Receivingdistress signal: "Dead Space Review"

Dead Space (XBox360)

Publishers: EA
Developers: EA Redwood Shores
Release Date: October 14, 2008
Other Platforms: PS3 and PC (coming soon)
ESRB: M
Third-Person Action/Survival Horror

"In space, no one can hear you scream..."

The phrase echos through your head as you slowly continue your search. This was suppose to be a routine mission. This was suppose to be a standard repair job. You were planning on going in to figure a few lose wires and then return home to enjoy the game with an ice cold beer, but the moment your eyes laid upon the shattered, ripped apart ship, dread overpowered you. You knew from the moment you set foot on the Ishimura that things were much worse than you could have even imagined.

The fresh, salty smell of blood and the sour scent of rotting flesh seeped through your helmet. You wince from the strong stench, trying as hard as you can to keep your stomach from turning. (Nothing makes a job worse than vomit in your helmet.) Carefully, you step over the corpses that litter the corridors. What the hell happened here? You question to yourself as the faint light from your flashlight cuts through the thick darkness that lays before you. It reveals unthinkable horrors that you have only seen in films or read and books: tangled bodies ripped to shreds, strange writings all over the floors and walls, pools of crimson, sticky blood dripping from the pipes above you.

Silence fills the air. There is no sign of life nor do you even hear the faint hum of generators roaring in the distance. You're only greeted with the heavy echos of your footsteps, your own raspy breathing, and your heart pounding away in your chest begging to escape this hell hole. Yet, you feel eyes settling on you. From almost nowhere, a loud crashing sound breaks through the silence. You turn to come face to face to nothing but darkness but you can barely make out a figure moving in the shadows just before you feel a sharp pain in your neck and feel warm blood trickle down your arm...

---

Dead Space is a futuristic, sci-fi horror game. In the distance future, humans used up all the resources on their home planet and have turned to cracking other planets for resources. Though they can crack more than they can handle. One of the largest ships, the Ishimura, runs into trouble after discovering a mysterious artifact during one of their diggings leaving them forced to send out a distress signal as all of the ship's systems fail.

Now enters the main character, Issac Clark, one of the engineers who's crew answers the Ishimura's signal and who's girlfriend happens to work on the ship. As the ship comes into view, it's apparent that there's more damage to it than Issac's crew was expecting. Landing on the Ishimura, they begin to investigate but soon discover that they've now got themselves mixed up in more than they might.

The ship's crew have been slaughtered, leaving the hollowed halls stained with blood. Unearthly sounds echo the hauls until horrid aliens known as the Necromorphs show their ugly faces to Issac and his crew. After the first attack, Issac is separated from his crew and his ship is destroyed, leaving him and the two other survivors stranded on the infected Ishimura. Their only hope of escaping is surviving long enough to scavenge a few parts of the ship in hopes of restoring an escape pod enough to make it out alive.

The dark, gritty look of the ship's rooms fit well with the story and help to create a distrubig atmosphere. The lighting effects are simply amazing. I liked how the flashlight's power was limited thus only allowing you to see so much whenever you entered solid, black rooms or hallways. Then, of course, the casting of shadows from both the flashlight and the lights themselves help to keep you on the edge as you might catch a glimpse of a disformed figure passing you by.

The animations of both the aliens and the characters are surprisingly good. I was impressed with how smoothly everything looked and flowed, even when completely surrounded with enemies. Not once did the game lag or feel choppy. I could easily change weapons on the fly or reload without it feeling like I needed to slow down the action in order to do so.

The ragdoll physics worked extremely well with this game, especially with the only way to kill the enemies being to dismantle them piece by piece. Seeing arms or legs fly off in different directions with the shots from your Plasma Cutter were awesome looking. Though I will say I did run into a few glitches. Once in a great while I would find dead bodies spazzing out or they would get stuck on me as I walked over them.

Smaller, finer details, such as hair movement, did not matter due to Issac wearing his suit throughout the whole game. The suit itself was stunning looking. You could almost see that it was made out of a heavy material and it moved with Issac's movements very well, making it one of the best looking outfits I've seen in a game so far.

However, there were some nit-picky details that I did notice such as there not being any effect from the streams of water dripping from the pipes or there being much interaction between the player and the objects in the game other than the enemies or running into things while in zero gravity. It's one of those things that you might only notice if you look for it; it's small enough to not ruin the experience but this far into the console generation, you can't help but wonder why developers haven't been able to pull this fully off yet.

