In the mood for some survival horror gaming? Do you miss that warm fuzzy feeling you get from cutting off the limbs of your enemies, or that satisfy crunch when you crush their head? If you've been longing for some hot bloody action, Dead Space is definitely the game for you. Having heard nothing about this release in prior months, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but so far I'm extremely happy with what the game has to offer and how it is presented. Simply put, it advertises itself as a straight up survival horror game and it has turned out to be all that and more. The title might be a bit confusing, but Dead Space really is a combination of all four of those elements in one beautiful game. Of course it's far from perfect, few games are these days, yet it delivers on every level from psychological immersion to intense sound to beautifully crisp visuals.

When I bought the game I brought it home fully expecting to be disappointed, or to have another Doom clone that would just be average. Instead, I've been extremely pleased with it and found myself scared on more than one occasion. So, whats to like? It's all in the presentation.

Dead Space screams of "hack n' slash," but it's more than just that, it's loaded with depth. You play the part of one member of a team that has been brought in to repair a massive mining vessel, but something is not right. Everyone is dead, bodies are horribly mutilated, and extremely nasty mutant creature things are running around trying to rip your head off. If you want to live you need to restore the ship and get the fuck out of dodge before becoming one of them. For once you're not an unstoppable military force, you're a bunch of techs making do with various industrial machines as weapons--laser cutters, saws, plasma guns, and torches are just a few of the weapons laying around, all extremely bloody and brutal, all effective. In fact, the one "real" weapon, a military auto rifle, I thought was the worst weapon and hardly ever used it.

Whats the point? You need to dismember your enemies in order to kill them! Fuck yeah! Blood and gore galore? You betcha. Body shots do dick, but removing some limbs is much more satisfying. You also have some interesting melee scenes if they get to close or you attempt to stomp the little bastards. Honestly, it's a lot of fun. it also adds to the scare factor because the enemies keep on coming even after you take out their legs... the bastards use their hands! Great stuff. And unlike most games, your character is far from invincible. A few bad hits will kill you pretty fast, so being careful really pays off and ensure you explore rather than run into a room.

There are also basic RPG elements that come into play. Similar to what I expect Fallout 3 to be like next week, you have to upgrade your weapons and armor, find better items and schematics for other gear, and manage a type of "psy" ability that lets you control objects. Much better than the average shooter, all while remaining simple and not becoming overly complicated.

While the game elements are pretty cool, the environment is simply amazing. Sound is crisp, realistic, and perfect, unlike the bullshit weapons from Doom 3 or "sound in a vacuum" games. Speaking of witch, when you are in a vacuum this time around you can only hear your own suit noise which. Very cool. The visuals are just great. Excellent detail was given to just about everything and the occasional space walk scenes are wild. Which reminds me, did I mention there are not only vacuum scenes, but zero-g too! Often you have to be careful of losing your orientation or being attacked by floating monsters from out of nowhere while attempting to make it from surface to surface.

As you can tell, I'm fairly excited about Dead Space after a couple of hours of game play, so no surprise that I don't have many negative things to rant about. With that being said, I will bitch about a few things, the first of which has to be the over the shoulder (OTS) camera. Ok, it's different, it's neat during cut scenes and little scripted attack sequences, but it is a real pain to control. You end up having a significant portion of your view blocked by your own damn body. Sometimes I find myself liking it, other times it annoys the shit out of me.

I also think that movement is extremely slow and console-ish. Your character seems to lumber around rather than run. There are some definite elements that are designed for a console which annoy the hell out of me. The mouse for one. While in menus you can *only* use arrow keys to navigate and not the mouse or movement keys. WTF is up with that? The fact that I need to switch hands to use the menu sucks, especially when the menu is active and real time. I'm getting attacked and trying to use the menu at the same time. That has to be the one seriously horrible aspect to Dead Space, shitty menu control. I like the floating display screen that acts as its in your visor, but its done poorly and with difficult PC based controls.

Overall the game is great though and polished off nicely. I can definitely recommend it to people interest in the genre. To add to the enjoyment, the developers have released a web comic to give back story to Dead Space and a full length animated special called Dead Space: Downfall is also due out this week. I'm not sure if that's overkill, but definitely cool in my book.