Electronic Arts is aiming to do something different for their upcoming titles Dead Space. While it has released a few "M" rated games in the recent past like Army of Two, The Godfather and others, this is the first real horror game EA has released since, well, the terrific and underrated first person shooter Clive Barker's Undying. Dead Space is also EA's first excursion into the survival horror genre which means it's going up against two of Konami's big franchises, Resident Evil and Silent Hill.
At EA 2008,we got to see a demo of the game being played which showed off some of Dead Space's more unique elements. The game's setting is certainly different than Konami's titles. It takes place in the far future where humanity has broken the light speed barrier and traveled to the stars. Your player character is an engineer who is sent to find out why one starship hasn't reported back in a while. He reaches his destination only to find that in space, people can indeed hear you scream if you happen to be in a space suit with a radio.
Our E3 demo showed our engineer hero exploring the alien invested vessel with creatures that literally seem to be coming out of the walls (Aliens reference; look it up). One of the cool things in the game is the way Dead Space handles a player's HUD. Instead of a display that takes you out of the game, the HUD is basically the same hologram that the character sees. It comes out of the the side in real time to show off weapons, inventory and other items. Bringing up your in-game hud doesn't pause the game, either. If you are looking at whether or not you have enough ammo for your gun if a creature is attacking you then you are done.
Visually Dead Space is delight if you love bloody misshapen settings. Exploring the ship you pretty much have to stay cautious at every turn. With all of the blood and body party around you never know if one of them might come out to attack you. In the first part of the demo we saw what looked like a sac with a baby head come out of the wall with its tentacles. It lashed out with spores that had tentacles of their own. Our demo driver died more than once trying to take out the creature and its spores with its laser gun before it finally succeeded.
Yet another creature is a slightly more normal flesh covered monster that looked a little like an alien gorilla. Again our demo driver tried to fight off the creature including using a weapon that caused the monster to slow down its movements for a few second so the player can get behind it and take it out. One thing about the monsters in Dead Space is that when you think they might be dead, it actually might be playing possum in order to get a second chance to kill you.
The final part of the demo had our intrepid engineer getting attacked by a single but massive tentacle that was dragging it to parts unknown. Despite a valiant effort to get free it was all for naught as the monster managed to drag our hero into a hole in the ship. Ouch.
It was emphasized in our demo that this is not a shooter; it is a true survival horror game where ammo and health are few and far between so players will have to be conservative when they decide to attack. We didn't get to see the other major new Dead Space feature which is the zero-g combat but hopefully that aspect will be as cool as it sounds.
Overall Dead Space looks like it will be a terrific horror title with an imaginative sci-fi twist and we hope the PC version will preserve the game's impressive graphics. Look for the game to be released on October 21.
Visually Dead Space is delight if you love bloody misshapen settings. Exploring the ship you pretty much have to stay cautious at every turn. With all of the blood and body party around you never know if one of them might come out to attack you. In the first part of the demo we saw what looked like a sac with a baby head come out of the wall with its tentacles. It lashed out with spores that had tentacles of their own. Our demo driver died more than once trying to take out the creature and its spores with its laser gun before it finally succeeded.
Yet another creature is a slightly more normal flesh covered monster that looked a little like an alien gorilla. Again our demo driver tried to fight off the creature including using a weapon that caused the monster to slow down its movements for a few second so the player can get behind it and take it out. One thing about the monsters in Dead Space is that when you think they might be dead, it actually might be playing possum in order to get a second chance to kill you.
The final part of the demo had our intrepid engineer getting attacked by a single but massive tentacle that was dragging it to parts unknown. Despite a valiant effort to get free it was all for naught as the monster managed to drag our hero into a hole in the ship. Ouch.
It was emphasized in our demo that this is not a shooter; it is a true survival horror game where ammo and health are few and far between so players will have to be conservative when they decide to attack. We didn't get to see the other major new Dead Space feature which is the zero-g combat but hopefully that aspect will be as cool as it sounds.
Overall Dead Space looks like it will be a terrific horror title with an imaginative sci-fi twist and we hope the PC version will preserve the game's impressive graphics. Look for the game to be released on October 21.
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