Is Dead Space the Next Frontier for Survival Horror?
August 12, 2008 | 2:21 PM PST
The survival horror genre has been suffering from an identity crisis since the release of Resident Evil 4. The genre defined by its slow pace, obscured field of vision and severely limited resources was turned on its head when the franchise that wrote the rule-book received a massive kick in the ass and emerged with a new over-the-shoulder perspective, buttery smooth controls, precise aiming and a significantly faster pace. This new breed of survival horror still provided some creepy atmosphere but the feeling of vulnerability that characterized the genre's old guard was replaced with a feeling of power, and it's hard to feel scared when you feel like a badass. Fans have taken sides and the major players in the genre have committed to divergent directions, with Resident Evil continuing down its new direction while the latest Silent Hill is taking strong cues from the original titles. Survival horror is at a crossroads, but there is one game on the horizon with the potential to bridge the gap between both camps, and it's coming from an unlikely source.
Dead Space, Electronic Arts' first foray into the world of survival horror and one of the few titles to come out of the company's doors with a big ol' M stamped on the cover, is shaping up to be the game with the best bet of uniting the two schools of thought on survival horror. We recently had the opportunity to play through several sections of the game at an EA community event, and walked away very impressed – a surprising turn of events considering our less-than-flattering first impressions of the game. Actually sitting down and playing large sections of several levels gave us a far better impression of how all the features come together to form a cohesive experience. Even with only a few hours of gameplay time under our belt, we still feel confident saying that Dead Space is far more terrifying than any of the recent entrants in the survival horror genre. That the game achieves those levels of terror without crippling the player's ability to defend themselves is what makes Dead Space feel like such an evolution of the genre.
Like the survival horror games of old, Dead Space does an admirable job of making the player feel like they could be killed at any moment and that feeling of vulnerability translates very effectively into tension and fear. The game establishes this sense of vulnerability via a number of means, most notably through an oppressive atmosphere and intelligent game balance. Lots of factors both subtly and overtly contribute to the atmosphere. Scripted sequences establish and reinforce the mood throughout the game, and the events that unfold range anywhere from morbid to terrifying. Elaborate scripted events segue into unscripted terror, all without the safety blanket of a HUD to remind you that it's all just a game. The art direction obviously recalls the industrial 'truckers in space' aesthetic from the Alien movies, but EA's artists have infused that look with a unique concoction of oil-soaked grit and gothic undertones, the latter of which lends some of the environments an almost otherworldly vibe. The lighting and sound design add additional layers to the environments, suffocating areas of the ship that are exposed to the vacuum of space in dead silence, while filling other areas with wailing sirens and strobe lights.
Eerie lights and creepy sounds aside, the primary reason Dead Space succeeds at making players feel vulnerable is simply because they are always vulnerable. As you make your way through the bowels of the derelict-mining-vessel-from-hell (or The Ishimura, as it's called in the game), the threat of attack is ever-present. The aliens swarming through the Ishimura aren't just creepy-looking, they're powerful and they're crafty too. They use the ventilation system that runs throughout the entire ship to follow players beyond locked doors, ladders and power-lifts, they use them to ambush players from above and behind, and they frequently use them to escape if they're wounded in battle, only to re-emerge with a receipt when the player least expects it (yes, you can tell it's the same alien by the nature of the wounds you leave on them). Players aren't even safe when the dust settles on a battle and dismembered limbs decorate the floor. Approaching alien carcasses is risky since they could be playing dead to lure you over, or pulling one of several other sneaky tricks. All of these behaviors are completely unscripted, so it's not as though players can memorize where and when a specific alien or three pop out. Even the scripted sequences are interactive, some can even be bypassed completely (intentionally or not), so every room of the Ishimura plays out slightly differently for every player.
It's important to note that this isn't an action game, and main character Isaac isn't an action hero. He's a regular guy who can only take about half a dozen hits from the weakest enemy type before going down for the count. Thus the fear of death is a constant reality, one established by the legitimate ferocity of the monsters in the dark, not poor controls, bad camera angles or limited ammunition. In fact, in our experience with the game, there was plenty of ammunition to go around, provided you were able to make the most of it. Strategic dismemberment -- the ability to pick off just about any body part you can target -- isn't a simple gimmick played for cheap visceral thrills, it is absolutely essential to survival. We encountered rooms that were packed with enemies that attacked from every conceivable direction. The only way to survive situations like that is to hit and run, targeting and slicing off appendages to cripple or just slow down the creatures long enough to create an opening and reposition. From our time with the game, Dead Space feels remarkably well-balanced, with a fair trade-off between the efficacy of dismembering enemies and the enemy's proficiency at gutting Issac like a fish. Every battle is a tense, scary affair where every shot counts, but every battle is also fun as hell because the gameplay and controls -- obviously inspired by Resident Evil 4 -- are so tight, and Isaac's unique weaponry is so much fun to use.
