Blog? Perhaps.

Hello everyone.
How have you been?
Fantastic.
How's the wife?
Dead? 'atta boy.

It's been four months since my last blog, and I've procrastinated quite thoroughly on writing another. Although I'm not sure if my last blog even qualifies as a blog, as it was a story that I have ALSO procrastinated on. Enough of that nonsense though, I'm going to be talking about a game today.
The game is…
-dramatic music-
DEAD SPACE.
Honoring the unreleased Dead Space 2, I'm doing a review of the original limb slicing, gore filled, give-your-little-sister-nightmares-and-possibly-yourself-as-well awesomeness that is Dead Space.
I'll divide the review in to 3 sections, and I don't use numbers, because that shit means nothing.
The three sections will be:
1. Story: This section should be pretty self-explanatory. I go over the gist of the plot in the beginning without spoiling more than an hour or so's game play.
2. Gameplay: This is the section where I go over the game mechanics, experience, and/or nuances throughout the game.
3. Graphics:: In this section I go over the overall look of the game, including the style, the atmosphere, and smoothness in the textures.
Alright, let's do this.

Introduction

Dead Space is a sci-fi survival/horror third person over the shoulder shooting game. Much in the style of Resident Evil 4, which really pleased me. Published and developed by Electronic Arts, I was expecting this new IP to be a really dark, but a shit rip off of Gears of War. What I found though, was a fantastic game that made me ridiculously scared, but also hard pressed me to continue playing. This is an amazing game, and I would recommend to anybody who loves scary movies or games.

Story

Before we start this, let's set the mood.

When it comes to action games that involve running and gunning, a lot of the time, the plot is paper thin, and leaves much to be desired. e.g. Gears of War, Resident Evil 5. Dead Space is somewhat of an exception to this stereotype. When the game begins the year is 2508, and you are on a ship approaching the USG Ishimura, a planet mining starship. It is made evident that the Ishimura sent out a distress signal during a mining mission on the planet Aegis VII. They introduce you as Isaac Clarke, a starship engineer, and give you some information on the mission ahead of you. Much in the same vein as the Half Life series, your protagonist is the strong silent type. Upon attempting to dock with the Ishimura, some shit hits the fan and your ship, the USG Kellion accidently crashes in to the Ishimura. Your crew gets out of the ship, and attempts to locate the distress signal. Along the way, your crew is attacked by fleshy looking deformed creatures that scared the living bejeezus out of me at first. They are later identified as necromorphs. The rest of the story I'll let you find out yourself through playing the game. All in all, the story is actually quite good, and has some fantastic "oh shit" moments when you find new bits of information.
Another part of the story telling is the data notes you find lying around in the various levels of the ship. Along the way, you'll find little bits and pieces of information telling you more about the crew, and the events that took place on the ship. This ranges from crew dossiers, journal notes, video logs, research notes on the necromorphs, and video camera footage. Some of it is boring, but for the most part, it was quite interesting to watch. Thumbs up on the story.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Dead Space is advertised as revolving around dismemberment. At first, I thought it sounded retarded, but it's actually quite engaging. In other games like Gears of War, a lot of the time, you'll be aiming for the enemies center of mass. That doesn't do shit in Dead Space. If you shoot the torso of an enemy, all they do is continue lumbering forward. What you have to do is cut off it's limbs with the various weapons in the game. If you shoot at one of the arms on a necromorph, it falls off. You shoot at its leg, it starts hopping at you. You shoot off both legs, they start dragging themselves towards you. All of this is done incredibly well, and invokes a sense of "OH SHIT!" through the entire game. They tell you that the monsters have infiltrated the ventilation system too, so you don't get the monster-in-a-closet feeling you do in other games like Doom. You are never safe in this game.
You may be wondering, "Well what kind fo weapons can do that kind of damage?". All 7 of the weapons found in Dead Space are modified energy mining tools. The first weapon you receive in the game, for example, is a handgun that fires a foot long beam of energy that dispatches arms and legs quite easily. Every weapon also has a secondary fire option. The handgun you receive, upon pressing the secondary fire option, will switch which direction it fires the beam in. You can fire the beam horizantally, or vertically, depending on which limbs you wish to cut off first.
Another thing about the gameplay in Dead Space is that there is absolutely no Heads up Display. Your health is displayed on your back as a long segmented green spine. As you lose health however, the bar changes colors. From Green, to yellow, to red. When your health goes red, your character starts limping, hacking, and coughing, reminding you to stop being such a shit game player and find a health pack. Your ammo display is always on the weapon you are holding. When running around, your weapon is pointed at the ground, allowing you to sprint to and from places. When you hold down a button though, your weapon is raised, and a display on your weapon lights up showing how much ammunition you have left in the clip.
All the shops in the game aren't something where you press a button, and it takes you out of the experience. You press a button, and a little panel pop up in front of your face, and you can look through things you want to buy. The inventory is the same way. You could be trying to get to a health pack in your inventory, and a necromorph could jump up from behind you and skull fuck the shit out of you. Another thing that impressed me about the whole UI of the menus is that their directions are all relative to your character. If a video is popped up in front of Isaac's face and you pan the camera around so you see his face, you can't see the video anymore. All of it is strictly based on the character.
Another element of the gameplay that I really enjoyed are the upgrades you can make to your weapons, and even your suit. Throughout the game, you'll find money that you can use to purchase things at the shop, and Power Nodes you can use to upgrade you weapons. When you find the schematics for a weapon or even an upgrade of your suit, you can go back to a store, download the schematic, and buy the weapon/suit upgrade. The suit upgrade in the shop usually means it increases the amount of spinal health sections you have, and your appearance changes every time you upgrade. The weapons are upgraded via a work bench. You open the work bench, and assuming you have the power nodes, you can upgrades your weapons to be stronger, reload faster, hold more ammunition, etc. You can also upgrade your suit so that you can sprint faster, for a longer time, have your special suit abilities last longer, or make them stronger. Usually upgrades in games don't make sense(I'm looking at you Singularity), and they are given with no probable cause. In Dead Space however, you're a ship engineer who has experience with these weapons and this suit on a mechanical level, so it makes sense that you can use these materials to make your shit better.
Another nuance of the game that made all the difference is the ability to hold down a button, and a little blue trail will show up telling you where to go. In my opinion, this should be in every game. If someone told me you could hold down a button in a game, and it'd show you where to go, I would think it would ruin the experience, but it didn't. It was a fantastic add on to the game. Granted, the blue path isn't the SAFEST way to get there, but it'll get you there. There's no guarantee that you won't get skull fucked by a necromorph when you turn the corner. You look at games like Bioshock that people say is a 15 hour game, and it is. I played bioshock, and it took me 15 hours to beat. About 3 of those hours, however, were me not knowing where the fuck to go because that little arrow pointing you in the right direction doesn't help at all.
Just on a side note on gameplay before moving on to the next section. The death scenes and set pieces in this game are phenomenal. I won't give too much away, but a couple of monsters will seriously fuck you up if you don't handle them properly. For example, the first boss you fight will pick you up and tear your in half if you get too close. Another monster will whip it's tentacle out at you and knock your head off if you get too close to it. As for set pieces, near the beginning of the game, you're picked up by this huge giant tentacle that crashes through the wall, and it's dragging you by your leg in to it's nest. While it's dragging you, you need to shoot at it's weak point while being dragged. It's awesome.
Gameplay is an absolute thumbs up.