Though none of these pull away from the game's look nor do they damage its style in anyway. I will say that I was highly impressed with the presentation of many of the action sequences throughout Dead Space, in particular the scenes where you're being dragged by a large tentacle through the ship and I will say that this game has had one of the most bad ass final boss fights that I've seen in a game in awhile. I won't ruin it by saying what it is- but those who have beaten it already might know what I'm talking about when I say there were a few times where I yelled, "Oh hell yeah!" during its fight. Thus helping the game make you forgive any small details that were forgotten in its development.

However, a good presentation cannot fully exist without solid audio to back it up. Luckily for Dead Space, its graphical department and audio department go hand-and-hand together. The voice acting is pretty decent. It's no the best out nor are there any big named voice actors but that's fine since the actor's already do a good job at their roles. Their voices aren't monotone and show expresses quite well. Even though Issac himself does not talk, his lack of a voice is made up with body language. Though there were a few times where I felt he and other characters needed to be more dramatic than they really were.

The sound effects a crisp and detailed; you can even hear Issac's heavy breathing echoing in his helmet as he runs. Everything in space sounds muffled and distance, creating a very unqiue feeling within the player since you can't really hear anything happening around you, including the unearthy cries of the enemies. The soundtrack fits the game's mood just as well as the effects. It's low and eerie when it needs to be but then fast and furious during the fight scenes. This helps to complete the package that engulfs you into the game.

The creepy audio mixes well with the gameplay in order to create an interesting approach to the horror genre. Unlike other horror games, Dead Space doesn't try to drive feat into your heart with a disturbing atmosphere or bonechilling soundtrack. Instead, it tries to build off the claustrophobia and the idea of being trapped by making you panic with being overran with enemies but having little ammo or health items. In other words, Dead Space does something that hasn't been seen in a survival game in awhile and that is to express the idea of actually needing to survive.

Controls:

• A: Action
• B: Cancel
• X: Statsis
• Y: Inventory
• Left Analog Stick: Move
• Right Analog Stick: Camera/Aim
• Left Trigger: Aim
• Left Bumper: Run
• Left Toggle: Kinesis
• Right Trigger: Melee Swing
• Right Bumper: Melee Stomp
• Right Toggle: Deck Nav
• Start: Pause
• Back: Map
• D-Pad: Weapon selection

Enemies are quick and violent; they come in a variety of different types. Some are typical "claw at you" enemies while others may shoot things at your or might release smaller creatures when they are killed. The change in enemies throughout the game will keep you on your toes and you'll need to decide what weapons will work best for you since you can only carry four with you. Dead Space has a total of seven weapons that you can use. Each one has both a primary and secondary feature. Some of which need to be purchased from the store.

You start off with the Plasma Cutter which has a powerful long-range blast and can change its blade orientation by 90 degrees. The next weapon you can get is the Line Gun that shoots a more powerful long-range blade and can release a timed mine. The third weapon is the Pulse Rifle that is basically a submachine gun and can release a full 360 degree overhead sweep. The fourth is the Ripper which is a mid-range, remote-controlled chainsaw gun that can also shoot a single chainsaw blade.

The Contact Beam is the fifth weapon; it releases a single, powerful blast and can also shoot a 360 degree blast. The sixth weapon is the Force Gun which knocks enemies back with a blast and shoots grenades. The final weapon is the Flamethrower that shoots, you guessed it, fire! As well as a napalm projectile. However, the Flamethrower cannot be used in air vacuums since no oxygen is present. (I was surprised that they thought that deeply into the weaponry.)

Besides weaponry, you also have a few special abilities. Stasis is an ability that allows you to slow down time within a certain amount of space. This is helpful to slow down fast moving objects, such as doors or fan blades, that might stand in your way or slow down fast moving enemies to allow you to escape. You also have another ability known as Kinesis which allows you to move and pick up objects. You can also shoot objects at enemies with its use.

All the abilities, weaponry, and even your suit are all upgradeable. With the power of Nodes, you can upgrade all the weapons you own, your suit, or your abilities. You can increase the power, the range, the reload time, etc...of your weapons, increase the amount of damage your suit can take, increase the amount of air you can hold, and so on.

The gameplay occasionally takes a break from battles by having you do some zero gravity jumping, shooting some cannons, or having you solve a few puzzles. There were even some hidden mini games in the game such as the shooting gallery or Z-Ball. However, I felt that there should have been more of a balance between the action and down times. The later levels of the game were filled with constant battles that began to leave me feeling exhausted and frustrated, especially if I died a lot in one of these dragged out battles.

Maybe it's just me, but I felt that some of the longer fights were there simply for the fact of them adding some more game time to this fairly short game. I was able to complete all 12 Chapters it in about nine hours. Part of me wishes it lasted longer but at the same time, I think if it had any more in it, it would have felt dragged on and not as complete as it does now. Though there's plenty of reasons to replay the game. Besides the fact of it being fun, you unlock a couple of goodies at end that will make second play troughs feel easier or will be helpful if you plan on playing through it again on a harder difficulty.

