Dead Space

Rating: 3.5/5
Price: PC – 999 INR Xbox 360 – 1999 INR PS3 – 2499 INR
Requirements: 2.8GHz processor, 1GB Ram, 7GB HDD Space, 256MB Video card

Description for my rating:

Isaac Clarke is a space engineer, who fixes problems in intergalactic mining ships, which go to distant planets and asteroids to harvest their abundant minerals. The USG Ishimura, the largest vessel of its kind, has some trouble on board – and Clarke and his crew are sent to check it out.

Clarke’s spacecraft crashes into the Ishimura, where he finds that an alien presence has either taken over or killed most of the crew. What follows is a weakly-scripted tale on an alien race that attaches itself to humans, and turns them into zombies. Playing as Clarke, you and your two teammates – Hammond and Kendra – are now mankind’s last hope. It’s a struggle to stifle a yawn here.

After splitting up, you don your special space-mining suit and roam the spooky corridors alone; trying to fix the ship and fragging any alien you came across: tiny and fast critters and huge mutants. In fact the character art and designs are the best part about the game – be it the wretched aliens or Clarke’s masterfully-crafted suit. Developers Electronics Arts (EA) has excelled in the lighting and shadow effects-pivotal factor for horror fictions.

Dead Space delivers on each front: good design and graphics, great gameplay, smart enemies, and so on. In fact, the zero gravity portions of the game are particularly noteworthy.
You can jump from one surface by simply pointing your crosshair to the desired location and pressing the key. Couple that with zero-gravity portion battles and puzzles, and you have one of the most innovative gameplay modes in recent times. Now if only EA would take this and develop a whole game around it.

As for Dead Space, the game is worthy buy, and fans of BioShock and the System Shock series will have a good time with it. Horror aficionados might be left a little disappointed, but the game makes up for that by providing a fairly lengthy campaign, making this one a worthy purchase.