Graphics

I will come straight out and say it. This game is beautiful for a game made 2 years ago. The textures of everything look absolutely fantastic, and the frame rate is flawless.
The style of the game is something like I've never seen before. Usually in survival/horror games, they try to make everything dark, and overshoot it. In Dead Space, they nail it perfectly. You'll see blood sprayed on the walls in slashes, blotches and more. You'll see Dead Bodies at the end of a corridor, and then all of a sudden watch it get snatched up by an arm while the lights flicker. Also, guess what? You don't need a fucking flashlight as a seperate tool. Every weapon in the game comes with an attached flashlight at the end of it, so even if you're in the dark, you can see where you're going. Sidenote: I fucking hated Doom 3.
The atmosphere, is for lack of a better word, terrifying. Everything from the visuals, down to the sounds that you make when you're about to die will give you at the very least, a sense of horror where your calm should be. Everything added in to this game was put in to invoke fear. The visuals certainly add to the scaryness, but I think the horror comes from how good the sounds are. As you make your way through the ship, you'll often hear scuttling, creaking, whirring, and all kinds of ungodly noises. They really put a lot of effort in to making it a living, breathing ship. What I found is after a huge fire fight, the noises of the ship will make you wonder if you killed them all. You'll then proceed along your way, and from behind you, you'll get raped.
The character movement, as well as the animations for the necromorphs are great. Although Isaac may feel a little stiff at times when moving around, it doesn't get in the way of your gameplay, and I hardly noticed it until I started looking for what was wrong with this game. The animations for the necromorphs are fantastic. Everything from them running at you, to the jagged slow movements some of them do, they all look disturbingly wonderful.
I give the graphics a big thumbs up as well.

Conclusion

For a game that almost nobody played, it did a fantastic job of keeping me entertained, as well as giving me a clean colon for the time that I was playing it. Ridiculously fun and scary. Fantastic gameplay, wonderful visuals, and great sounds. Dead Space has the whole package. My only complaint about the game is that it may have been a little too scary, but I can't fault it for that. I absolutely recommend this game to anyone who likes being scared shitless, and even those who aren't. I give this game a huge thumbs up, and at it's current price, there's no reason for you not to pick it up, as it is on ALL 3 PLATFORMS. (PC, 360, and PS3)
A trailer for those interested in seeing what it looks like.