One of the few games I've wanted to play twice.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Fun, easy to play, great atmosphere

Cons: Levels can be a bit linear

The Bottom Line: 
Overall a great game, the developers did a wonderful job on the audio, graphics and interface to give it depth and immersion I haven't seen in a FPS often enough.

Author's Review
I really hate first person shooter games in general for their lack of substance, but to my amazement I enjoyed Dead Space.

The interface

While I've played many PC games, 4 MMOs, and several console games I am NOT a hardcore gamer. I don't have 40 hours a week to devote to gaming, and I truly appreciate a game that is designed to be fun and doesn't require hours of twitch control in order to get through a single level. Dead Space is not hard to play, the controls and commands are easy, simple and multi functional. There aren't 10000 different hotkeys to remember to switch weapons, reload, loot, unlock and open doors. It is very nice that Dead Space keeps this to a 3-4 key minimum for the essentials.

Storyline

Another puppy killer with most first person shooters (FPS') is the lack of a storyline, a boring and predictable storyline, or a linear "kill this boss to get this weapon which you cannot kill the next boss without" - wash, rinse, repeat X 20.... I found the storyline in Dead Space to be well done, unpredictable and somewhat believable for the horror game genre. The voice acting was very good, not bland or teleprompter-esque.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is one of the best I've heard so far for mood and ambiance. It really sounds like you're on a damaged spacecraft with nocromorphs hunting you from the vents. The rotting, blood spattered environment, sizzling severed conduits all point to a lifeless ship, yet the automated, muffled ship communications echoing though the corridors give an eerie feeling that something about the ship is still aware. Soft whispering voices point to Issac's (the main character) decaying mental state. Provided you're not walking into an ambush, you can usually hear the necromorphs approaching before you see them. Until I became used to the sounds I couldn’t play the game with the lights off.

Graphics

The graphics are also excellent and very detailed. Very few corners of the ship have been spared from some sort of carnage. Corpses, signs of struggle, blood spatters, desperate handprints of blood with streaked finger tracks on a life-support console speak volumes about what you're up against. Words of warning from crew members in retreat dot the walls alongside cyrptic alien scribbles from either the necromorphs or those driven insane.

Weapons, Gear & Tactics

The variety of weapons is nice, while not excessive, depending on your play style there’s going to be certain models you’ll naturally gravitate to and there’s enough to mix and match. You can upgrade your weapons (not just damage, but magazine capacity, width, reload speed, etc...). Armor is upgraded similarly.

Ammo will run dry if you’re not tactical. There are different methods for killing each necromorph, and if you don’t do it properly it takes infinitely more ammo to take one down. Luckily melee will do a fair amount of damage, so you’re not entirely helpless if you run out of clips, it’s not practical for sustained combat or when more than 2 necromorphs decide to hump your leg.

Interesting Camera

The camera angle is a hybrid between 1st and 3rd person, and takes some getting used to. While the automatic camera positioning is usually very intelligent, there are times where you’ll run into visual obstructions in tight spaces.

Level difficulty

Another minor complaint is that the puzzles could have been a little tougher, not in terms enemy numbers, but in problem solving. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they didn’t make the game too difficult- because I have better ways to spend my life than cursing at a computer screen out of frustration. The levels were somewhat too linear despite zero G zones where you can access any place from any direction- I would have thought there’s be more hidden passages or alternate routes in those zones- but to my dismay zero G was more useful for jumping large distances than solving the level puzzle. They could have done much more with the zero-g, so that left the soda flat.

Conclusion

These days I find most games to be all flash and no substance, or to be so difficult in twitch control it makes you wonder where the fun is. As a result I find that I’ve just spent $30-$50 on a piece of crap that I’ll never play a second time. Well, I’m playing Dead Space over again because it’s just that good!