity in the first crew. As you try to get it back to the planet, you have to stop and ask yourself if everything you're seeing is real or a hallucination brought on by The Marker.

 

A great game with a great ending. The story was pretty strong for a video game. There was some repetitiveness in it and it was hard to find ammo or credits but that kept it challenging. I loved the kinesis ability of moving stuff around but didn't care for the stasis so much. I didn't use half of the guns I found, as there is no real safe place to scroll through anything in the game. The only thing that I really hated was the same thing I hated in playing Mass Effect: I like to jump in third person shooters.

 

It should be easy to find for a good price. Scary and engaging.

4.5 out of 5