Dead Space (X360)

I was really surprised by this game. I had only seen a few random screen shots before last week, so it never really appeared on my radar. What I did see was some dude in a goofy helmet bashing some zombie things.

However, this game is probably one of the finest examples of what a 360 game should be. The graphics are tremendous, the sound is incredible, and it really feels like they spent an inordinate amount of time polishing this game. The real killer for me is the game play in a vacuum environment. All the outside sounds become muffled or silent, so almost all of what you hear is the stomping of your boots and your heart beating. The color scheme looks so much colder, it's almost hard to keep from shivering. When enemies jump out at you, there are no terrifying orchestral cues as there are in air filled environments, just eerie silence. Zero gravity areas have you jumping from wall to wall, constantly changing your view of the room, shooting at aliens who can jump just as well as you can. I really can't say enough about how well the environments are represented in this game.

The HUD is pretty unique for a shooter, largely because there isn't one. Your health is displayed by a meter of blue light on your suit (RIG), next to a meter showing your remaining stasis energy. All messages are displayed as pop up displays that float semi-transparently over the rest of the environment. All of this really helps you feel like you're right there, hanging over Isaac's shoulder, through all of it.

The weapons are really cool as well. You start with the fusion cutter, which is great all through the game for the task of severing limbs from zombie demon alien thingies. This is great, because unlike most games, the limbs are where you can inflict the most damage - body shots aren't as effective. This makes for a uniquely gory experience of limbs and heads rolling around the floor, as well as floating through the zero gravity environments. Other weapons you obtain include a standard laser assault rifle, the "Ripper" which fires a remote controlled buzz saw (awesome), a flamethrower, a spartan laser style weapon called the contact beam, a force gun that repels enemies while doing damage, and the line gun, which fires a wide beam of mines. On top of these guns, you also have stasis, which slows down objects and enemies, and kinesis, which picks up and launches items, body parts, whatever.

Throughout the game you can find stores and benches. The use of stores is pretty obvious - buy and sell weapons and items you've picked up, and store items in a safe if you're running low on inventory. During the game you can find schematics, which will be downloaded at the store and allow you to purchase new items. Benches are also sort of obvious, as they are used to upgrade your equipment. Throughout the game you find "Power Nodes" that you can use here, or for unlocking the occasional room that requires one.

The upgrade system is sort of strange. When you select a weapon, ability, or your RIG to upgrade, you'll be shown a map of what I imagine is supposed to represent your nano-circuitry or whatever. You can place nodes next to nodes that have already been added, but not every node gives you any bonus. You may have to spend three nodes or so just to get any sort of benefit out of it. While I enjoy that it isn't a straight forward system like most games, I do get a little frustrated wasting a bunch of hard earned nodes for one upgrade.

The achievements are varied and will give you some little extra motivation to change up your gameplay a bit. There is an achievement for using each of the guns to score over 30 kills, hacking off 50, 500, and 1000 limbs, 20g for completing each chapter, as well as a bunch of secret and ability specific ones. There's also an achievement for going through the game using only the fusion cutter, which doesn't sound too difficult.

So in closing, if you're a fan of survival horror games such as Resident Evil 4, definitely pick this one up. If you've played Doom 3, it's easy to describe the game - Replace the Mars moon base with a giant space ship, slap a flashlight on your guns, jack up the graphics and polish by a generation, and swap a space marine with a bad ass armored engineer. And turn some lights on every now and then :)