Strategic dismemberment isn't the only trick Isaac has up his sleeve. His futuristic mining 'rig' gives him the ability to maneuver through zero-gravity environments and an upgrade discovered during the beginning of the game also gives him the ability to use 'stasis' to slow down and manipulate objects in the environment. Both of these abilities are primarily used for navigation and puzzle solving, and we were pleasantly surprised by the intelligence of some of the level layouts and puzzle designs. Granted, just about any puzzle design beats the ridiculous unlocking mechanisms found in most survival horror games (can you imagine being the guy who had to lock up at Umbrella every night?), but the brain-teasers that EA has concocted fit nicely into the context of the game and force players to use all of the skills at their disposal. One puzzle required us to navigate through a zero-gravity environment that was laced with electric floors. The solution? Use stasis to freeze the generator for a few seconds and quickly bounce from wall to wall before the effect wears off and the current returns. Zero-gravity combat is even wilder, forcing players to bounce from one surface to another in order to evade attacking enemies and find the space necessary to line up their tendril-slicing shots. In our opinion these battles weren't particularly scary, but they sure were fun and they did a great job of breaking up the more traditional combat.
With only a few months left before release, the only thing left for the developers to do is polish everything up. At this stage we really only have one minor concern about the game. As previously stated, battling against the powerful monstrosities littering the Ishimura is intense and exciting, and using Issac's arsenal of mining equipment to slice through their twisted bodies is both visceral and satisfying. At least it was for the hours we played the game. The problem, which may be too harsh a word, is that all the battles play out relatively similarly: choose a target, pick a limb to dissect to slow them down, take out a few more or finish the job entirely if you have the time, otherwise quickly reposition to evade enclose and reapply the same tactics to the other enemies in the vicinity. Zero-gravity battles and boss encounters both help shake things up, and there are definitely variances in how different enemy types behave in response to having different limbs removed, but for the most part every battle can be summed up as chop, run, chop, repeat as necessary. Maybe that's no problem. After all, Resident Evil 4 managed to keep a far simpler combat system interesting for 15 hours simply by introducing new enemy types in progressively more challenging scenarios, across a variety of different settings. It's definitely possible that the developers of Dead Space will be able to keep things interesting over the course of the 15 hour campaign via the same methods.
Fans of survival horror, whatever their preference, should definitely keep Dead Space on their radar. An undeniably fresh take on a fractured genre, one that takes all the best elements from an eclectic line of predecessors and spices them up with a few new tricks, Dead Space has the potential to set a new high-water mark for the genre this October.
Dead Space, Electronic Arts' first foray into the world of survival horror and one of the few titles to come out of the company's doors with a big ol' M stamped on the cover, is shaping up to be the game with the best bet of uniting the two schools of thought on survival horror. We recently had the opportunity to play through several sections of the game at an EA community event, and walked away very impressed – a surprising turn of events considering our less-than-flattering first impressions of the game. Actually sitting down and playing large sections of several levels gave us a far better impression of how all the features come together to form a cohesive experience. Even with only a few hours of gameplay time under our belt, we still feel confident saying that Dead Space is far more terrifying than any of the recent entrants in the survival horror genre. That the game achieves those levels of terror without crippling the player's ability to defend themselves is what makes Dead Space feel like such an evolution of the genre.
Like the survival horror games of old, Dead Space does an admirable job of making the player feel like they could be killed at any moment and that feeling of vulnerability translates very effectively into tension and fear. The game establishes this sense of vulnerability via a number of means, most notably through an oppressive atmosphere and intelligent game balance. Lots of factors both subtly and overtly contribute to the atmosphere. Scripted sequences establish and reinforce the mood throughout the game, and the events that unfold range anywhere from morbid to terrifying. Elaborate scripted events segue into unscripted terror, all without the safety blanket of a HUD to remind you that it's all just a game. The art direction obviously recalls the industrial 'truckers in space' aesthetic from the Alien movies, but EA's artists have infused that look with a unique concoction of oil-soaked grit and gothic undertones, the latter of which lends some of the environments an almost otherworldly vibe. The lighting and sound design add additional layers to the environments, suffocating areas of the ship that are exposed to the vacuum of space in dead silence, while filling other areas with wailing sirens and strobe lights.
