"I wish I could talk to you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything."
--Nicole Brennan, Dead Space
Everything Dead Space does, it does well, combining the isolated spacecraft setting of Alien with a more sophisticated kind of zombie horror than usual and a religion much unlike what many people associate with the word. The name of the Necromorphs, reanimated corpses tied to an object called a Maker, might in part be a reference to the xenomorphs of Alien as well. With its silent protagonist Isaac and many upgrades for various weapons and abilities, Dead Space starts with a very vulnerable player avatar that can become enormously powerful by the end of the game if power nodes and credits are used properly. As the story advances, progressively unusual creatures are confronted: at the heart of the plot are alien reconfigurations of human bodies and the followers of Unitology, a religion emphasizing transformation after death.
Production Values
Though the character models besides Isaac's armored figure lack some of his detail, his suit is incredibly smooth in motion, clearly-animated, and well-textured, standing out as a beautiful presence in a game that came out in October of 2008. The models for Kendra and Hammond are not as pronounced, but they are also onscreen for far, far less of the game. They are the only two characters that generally speak after the introduction. Despite minimal characterization--being frequently separated from them contributes to the isolation, so this is not a detracting quality here--their voice acting is strong, as is that of Isaac's romantic partner Nicole in her handful of appearances. The silence of Isaac is replaced by dialogue later in the series. Between the aesthetic and the sound, the atmosphere is maintained very well from the beginning where Necromorphs unexpectedly attack to the end, where Isaac confronts a monstrosity on the planet where the Marker was pulled from.
Gameplay
The survival horror balances vulnerability and offensive measures well, as the beginning of the game sees Isaac start with relatively small amounts of health, a very limited inventory, and only one gun. Slowly, by story progression or by finding optional schematics, you can expand his arsenal beyond the Plasma Cutter, a pistol-like bolt weapon, and can use Kinesis to lift objects or enemies using a function of the suit. With each new weapon also comes a new secondary attack tied to that particular tool. Alternate fire modes, like a different angle for the Plasma Cutter's bolts (which can slice off Necromorph limbs in various positions) or a 360 degree projectile release for the assault rifle (Isaac holds it above his head), vary up the attacks but can use lots of ammunition at once.
Inventory space can likewise be greatly enhanced, including beyond the limits of the entire first playthrough with the level six suit--start a second playthrough on the same slot after beating the game, and this will be available for purchase at the store. With all healing items, ammunition, and other objects carried over to the new playthrough, the game becomes much easier even apart from the benefits of the level six suit. This will not make certain segments any easier, such as evading space debris while rushing across the exterior of the ship or using mounted guns to shoot at Necromorph variations, once again, outside the ship. Using weapons upgraded in the first run through the game make enemy encounters far more easy, though, especially since the limbs and heads or early Necromorphs quickly detach, something that is necessary to kill them rapidly. As extraterrestrial zombies of sorts, they might not die easily otherwise.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
Boarding the USG Ishimura, a human spacecraft with a distress signal, Isaac Clarke and his boarding party find evidence of enigmatic crew deaths, medical experimentation, and extraterrestrial life forms. His significant other Nicole Brennan sent him a video transmission from the vessel prior to his landing, adding a layer of personal investment to the investigation. It slowly comes to light that Unitologists, religious adherents to a relatively recent religious philosophy having to do with an alien artifact, were in control of the Ishimura before its disarray and that the Necromorphs onboard are related to cosmic phenomena far from Earth and that Unitologists were involved in their takeover of the spacecraft.
Intellectual Content
The protagonist Isaac has a Biblical name, as does Jacob of The Callisto Protocol, a much more recent spiritual successor of sorts to Dead Space, which is thematically relevant, if only indirectly, to the religious context of the conspiracy Isaac uncovers. Unitology is believed by its adherents to be the truth about life, death, and God. It features the tenets of resurrection and union with God, but the transformation "required" to see God is that of the alien Marker or already-created Necromorphs reanimating a corpse and connecting it with a hive mind. Exposure to the Marker is supposed to bring insanity, but there are different reactions characters have that show insanity is not an inevitable outcome. Some characters, like Isaac, only hallucinate. Kendra equates hallucinations with insanity in her stupidity, for hallucinations are often involuntary sensory perceptions corresponding to stimuli that (allegedly) lack an existence external to the mind. Beyond being involuntary, hallucinations, however, have nothing to do with what a person believes about their sensory experiences, which cannot be proven to not be hallucinations as it is even if one is perceiving the external world "normally." Someone who believes in logically contradictory or unverifiable ideas is insane regardless of whether or not they have ever hallucinated anything; someone who makes assumptions or who disregards reason is insane, again, whether or not they hallucinate. Having such an experience does not force one to assume it, or baseline sensory experiences, are real beyond the mental perception itself.
Conclusion
For its approximately 12-13 hours of zero-gravity navigation, Necromorph assaults, and Unitologist elaborations, Dead Space establishes the franchise's very bleak but promising lore and survival horror bent. You might not be desperately holding onto ammunition as is more natural in some games, but it is a survival horror experience with more substance than the typical zombie story. The superficial similarities to something like Resident Evil are there, but this game lacks the cheesiness of characterization and dialogue from some of the other franchise's titles and touches upon deeper things like psychosis and religious irrationalism (with many hypothetical religious philosophies being logically possible even if unverifiable). Isaac Clarke's expedition to the Ishimura makes for a genuinely excellent game from two console generations ago.
Content:
1. Violence: There is legitimate gore in Dead Space, such as limbs and heads being regularly blasted off of Necromorphs if one is disabling them in the most ammunition-conserving manner.
2. Profanity: Words like "fuck," "shit," and "damn" are used.
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