---

All and all, Dead Space was a solid title that exceeded my expectations. There were some minor issues with it but many of them could be overlooked with the game's overall packaging. You can see where there's room for improvement, but you won't walk away from this game feeling disappointed with its moments that will leave you in awe. This is one to pick up if you're a horror fan or action fan alike since both genre lovers will find something to enjoy about it.

The only other problem I had with the game is that it wasn't quite the horror game I was expecting it to be. Maybe I just play too many, but there were only a few times where my heart really pounded. The rest of the time I wasn't surprised by the elements of horror they used (dead bodies not really being dead, lights going out, things moving in the distance...) Though I've heard other people who get scared fairly easily say they were scared the first time the 'quarantine' signal went off. So diehard horror fans, you'll still be satisfied and disturbed, but this game might not make you turn your system off in fear. Everyone else, you might want to keep a change of pants by you.

Pros:

• Fun, solid title
• Nice presentation
• Good audio
• Solid, enjoyable gameplay
• A little something for everyone
• Nice amount of replay value
• Some bonuses

Cons:

• A bit short
• Frustrating at times
• Minor issues
• May feel straining

Fallout 3: Collector's Edition

Check it out!

It call comes in this nice, lunch box:

Inside is the game, a bonus DVD, and an art book:

And most importantly...The Vault Boy bobblehead:

Then I bought the Collector's Edition of the guide book:

Which I compared to Oblivion's normal guide:

Wii Music Impressions

Rather you play the air guitar, a real guitar, or Guitar Hero, almost everyone at some point in their lives wished to play an instrument. Maybe you wished to play something a bit more elegant like a cello or maybe you wanted to rock out with the drums or be the hit guitarist that every groupie wanted to sleep with. Needless to say, not all of us with the passion for music has the talent and we might turn to some musical games as a way to fill the empty void we have in our talentless hearts. It's such a shame the Wii Music doesn't really do that...It more or less only hints on what the game could have been.

Wii Music is an extremely simple game (if you even want to call it that) that anyone can pick up and swing their Wiimote around wildly to sound like some amazing conductor or musician. The whole game is played in a total of five different styles. The first style is the 'piano style' where you hold the Wiimote and Nunchuck out in front of you and move your hands up and down to represent the moment of your fingers hitting the keys. The second style is the 'guitar style' where you hold the Wiimote and Nunchuck like a guitar and swing the Wiimote in the motion of strumming the string.

The third style is the 'violin style' where, you guessed it, you hold the Wiimote and Nunchuck like a violin and move the Wiimote in the motion of a bow across the stings. The fourth style is the 'trumpet style' where you hold the remote out in front of your face and rotate between the '1' and '2' buttons to represent hitting the keys. Then the final style is the 'drum style' where you hold the Wiimote and Nunchuck in front of you and move them up and down like you're beating a drum.

The problem with this is that that's it. You would think that they would alter the styles a bit to fit the instrument a bit more such as requiring you to hold the Wiimote and Nunchuck in the 'V' shape like real drum sticks or have you move the Nunchuck up and down to represent moving your hand up and down the neck of the cello. However, you don't. Like I said a little awhile ago, the game is extremely simple. Honestly you don't even need to hold the Wiimote and Nunchuck in any special way to play it and most of the time, you can get away with just swinging the Wiimote.

There's a couple of different game modes, each one containing a sub-mode. The first mode- and probably the most played- is the Jam Mode. In here, you can do a couple of things like Instrument Improvements. Here, you select an instrument from a list which includes anything from the ukulele, a variety of drums, the guitar, the piano, and xylophone. Once your instrument has been chosen, you can "learn to play it" or you can practice with the virtual teacher Tute. But basically...You just move the Wiimote and play a unselected song.

Next, you can do a Jam Session where you and up to three other people can pick instruments, a song, and design a little stage to play on. Again, you basically just swing the controller around until the song finished. Once it is finished, you can choose to save a video of you playing and make a decorative cover for it. You can then rewatch your videos or send them to friends over WiFi. This is a kind of cool feature but it's nothing amazing.

The next mode you can play is called Lessons. Here, you can choose to go through a series of lessons for each instrument starting with the basics and moving on to slightly more advanced styles. This makes the Jam Mastery mode about the only mode where rhythm and timing actually matter...

