System: X-box 360, Playstation 3
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Game: 1-player action
Release: TBA
Preview, ‘Dead Space’: A look into Horror.
You are Isaac Clarke, a glorified wrench jockey, jack-of-all-trades. Your company (Concordance Extraction Corp.) has received a distress message from one of its’ mega billion credit ‘planet cracker’ salvage ships. You and your crew have been sent out to get the ship back on line and up and running. It is a simple job; one that you have performed countless time before. But something is wrong…
That is the premise of EA’s (yes I said EA’s) latest foray into the gaming horror genre. Due out late next year, this marks a departure from the ‘safe and sane’ games EA usually churns out. Executive producer Glen Schofield has somehow convinced EA to take a gamble on something different from their usual fare of licensed products. Dead Space is a combination of Aliens and John Carpenter’s The Thing.
The hero, Isaac Clarke, is no master chief, or bounty hunter, heck he isn’t even a space marine. This means that he will not be carrying an entire arsenal of weapons on his back into combat. He his just an ordinary guy doing a rather simple (for his time) job and that is the beauty of the storyline. Clark will be limited to what he finds within the environment and his own skills in using them, making the character vulnerable (a must in any horror setting).
The villain(s), an alien race called the Necromorphs, can infect and take over dead human bodies. They have overrun the USG Ishimura (the ship that Isaac was sent to repair), and have killed and co-opted most of the salvage ship’s crew.
The story is told exclusively in-game, thus managing to maintain the tension and suspense level for the player. The game also has no cutscenes which mean that there are no pauses or in-game indications when you have achieved goal within the storyline. The visuals are visceral and shocking and the amount of gore displayed is extensive. There will be everything from bodies sliced apart to acts of dismemberment. This game is surely headed for an ‘M’ rating.
Doing horror in a video game is extremely difficult. You must ‘draw’ the gamer into the game. The player must ‘feel’ the tension. Unlike a movie where events take place at the director’s pace, in a horror game the player has control of the pacing of the situation. If the player wants, the character can simply stay put on screen until he is moved forward, so it is up to the game designer to place ‘gotcha’ moments within the game. Doom 3 tried to do this but most of these moments were just repeated ad nauseum throughout the game, dulling the experience. By attempting to spread out these occurrences over 20 or so hours of gameplay (and with the inclusion of subtle lighting and sound tricks) Dead Space attempts to reach the gamer on a subliminal level, making him increasingly uneasy as he proceeds through the game.
As in all previews, knowing what the final product will be remains to be seen, but if this one stays anywhere near it’s potential, it will be a great success along the lines of other horror gaming classics such as Resident Evil 4.
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