Xbox Gaming in South Africa

Those readers that follow the industry closely will know that a few years ago, EA Games were portrayed in the public eye as being the equivalent to the wicked witch of the west, if you could imagine the gaming industry being the equivalent of the wonderful land of Oz. Ok, well maybe I’m being a bit harsh but they did bare such a stigma due to their stance on incessant annualized sequels and shameless franchise cash-ins. As a result, they where mildly disliked (at the very best) amongst the hardcore of gamers. I’m glad to say that the EA of old is making an effort to turn itself around. Recently, they’ve been trying to prove that they’ve changed for the better and that this time, they have the gamer’s best interest at heart. You know what? It shows... it shows quite clearly with Dead Space.

If you’ve played through some of survival horrors finest, you will pick up on some similarities, especially in the story, the method of progressing the story and the gameplay. With that said, let me break down Dead Space for you. You play as a deep space mining engineer, Isaac Clark, who never utters a word throughout the entire game. It’s never quite explained why he doesn’t talk which actually bothered me a bit. At least you get to see your character and the best part of that is being able to see each stage of his upgradable suit (aka rig). Isaac, who is a part of a small maintenance team, travels to the enormous “planet-cracker” mining space called the USG Ishimura to investigate the loss of contact with the rest of the fleet. To make matters worse for Isaac, his girlfriend is stationed on this ship, so even more is at stake for him. Upon arriving, things go awry and soon Isaac is fighting off a body-snatching alien race inhabiting the ship called the Necromorph. The story is driven along nicely by allowing you to collect audio, text and video logs throughout the forsaken hallways of the USG Ishimura. Through collecting them, along with a few standard in-game cut scenes, you get the chance to piece the story together and figure out what happened on the ship for yourself. There are also other subtle, little hints the game suggests to you, through the use of graffiti and such, that further drive the story. The logs are spread out in such a way that it keeps with the pacing of the game. Speaking of the games pacing, I found that the action, puzzle-solving and breaks for story where strung together intelligently so that I never found myself bored or felt as if the game focused too much on one aspect and neglected another.

The game plays really well. The controls feel tight and responsive, and you never find yourself burdened by them. Other games in the same genre tend to rely more on inferior controls to create a sense of urgency and tension. That’s fine for those games as their enemies are usually slow and sluggish. In Dead Space, the controls have to be precise, as the enemies will be coming at you quickly and frantically. Speaking of precision, Dead Space uses an awesome gameplay mechanic officially entitled “Strategic Dismemberment” by EA. Basically, what this means is that you get the advantage of being able to hinder your enemies by cutting off their limbs, heads and/or tentacles. If it’s an appendage, you want it removed. Carefully aimed shots are important as they take down your enemy quicker which can save you valuable ammo and health.

There are a variety of weapons you can use to eliminate your enemies in Dead Space along with a couple of powers for additional aid. Each of the weapons is noticeably different from the rest. You’ll get the chance to kill your enemies by cutting, burning, pushing, blasting or good old regular shooting. You initially start out with you trusty plasma cutter, the standard pistol of the game, which you can toggle to shoot vertically and horizontally through the use of alternate fire. As expected, all the weapons in the game have an alternate fire, which differs in use from one weapon to the next. As mentioned, there are powers involved namely, Stasis and Telekinesis. Stasis is used to slow enemies and objects down where as telekinesis is used to move large environmental objects and pick up items beyond your regular grasp to use them as ammo by launching them. To finish it all off, the developers have incorporated an upgrade system for your weapons, powers and rig allowing you to customize and improve them as you progress. Be careful which weapons you choose to upgrade though as you can’t carry all of them and the ammo you hold is limited by your inventory capacity.

