Dead Space

Dead Space is a survival horror game for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in October 12, 2008. It is the first game in the Dead Space franchise.

A remake of the game, under development by Motive Studios (the developer behind Star Wars: Squadrons) was announced at EA Play Live 2021 and is set to be released for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Plot
Systems engineer Isaac Clarke is part of a rescue team called to the USG Ishimura, a planet-cracker mining Aegis VII which had gone radio-silent. Their ship suffers damage while trying to dock, and while the rest of the crew looks for a means to leave Ishimura, Clarke explores the ship, looking for his girlfriend Nicole who had been stationed aboard it. The ship is full of necromorphs, and he fights through them, discovering that the Ishimura had found a Red Marker buried near an abandoned colony on Aegis VII. The Ishimura captain, a devout Unitologist, ordered his crew to bring the Marker aboard the Ishimura, causing the crew to become paranoid, turn on each other, and leading to the necromorph invasion. Clarke himself starts having visions of Nicole, who guides him to return the Marker to the planet. Ultimately, it is revealed that one of the rescue team members, Kendra Daniels, was secretly instructed by EarthGov to retrieve the Red Marker, and she betrays and kills off the rest of the rescue team. Clarke discovers that the necromorphs were being controlled by a "Hive Mind" on Aegis VII who wants the Marker for itself. The Hive Mind kills Daniels when she tries to take the Marker back, while Clarke defeats the Hive Mind and flees in a shuttle. En route back to Earth, he experiences a hallucination of being attacked by a reanimated Nicole, showing the influence of the Marker on Isaac is still there and will continue to haunt him for the foreseeable future.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Great story which is mainly told via numerous audio, text, and video logs that help uncover what happened to the Ishimura.
 * 2) Fitting music.
 * 3) The game doesn't rely on jump scare or gross visuals to be scary, instead it relies on the feeling of claustrophobia and paranoia to scare the player by making them feel insecure at all times and does so very well. Small cramped corridors and background noises assist to keep the player tense and fearing a surprise enemy attack at all times. You can even be attacked while using stores or riding an elevator meaning you're never truly safe.
 * 4) Dark areas, cramped corridors, and lots of blood stains on the walls that add to the level of claustrophobic fear presented and reinforce that the entire ship's crew was murdered prior to your arrival.
 * 5) Early in the game you find a message written in blood that says "CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS" right next to your first weapon. Choose to ignore that and simply go for head shots, and you will have a very, VERY hard time.
 * 6) Isaac can use telekinesis (just called kinesis) to solve puzzles and pick up objects in the environment.
 * 7) Since Isaac is a spaceship engineer, most of the puzzles in the game involve repairing the Ishimura.
 * 8) Isaac can also use the Stasis ability to slow down certain objects and enemies.
 * 9) With the sole exception of the Pulse Rifle, all the weapons in the game are actually mining tools that Isaac finds and uses as impromptu weapons by modifying them, further emphasizing the fact that Isaac is not a solider but an ordinary engineer trying to survive.
 * 10) You can use Kinesis to throw objects at enemies to knock them back, and even use severed enemy limbs as projectiles.
 * 11) Loading screens are camouflaged by having doors be "standby" before opening or a ride on an elevator.
 * 12) Rather than sticking to the "aim for the head" gameplay style typical to shooter games, the main gameplay focus is severing the limbs of Necromorphs to defeat them, making combat more strategic with each enemy having different weak points and some enemies become bigger threats if shot in the wrong spot. In fact, headshots barely does any damage to them, though it does disorient some of them. The developers of the game call this, "strategic dismemberment."
 * 13) Weapons and abilities can be upgraded using Power Nodes. Power Nodes can also open supply rooms containing ammo, health kits and items to rejuvenate Stasis.
 * 14) The game's developers studied real life autopsies to make the Necromorphs look gruesome and disturbing, yet somewhat anatomically realistic over how they are created from mutated human corpses. Some of the more extreme looking Necromorphs are made out of multiple corpses.
 * 15) Necromorphs can use the air ducts to travel and can appear at anytime, frequently play dead, they like ambushing and catching you off guard, and corpses on the floor can become Necromorphs if the player is not careful. This adds to another level of fear because you may never know when they're going to attack.
 * 16) The first letter of each chapters' name spells a secret message: N.I.C.O.L.E. I.S. D.E.A.D.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The "Impossible" difficulty unlockable disappears if you don't pick it immediately.
 * 2) As from November 13, 2008 the game has some microtransactions.
 * 3) When Isaac enters thin corridors, often the camera will warp around. It is terrible if happens when enemies are chasing you.
 * 4) Unfortunately, the game is banned in Japan, China and Germany due to excessive violent content throughout.
 * 5) The PC version is poorly-done, which is suffering from:
 * 6) * Disastrous controls:
 * 7) ** The camera movement is sluggish and floaty.
 * 8) ** Aiming is very stiff and imprecise, as result of this, killing the necromorphs is more tedious than it should be.
 * 9) *** To make the things worse, the mouse sensitivity option will make no effect.
 * 10) ** Sometimes the keyboard controls can feel unresponsive.
 * 11) * Abysmal amount of bugs and glitches that are not in the original game, some of them can even make the game entirely unplayable, like the invisible door bug at the beginning of the game or the glitch that makes you aim with your weapon all the time, which can prevent you from opening doors or using items.
 * 12) * The game is capped at 30 FPS by default, and disabling it will cause a lot of animation and movement bugs.
 * 13) * Frequent crashes, specially at the last levels.
 * 14) * At the time, the game wasn't able to run with ATI graphics cards properly.
 * 15) * On some computers (mostly at the time), the process stays running in the background after closing the game.
 * 16) * The interface is way too clunky.
 * 17) * Bouncier physics.
 * 18) * Sometimes Isaac can die in the zero-gravity areas for no apparent reason, even if there are no enemies nearby.
 * 19) * The camera is fixed in a more awkward angle than the console versions and it can even make you feel dizzy.
 * 20) * Both DVD and Steam versions don't have any kind of achievements, reducing the replay value notably and making some of the game features almost useless, like the audio logs.
 * 21) * The opening cutscene is unskippable, and if you haven't saved your game and you die or the game closes, you will have to start from the beginning.

Reception
Dead Space is considered one of the scariest games ever made and each port holds an average over a 4 out of five on GameFAQs.

Game Tips

 * 1) Conserving up Ammo should be top priority. If you're spending too much ammo in one enemy encounter, it'd be better to let yourself die and try again. The game has frequent checkpoints and there's no punishment for dying. Also try whenever possible use alternatives to save ammo like throwing severed enemy limbs and sharpened objects with kinesis.
 * 2) On average, try to keep only 2 Inventory spaces for each weapon's ammo and sell the rest to buy Power Nods. Power Nods will make you and your weapons stronger so in the long term the investment will begin to pay off. If you know how to efficiently use and conserve ammo, 2 spaces for each weapon should be enough.
 * 3) If you see a group of corpses in a room, make sure you dismember them because there's a big chance an Infector will appear and turn them into Necromorphs.
 * 4) There's an Achievement/Trophy that requires you to beat the game with nothing but the Plasma Cutter. It's best to do this in a New Game Plus, as even though you'll start with other weapons you won't lose the trophy/achievement unless you fire them, and you can use the Power Nods you get for beating the game to improve Isaac's stats faster.
 * 5) *Do note that you must have the Plasma Gun from the start to be able to do this.

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