Dead Space

Aug 21, 2008

If you kept an eye on our E3 coverage, you might've noticed that EA's Dead Space was among our favorite titles at the show. At times, it seems unbelievable that the team behind licensed titles such as The Simpsons Game and The Godfather could conjure up such a grim and disturbing vision of terror. We're close to two months from its release, and during a behind-closed-doors session at Games Convention we got hands-on with two new sections of the game. We don't know how it will all fit together in the end, but right now, EA Redwood Shores has our undivided attention.

EA's Rich Briggs walked a room full of editors and journalists through a section that you'll encounter just past the halfway point of Dead Space's 12-chapter narrative. You're Isaac Clarke, an interplanetary repairman sent to fix a problem on the Nishimura, a mining spaceship the size of a large city. In this bleak future, humanity floats around space looking for planets to strip-mine so that resources can be sent back to Earth. The Nishimura is one of the biggest ships around. But its thousands of miners and crew have become something horrifying, and Isaac must use his work tools to survive the attacks of the Nishimura's mutated citizens, dubbed Necromorphs.

Aside from Dead Space's beautifully bleak aesthetics and its "Event Horizon"-like motif, one its most impressive elements is its clean look. There's minimal HUD, since EA is heavily focused on keeping you lasered-in on survival. Isaac's energy is measured with a small bar on his back that resembles a spinal column. His statis meter, which is used to temporarily freeze Necromorphs, is a half-circle on his back.

All inventory management and weapon selection is done via holographic menus. None of these things ever take you out of the experience, and as Briggs pointed out, you're never 100% safe to dig around your inventory on any location of the Nishimura. Anything can jump out at any time, and unless you absolutely finish them off, Necromorphs will continue to attack. They'll even play possum on occasion. Another nice touch (that some might view with disdain) is the holographic "breadcrumb trail" that lost gamers can use to figure out how to hit the next checkpoint or destination.

In the first section of our demo, Isaac must fight through the ship's mining deck to send out a distress beacon to shoot into space. He starts off near an elevator that leads to the processing plant. Of course, nothing's as easy as you'd hope. He's attacked by a swarm of creatures, including waves of humanoid creatures that shoot out spider-like pests that try to crawl into Isaac's armor. As one of our E3 previews pointed out, the quickest way to watch one of EA's numerous death animations for Isaac is to send him into a fight with several monsters at once. It's something that we really like about Dead Space, but it could be an acquired taste for others.

Upon encountering several Necromorphs, the easiest way to manage a battle is to freeze one or two in stasis, then get out a weapon and rip the limbs off the others. By the time Isaac finishes off the others, the frozen monsters should be back in action, unless our hero finds a way to dismember them. Because Isaac's weapons double as tools for labor, there's a great suspension of disbelief. He also has a telekinetic weapon. It's not as in-depth or powerful as Gordon Freeman's gravity gun; the fictional use is to catch and throw small work-related things. Against Necromorphs it's an invaluable device, letting you do stuff like pick up a severed tusk and throw it at as a weapon.

To use all these weapons you'll need to master Dead Space's pretty busy controls. Targeting and firing are fairly intuitive for shooter fans, but overall it seems like a lot to manage. Isaac's weapon inventory is limited, and if you're not careful, a reload or weapon switch mid-battle can make the difference between dismembering them or them dismembering you. It's stuff that might turn some gamers off, because you'll have to approach each battle far more tactically than in many other action-horror titles.

Another reason that it seems so frantic is the lack of quick turning, which felt a little unnatural at first. We asked Briggs why EA made the conscious decision to prevent Isaac from making a quick 180 ala Resident Evil 4. Briggs replied that the team experimented with such a function, but felt that the controls were already busy enough, and also that quick turns, in conjunction with the team's audio plans, means that Isaac could hear an enemy coming from behind, then turn around and wait for them to crawl through a vent or show up on an elevator. It killed the tension that the team wanted to heighten, he said.

As Isaac makes his way down the elevator to the mining dock, he discovers the room leading to the chamber in which he can fire the distress beacon. Unfortunately, it's in zero gravity (one of Dead Space's many features), and he must activate a bridge. The room has a few huge boulders floating around, and if Isaac turns on gravity, they'll crush him to death. He must telekinetically catch the monolithic rocks and throw them into an energy field on the ceiling, which can destroy them.

Naturally, as he begins catching and tossing these boulders, more enemies show up. After he disposes of them, he can use their parts to attack others. Also, Briggs broke out a new weapon, the Ripper. It shoots buzzsaws, and uses telekinesis to continue shredding and slicing them open. After clearing the room of monsters and boulders, Isaac activates gravity and the bridge, then crosses over to the other side. That brought the first section to a close.

Later we snuck back into EA's Dead Space booth during five minutes of down time to try out a previously unseen section. It's in the second chapter. At this stage, according to Briggs, Isaac has just gotten the stasis ability, as well as telekinesis. It takes place aboard the Nishimura's medical deck, as he struggles to break down a barricade that traps him among Necromorphs. Everything starts off fine, but suddenly the fluorescent lights peter out and three creatures burst through ventilation shafts.

It was at this point that an EA rep laughed at our visibly agitated response to monster attacks. It's also a testament to the production team's attention to detail. Dead Space's attack animations are so brutal that it seems as through every strong Necromorph assault could kill Isaac if you don't mash a button quickly enough. It wouldn't surprise us to hear many gamers admit blurting out "get off me!" when they play this in a few months. We nearly did earlier today. After ripping up a few monsters, we reached a point with a big plot spoiler, and it coincided with the start of a new demo session. We were whisked out of the room as quietly as we snuck in.

Gameplay-wise, Dead Space isn't a walk in the park. Some gamers might be turned off by just how tough it is to control Isaac as he works with his small inventory and vicious enemies. The lack of a quick turn might feel awkward to gamers weaned on hours of Resident Evil 4. However, its reliance on resourcefulness makes for a much more tactically-focused horror game. Ammo is sparse, and that makes every battle even more tense. The game's due out in October.