Halloween is just around the corner, so naturally, what’s the best way to celebrate? Turn off the lights, crank up the volume, and prepare for Dead Space.

Horror games are few and far between on the current generation of consoles, and we’ve only been treated with a few gems: F.E.A.R. jumped at you, Condemned surprised you, and Siren induced panic, but which game truly managed to creep you out?

Unlike your average horror game or movie, Dead Space isn’t about cheap scares. It’s about immersing you in a tense and twisted atmosphere, while plunging you deep within the confines of a dark perturbing story. If you’re a fan of the survival and action horror genre, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

From the onset of the game, you are shown a bright and stunning sight: from the bridge of your ship you see the sun shining behind a planet with the USG Ishimura floating silently in space. The Ishumara is a Planet Cracker, a large ship used to mine a planet’s resources quickly and efficiently. After receiving a distress call from the Ishimura you (Isaaq Clarke) and your small engineering team are sent in to fix a presumed technical failure. To make matters worse, the Ishimura also happens to be where your girlfriend Nicole is stationed.

The game manages to set the tone early on, from the stunning opening vista to the moment you dock your ship. It doesn’t take you long to realize something has gone drastically wrong. From the moment this game started I knew I would be in for a treat. Don’t expect to be bothered by a HUD either, because all the information you need can be found on the back of your suit and your weapons; this provides for a much more immersing presentation.

Dead Space is a third person action horror game. It plays a lot like the critically acclaimed Resident Evil 4, but manages to make a few adjustments and improvements where needed. Shooting works the same as RE4, but you can walk around while aiming. You can’t run and gun, but the aiming is so precise, and the movement is smooth enough that you will never feel constricted; in fact, it’s a very good thing that the aiming works so smoothly because you’re given seven to eight unique weapons that you’re going to want to use; each of which has a primary and secondary fire, and is highly upgradeable. My favorite weapon was the Ripper, a gun that shoots out a table saw blade that can be kinetically controlled in order to dice things to bits. I have to talk about these weapons because they’re original and extremely violent; they also manage to remain true to the story of you being an engineer sent to fix the ship. There are also two melee attacks that work relatively well while in close quarters, but in most situations, they are best kept as a last resort.

The monsters in the game are twisted humanoids (with their long and sharp limbs) that look like their only purpose in life is to tear you apart. In order to be successful in defeating these vile creatures, it’s important that you quickly learn how to separate them from their weapons. For instance, in order to prevent a swarm of enemies from overtaking me, I had to focus on cutting off their legs, which allowed me to slow down their onslaught. Luckily, you have at your disposal abilities to help you in these combat situations. One of these is a stasis power that enables you to shoot out an orb that slows down anything it hits. You’re also granted a kenesis ability that enables you to move and propel objects about, similarly to the gravity gun in Half-Life 2.

The hulls of the ship are both functional and highly stylistic. Everything you see fits in well with what you would expect a more realistic science fiction space to have. It also bares mentioning that the ship is huge; the population was in the thousands while the ship was flourishing, and even though the ship is now deserted, all the signs that people were living there once are still around. You will progress through engineering rooms, medical labs and crew’s quarters, just to name a few of the many areas. The game also gives you the sense that you’re all alone. While you do have your team that talks to you frequently (and some new characters), you still have the feeling that you’re on your own.

Another feature this game boats is the highly touted zero gravity sections. You will reach sections of levels that need to be repaired or traversed through where you won’t have anything holding you down. You will have to jump across gaping rooms, avoid dangerous objects, and fight off your enemies while trying to complete various objectives. Another twist that some of these sections will throw in is the fact they won’t have any atmosphere, and you will have to rush to complete your objective, or find a way to refill your oxygen tank. These sections also allow you to exit the ship. When you look around in space it just adds to that sense of being alone; it completely emphasizes the fact that you are in the middle of nowhere. The zero gravity sections work and play great, but I would have liked to see more of them.

Something that really strikes me about this game is all of the set piece moments it has, and there is a great sense of style to the way the game presents them to you. You will see monsters tearing things apart, and large environmental interactions, but none of it will ever seem out of place. The same can be said about the boss fights that you will encounter. While I won’t spoil any of them for you, they are fantastic, and all of them must be tackled differently. My only problem with them is that I felt there could have been more of them. The game is a dozen hours long and you will only run into a few of these “epic” encounters. During these set piece moments the game will often switch up the style of play as well, which really adds to the pacing in my opinion.

Throughout the game you will collect everything from ammo, money, healing items and power nodes. The power nodes are the rarest items, as they are used to upgrade your suit and weapons. To upgrade your equipment you will find machines called Bench’s that are placed in branching paths throughout the levels. You will also find mechanical stores that will be used to purchase, sell and store all of your collected items. While searching for all of these different things and turning down new paths you will never get lost from your main objective; Isaac’s suit has a built in navigation system that connects itself to the ships computer terminals.

What makes Dead Space’s atmosphere so frightening is in large part it’s audio. Every section of the ship sounds different. There are machine noises, screams, ambient sounds and creature sounds that all add to your sense of peril. The best way to experience the game is with a good audio setup, and if you don’t have surround sound, turn it up anyway, and shut the door. From what I’ve seen so far this holiday season, Dead Space is going to be hard to compete with on the graphical fields as well. The game looks great and has its own great sense of style. The developers of this game obviously took every single detail of their world into careful consideration, and they created something that is not only very believable, but also incredibly immersing.

The game’s story feels like an interactive movie experience that constantly makes you feel a sense of urgency and purpose. Everything delivered in the main part of the narrative is done by a video window that reminded me of the communication windows from the television show Reboot. You can walk around while these are being shown to you, as they’re mostly transparent. You will also encounter cut scenes (and those set pieces) like the ones in Assassins Creed that will allow you to walk around and observe what is going on as they are taking place. If you’re looking for more of a back story into what happened on the ship, and more about the people you can collect text and video logs that do a pretty good job of letting you in on the Ishimuras secrets. I enjoy story in games when it helps progress play, and Dead Space’s story gives you ample reason to keep pushing forward.

Dead Space is simply a great game. I would recommend it to anybody who calls themselves a fan of survival horror games, a fan of action games, or simply someone who appreciates great gameplay. In my opinion, EA was smart to release this game a few weeks before the rest of the year’s AAA titles, not to mention right around time for Halloween. From what it looks like there are no titles in this genre to compete with Dead Space this fall, and it might just surprise a few people. There were parts where I was left wanting more, but I believe that’s simply a tribute to how well those parts were. So if you’re looking for a thrilling video game fix loaded with action, I really recommend picking this one up.

By Evan Doran