As for the rest of the gameplay features, you can expect an occasional change in environment thanks to zero gravity and vacuumed areas. When you encounter these, usually in order to solve environmental puzzles, it’s a welcome change from the familiarity of roaming the ships corridors. In Zero-G areas, objects float about in midair but thanks to your magnetic boots, you remain attached to the floor with the ability to jump around to almost any other flat surface. It’s a bit disorienting at first but you soon get used to it. Vacuumed areas don’t add anything significant in terms of gameplay, but they do add to the atmosphere. When in a vacuumed area, the sound is almost completely deadened so you’re never quite sure when enemies are creeping up on you. There is also a sense of urgency as you have a limited air supply. And if ever you can’t figure out where you are supposed to go next, just use the “idiot button” as I like to call it. With the click of the right stick, a blue beam appears on the floor directing you to your next objective. Not to call myself an idiot, but I did use it quite regularly in order to save some time; it’s nice to be given this option. There are only a few things in a game I hate more than not being able to find your way or being stuck so that you can’t progress.

This brings me to the negatives in the game of which there are only two that really concerned me. When you complete the game, you are given the opportunity to play through it again with all the equipment you collected previously. The problem I have is that the game only allows you to carry your gear over if you choose to replay on the same difficulty setting. Personally, I would have liked to have replayed the game with all my stuff on the hardest difficulty setting instead of having to start from scratch again. Furthermore, there is a point in the game where I became frustrated because of a certain asteroid sequence, which is sad as these frustrations broke the games captivating grip it held on me from the very start.

Now, let’s talk audio and visuals. Both are primarily designed to create a sense of tension for the player which is pulled off extremely well. But it doesn’t just stop there. With the sights and sounds of Dead Space, you’ll experience emotions such as paranoia, shock and relief as well. The sound in the game really does make you feel like you’re on a semi abandoned spaceship. The background noises are eerie and creepy which always leaves you with a sense of unease. The lighting in the game is also impressive. Whether you’re in a dark corridor or in a well-lit room, there’s always something not quite “right” with the ship. In dark areas, you can use the torch on your gun to light the way forward but in some cases, it doesn’t feel like it’s quite enough when encountering enemies. In lit areas, the casted shadows flicker due to the ships defective lighting equipment and sometimes you’ll see shadows move that you never really noticed before. The character models look great and so too do the environments. When you’re busy dismembering enemies, limbs fall off and blood goes flying. When an enemy overpowers you, you get to watch yourself die a really well-animated, graphic and gruesome death. Yes, this is a very gory game. One of the first things you’ll notice in the game is the omission of a heads up display (HUD) to distract you from being immersed. Your health bar is displayed on the spine of Isaacs’s suit and your ammo is displayed on the gun itself. Holographic projections are used to display your videos, map and inventory system. The dev team really nailed this look and feel.

It must be stated that Dead Space is best experienced on a HD display; the bigger the better. I know this is obvious for all games on the Xbox 360 but in this case, it really does make a big difference. And as for the sound, you’ve going to want loud surround sound speakers or better yet, surround sound headphones. Regular headphones will also work well. With Dead Space, you want to stay captivated and these suggestions will definitely enhance your gameplay experience.

Dead space is a quality product in all aspects of what you would expect from a story driven, single player game. The only thing I can say it really suffers from is a lack of originality. But you know what? More of the same isn’t necessarily always a bad thing if it improves upon what you knew before. If you have interest in sci-fi, horror or action games, Dead Space is definitely worth your time. Just prepare yourself for a few scares along the way.

Pros:

• Phenomenal sound design.
• Great visuals, however they are only really appreciated on a large HD display.
• Very satisfying combat system and tight controls. The strategic dismemberment brings a warmly welcomed additional layer of depth to the combat.
• Great story that will keep you engaged and terrified.
• If you enjoy sudden scares from your survival horrors, the game has these covered.

Cons:

• There are a couple of frustrating moments in the game that you have to get through in order to proceed. The games sense of immersion is sadly broken at these points.
• Not being able to choose a new difficulty setting when replaying the game from a previous save is disappointing.

Rating: