Survival horror is not my favourite genre of video game, not by a long shot, but since playing a fair few titles for this 1001 list, I've got more of an understanding about what it is that fans of the genre admire.
Most of my issues with these games are the limiting controls, be they because of hardware limitations on the early consoles, for example, or design choices to keep you on your toes, and not let you get on top of your surroundings.
Resident Evil 4 was a turning point for the way the genre was presented and, importantly, controlled. It was easier for new players to grasp and it was still just as spooky to play as any other survival horror game, but for me, it was still a bit of a slog. I liked the over the shoulder camera, but not the controls that go along with it, even knowing they're a vast improvement over earlier titles.
What I need is Resident Evil 4 with a bit of refinement. And a plot that isn't too bonkers. And maybe set it somewhere that isn't brown? What's Dead Space?
Fun Times
The one thing I know about Dead Space is that it's regarded as the peak of the series. It's all downhill from here, as the sequels lost what it meant to be a horror title to appeal to an audience that only wanted action.
I wasn't interested in Dead Space because it was survival horror, and wasn't interested in its sequels because I wasn't interested in Dead Space. No wonder the series is dead now... But it is a survival horror game set in space, and space is neat, so could I have overlooked a classic?
Through the static is a message for us, Isaac Clarke, from our girlfriend Nicole. She's on the USG Ishimura, a ship that has gone dark in orbit around Aegis VII, its last known message a signal of distress.
Crashlanding into the Ishimura, Dead Space finally gives us control. The third-person, over the shoulder camera angle frames Isaac on the left and the scary ship before you on the right, but the first thing you see is a giant in-universe (diegetic, if you want to get all technical about it) pop-up telling you the movement controls.
I was all set to play this PC version with mouse and keyboard, but if I'm playing a survival horror, I want to be comfortable with a controller in hand, so it's time to get used to these hulking movement controls.
Diegetic HUD elements are an attempt to ground you in the world of Dead Space. The world doesn't magically pause when you bring up a map, for example, so neither does Dead Space. A holographic map floats in front of your face and you continue to move around the world.
In confined spaces, it can look awfully claustrophobic, and trying to see what you want to look at can be a struggle, but moving out of the ship and into the Ishimura proper, we're able to get more of an idea of how this all works.
We've seen no crew yet, and the first signs of life we do get a glimpse of aren't human.
And there's our introduction to what I believe are Necromorphs. Were they once human? Are they the crew of the Ishimura? They're sure presented as fearless monsters intent on attacking whoever turns up to say hello, and now there's a new bunch of folks to say hello to.
Separated after running through the dark corridors, all we have to fend off the ghoulies is a punch and a stomp, and I forget the stomp button, so swinging wildly is my only hope. I'm doomed.
As it happens, our lift dumps us into a room where someone made their last stand, or at least finally succumbed to their wounds. It wasn't a pretty fight, and we can even hear screams in the background of someone close by, desperately trying to survive.
Luckily, the crew had some ideas on how to deal with their foe. A plasma cutter and a message written in blood clue us into a key mechanic of Dead Space. Headshots aren't the order of the day here. Aim lower and to the sides. Cut off their limbs before stomping on their heads. If any other game has told me anything, I should be good at missing headshots and aiming for the legs.
One target down, though too late to save a life, we're able to roam the Ishimura in search of a way out. En route are audio logs from the unfortunate crew, who definitely sound like they tried their best to deal with these hideous creatures.
If you feel comfortable you can just keep walking, exploring the corridors as the last recorded messages of the crew cut through the air. If not, hunker in place, admire the grime, and perform a reload because you're paranoid. Dead Space doesn't stop moving, but sometimes you might want to. To gather your thoughts, to squint at something in the distance, in reaction to a chilling musical cue that pre-empts a jump scare.
There are plenty of reasons for me to stop, but the more I play, the more I want to keep moving.
The environments as a whole are dark and dingy. This is an industrial ship, used for cracking open planets to gather resources, but there are plenty of moments where it impresses. Flickering lights colour unknown gases, and your plasma cutter literally cuts through the darkness as it sheers limbs off your targets after they emerge from air vents or just stand up from the floor.
You can often spot a jump scare well in advance. If we're rating this survival horror on its ability to scare, it's not got too high a rating thus far, but it is still an eery looking game, helped immensely by the soundtrack and whatever it is doing. I can't pick it apart, musically inept as I am, but I know it's doing something, and it feels great.
Dead Space is setting itself up to be the kind of survival horror I like - one that I might just have a chance in. Yes, Isacc is a little lumbering and the diegetic HUD can catch me out, but the ability to move while aiming gives me so much comfort in a game designed to put you on edge, and when I'm comfortable with a game, I capable within it.
Pressing the right stick to ping a GPS system is one of the few times Isaac is rooted in place, and it's leading us to the electronics we need to fix the tram.
It certainly feels limiting in that respect, I guess, but it's also got me questioning whether an inventory is important at all. All I've really been picking up is health, ammo, and objective items. I evidently picked up some doodahs to modify my plasma cutter with, but I couldn't tell you what they were called or where I got them. It feels like my inventory isn't important. Maybe that'll change as the game goes on, or indeed, as I bother to see what's in it.
For now, though, it's backtracking to the tram terminal to send our friends on their way.
Your only option to fight back is to swing wildly, and your punches are effective, but shoving lots of character models in a corner that also has to accommodate an over the shoulder camera can lead to a bit of visual chaos.
One the one hand, it felt real of course. I was desperately trying to fend off monsters I couldn't make heads or tails of. I was struggling for my life. I'm playing on easy, naturally, but when the kerfuffle was over, Isaac was huffing and puffing, the health bar on his spine dangerously low.
With a diegetic HUD, the colour of your spine is the only indication of your health, or it's the most obvious one. Isacc will double over and slow down if he's on his last legs, much like the characters from The Getaway, but unlike those cockney criminals, there's no regenerating health here. There is a dedicated health-pack button, though. Hopefully, my inventory is crammed full of med-kits...
I was panicked in part by the sudden ball of fire that consumed the bridge and panicked further by it filling up the screen as I was scrambling to turn around and run out. Everything, the camera angle, the diegetic stuff, the music all worked together to sell me on my urgency and my imminent death if I didn't do anything about it, and I bolted. I was fully on board with Dead Space like I'm now fully on board the Ishimura.
The situation is bleak and made bleaker when our plan involves finding the captain, who the computer informs us as being deceased. But he's in the med-bay, and we can still get his access codes, so cling onto that slim bit of hope and make way for the med-bay.
Frustrations
Feeling overwhelmed in a survival horror generally adds to the horrific nature of events. The route to the med-bay was another string of objectives and updates, corridors on the way containing the expected jumpy spooks and the odd enemy to deal with. Dead Space was showing off its formula. Go here, defeat that, do the thing, defeat this, go there. But the med-bay was a little different.
All of that up there took place in one small office while an audio log of a conversation took place somewhere. As backstory was getting explained in one ear, the screams and the chaos of five or six enemies trying to rip me apart filled the other. What was perhaps meant to be a moment of intrigue as you learned of some weird alien monolith or something turned into a bit of a clusterfuck, if you'll pardon my French.
One more, it all worked really well to put me into a state of panic as I floundered with my fists and jabbed the A button when prompted to throw off an opponent, but I didn't even get a tenth of that conversation. Somehow, when the corpses had settled down, I found myself staring at a database entry, a written log I assume related to what I'd just heard, but of course, it didn't make sense.
Not only that, but after the scrape I'd just gotten into, it felt like I didn't need to worry about it right now, that it was optional content or something that would be fully explained later on at least. I skim read the plot on the Wikipedia entry to Dead Space, and I sure missed a bunch because of this one skirmish.
Each weapon has an alternate firing mode (I eventually worked out the plasma cutters alternate mode was to flip the cutting laser 90 degrees to more easily slice legs off) and can be upgraded at a workbench with whatever you find on your travels. Finding the ammo for it will probably rely on your difficulty level, with harder modes demanding better survival and equipment conservation skills.
For reasons unknown, a shock-pad I need can be found behind a spacewalk and then a separate zero-G section, and it was this that I found inexplicably fiddly. The left trigger brings up your weapon to aim, but if you aim and press Y in a zero-g environment, you supposedly shoot off into the void. I didn't ever feel in control of this jump. Did I have to aim somewhere specific? Do I need to stand in a certain spot? I couldn't really work it out.
I've not mentioned it at all so far, but we've picked up the ability to slow objects and enemies down in a stasis field bubble and levitate objects out of the way. Both are used to solve light puzzles, usually, but can be used in combat if you're competent in the controls. Simple though they are - press the left trigger and then either X or B - I didn't feel like I could use either effectively. I was still very much bumbling my way through space, even an hour into the game.
Deciding I would continue playing until I died, and actively avoided using health packs to ensure it, I eventually saw my doom, not at the pointy end of a Necromorph's spiked finger or having a grizzly tentacled beast poke my brains out, but by a swarm of little critters that I just couldn't shake off in time.
It was my first encounter with them. The camera barely had enough time to turn the corner and show me the corridor I was about to die in by the time the A button prompt came up and Isaac frantically swatted them away. It wasn't the greatest of endings, but it told me not to run into the unknown in Dead Space.
Final Word
I'm not here to say that Dead Space is now the greatest survival horror game because it probably isn't. What is does, as the 1001 write up for it dedicates a whole paragraph to prove, is to combine lots of sci-fi and horror tropes from games and notably movies together to create something new and different.
It is derivative, it does stand on the shoulders of Resident Evil 4 and Event Horizon, but it does it so well, or well enough to get an idiot like me eager to see more at least.
It's also true to say that it can feel a little repetitive, maybe a little bland. I've not seen enough, I don't think, but I have seen some reviews that point out how Dead Space almost fights with itself in some regards.
The diegetic HUD stuff is as great as it is annoying, really making you feel like you exist within the world, limitations and all, but the kicker is that you don't feel anything for the characters. Having your main character be mute means you, the player, fill in the gaps. It's supposed to make you feel a little closer to actually being the main character.
Isaac has a love interest that he desperately wants to see alive, or so we're lead to believe. You wouldn't know it from his actions, blindly and silently following orders to fix a tram or find the captain. As such, you feel like the main character is you, and that everyone is confusing you for this Isaac bloke, who must surely be screaming down the corridors at the top of his lungs looking for his girlfriend.
And yet I want to see how this story progresses. It's clearly being driven by the gameplay and suffers for it, but it's kind of a breath of fresh air for me. Dead Space, faults and quirks and all, is a survival horror game I want more of.
I'm not the kind of person to want more survival horror. I'll watch people play these games, no problem. Engaging with them myself is too much, and not necessarily for the scares. Controls, inventories, alien ways of doing things that other games have already mastered. There's always something that puts me off, but for once, for Dead Space, I might be able to see past them.
Did it shatter the gaming landscape when it was released? No, I don't recall it doing so, but I bet it surprised a great many players, and that's enough to warrant a good hard look.
Fun Facts
The Necromorph designs - twisted monstrosities that were once human - were partly inspired by medical images of car crash injuries.
Dead Space, developed by EA Redwood Shores, first released in 2008.
Version played: PC, 2008.