Eerie lights and creepy sounds aside, the primary reason Dead Space succeeds at making players feel vulnerable is simply because they are always vulnerable. As you make your way through the bowels of the derelict-mining-vessel-from-hell (or The Ishimura, as it's called in the game), the threat of attack is ever-present. The aliens swarming through the Ishimura aren't just creepy-looking, they're powerful and they're crafty too. They use the ventilation system that runs throughout the entire ship to follow players beyond locked doors, ladders and power-lifts, they use them to ambush players from above and behind, and they frequently use them to escape if they're wounded in battle, only to re-emerge with a receipt when the player least expects it (yes, you can tell it's the same alien by the nature of the wounds you leave on them). Players aren't even safe when the dust settles on a battle and dismembered limbs decorate the floor. Approaching alien carcasses is risky since they could be playing dead to lure you over, or pulling one of several other sneaky tricks. All of these behaviors are completely unscripted, so it's not as though players can memorize where and when a specific alien or three pop out. Even the scripted sequences are interactive, some can even be bypassed completely (intentionally or not), so every room of the Ishimura plays out slightly differently for every player.
It's important to note that this isn't an action game, and main character Isaac isn't an action hero. He's a regular guy who can only take about half a dozen hits from the weakest enemy type before going down for the count. Thus the fear of death is a constant reality, one established by the legitimate ferocity of the monsters in the dark, not poor controls, bad camera angles or limited ammunition. In fact, in our experience with the game, there was plenty of ammunition to go around, provided you were able to make the most of it. Strategic dismemberment -- the ability to pick off just about any body part you can target -- isn't a simple gimmick played for cheap visceral thrills, it is absolutely essential to survival. We encountered rooms that were packed with enemies that attacked from every conceivable direction. The only way to survive situations like that is to hit and run, targeting and slicing off appendages to cripple or just slow down the creatures long enough to create an opening and reposition. From our time with the game, Dead Space feels remarkably well-balanced, with a fair trade-off between the efficacy of dismembering enemies and the enemy's proficiency at gutting Issac like a fish. Every battle is a tense, scary affair where every shot counts, but every battle is also fun as hell because the gameplay and controls -- obviously inspired by Resident Evil 4 -- are so tight, and Isaac's unique weaponry is so much fun to use.
Strategic dismemberment isn't the only trick Isaac has up his sleeve. His futuristic mining 'rig' gives him the ability to maneuver through zero-gravity environments and an upgrade discovered during the beginning of the game also gives him the ability to use 'stasis' to slow down and manipulate objects in the environment. Both of these abilities are primarily used for navigation and puzzle solving, and we were pleasantly surprised by the intelligence of some of the level layouts and puzzle designs. Granted, just about any puzzle design beats the ridiculous unlocking mechanisms found in most survival horror games (can you imagine being the guy who had to lock up at Umbrella every night?), but the brain-teasers that EA has concocted fit nicely into the context of the game and force players to use all of the skills at their disposal. One puzzle required us to navigate through a zero-gravity environment that was laced with electric floors. The solution? Use stasis to freeze the generator for a few seconds and quickly bounce from wall to wall before the effect wears off and the current returns. Zero-gravity combat is even wilder, forcing players to bounce from one surface to another in order to evade attacking enemies and find the space necessary to line up their tendril-slicing shots. In our opinion these battles weren't particularly scary, but they sure were fun and they did a great job of breaking up the more traditional combat.
With only a few months left before release, the only thing left for the developers to do is polish everything up. At this stage we really only have one minor concern about the game. As previously stated, battling against the powerful monstrosities littering the Ishimura is intense and exciting, and using Issac's arsenal of mining equipment to slice through their twisted bodies is both visceral and satisfying. At least it was for the hours we played the game. The problem, which may be too harsh a word, is that all the battles play out relatively similarly: choose a target, pick a limb to dissect to slow them down, take out a few more or finish the job entirely if you have the time, otherwise quickly reposition to evade enclose and reapply the same tactics to the other enemies in the vicinity. Zero-gravity battles and boss encounters both help shake things up, and there are definitely variances in how different enemy types behave in response to having different limbs removed, but for the most part every battle can be summed up as chop, run, chop, repeat as necessary. Maybe that's no problem. After all, Resident Evil 4 managed to keep a far simpler combat system interesting for 15 hours simply by introducing new enemy types in progressively more challenging scenarios, across a variety of different settings. It's definitely possible that the developers of Dead Space will be able to keep things interesting over the course of the 15 hour campaign via the same methods.
Fans of survival horror, whatever their preference, should definitely keep Dead Space on their radar. An undeniably fresh take on a fractured genre, one that takes all the best elements from an eclectic line of predecessors and spices them up with a few new tricks, Dead Space has the potential to set a new high-water mark for the genre this October.