The next mode is the Game mode which has a couple of different games you can play, but I'm not going to lie, many of them aren't really fun. The first game you can choose to play is the Maestro mode where you take the form of a conductor and conduct an orchestra. Here, you might want to try to keep up with the timing in order to execute the song, but I had a couple issues with it. The first being that the Wiimote wasn't sensitive enough to handle light taps. Like a real musician, you have to start slow so you begin by playing a lot of simple, easy songs like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. This required easy movements with the Wiimote but the game would not read my movements unless I moved my arm in large arcs or moved it quickly. This resulted in the song being played too fast and even though it sounded like it was suppose to, my score suffered due to speed.

The other issue I had with it is that you don't feel like a conduct. All you do is move the Wiimote up and down...Even with more "complicated songs" (and I use that term very, very loosely with Wii Music) just make you increase the speed you swing the Wiimote.

Another game mode is the Handbell Harmony. In this game, you and up to three other people hold the Wiimote and Nunchuck up like giant bells. Each bell in your hand is a different color. Then on the screen there is a bar. Different colored bells then show up and move across the sceen, similar to Guitar Hero or Rock Band. The idea behind the game is that you hit your color of bells when it passes over the bar. (I could actually see this being fun for awhile with a group of people, but like most Wii games, the magic wears off fairly quickly.)

The final game is called Perfect Pitch. In this game, a tone is played and you need to match its pitch with one of the choices given to you. This is an ok game that gets old very fast...

Though Wii Music does have a final mode, but I was unable to play it. The final mode is the Drum Mode but it requires the Wii Fit Board which I do not own. Based on what I've seen...The Drum Mode actually looks fun and is what I was hoping the rest of the game would be like. A virtual drum set appears before you and you actually need to move your hands in order to select the drum you want to hit making you feel like you're actually playing a real set. This is something I feel the whole game should have been.

The bottom line is that Wii Music is definitely designed for people who want to pretend that they're actually playing something even though they aren't. The game doesn't really focus on rhythm or timing- only the Lesson Mode seems to really be effected by how you move the Wiimote. There's these little things in the bottom-right corner of the screen called be-bops that are suppose to help with rhythm and a metronome ticking comes from the Wiimote to help you keep rhythm but it doesn't matter because for most of the time, the song sounds the same regardless of when or how fast you move the remote. The same goes for timing. Hell, I got a 'good' on the first song when I was moving the Wiimote and Nunchuck as fast as I could.

This leaves Wii Music feeling like a broken game, if you even want to call it a game... It's a mixture of lazy development since Nintendo didn't go as into depth as they could have- and should have- with the instruments as well as their fear of losing their casual audience by making the game as simple as it possibly could. The amount of wasted potential makes me want to cry because Wii Music could have been a truly unique experience; there is so much that could have been done with the Wii's motion controls that Nintendo hardly even touched on with Wii Music.

So I guess that leaves me with playing my air cello until next year.

Change is Good

So my video card came today...I spent $80 on it and for what? So I can play a MMO that I spend $15 on every month and buy more PC games.

I've been in a bit of a limbo state. I jump between fully loving gaming and fully disliking it.

I have probably thirty or so games that I own but maybe only played for about an hour or so. I think there's even some games I own that I haven't even touched since the day I bought them. I sit here and question why I bought them...Some of them are hard to find and I think that may have been what sparked my interest in buying them. I do consider myself a bit of a collector but I don't just buy games to say, "Hey! Look at what I have!" Like yesterday someone brought in some XBox games and in their trade-ins was a game that a friend of mine claims was destroyed and never reprinted. I thought about buying it from the guy just to say I owned it but I thought about it...I didn't have a XBox so I would never be able to play it so would it have been worth getting to just sit on my shelf? I figured it wouldn't be and let it go.

Even now I glance over at my games and think, "Why did I buy it...?" I look at my list of preorders and think, "Why am I buying these...?" Especially when I look at it from a financial point of view. I'm going to be dropping probably $60 every week for the next three weeks- Almost $100 in one day when Lich King and Mirror's Edge come out.

Lately, I just feel like it's a waste. All this money could go to something more: buying a car, saving up for an apartment, paying for college...Unlike some of my friends, I haven't rushed off to college and even after being promoted right after graduating high school and being told that I have a lot of potential at my job, I'm still told by "someone" (I won't say names) that I am wasting my life. It isn't that I don't want a better life, I just don't really know what to do with my life so I didn't want to go rushing off and spending thousands of dollars at a university without knowing what direction to go in. So I'm looking into community college here soon but that still doesn't seem to please "some people".

And then there's the emotional/mental part of it...I'm talentless. I can't sing, can't play an instrument, can't draw, can't dance, I'm not a model, can't play any sports, my writing isn't getting published...I'm just your average, everyday girl who wakes up, goes to work (at a GameStop mind you), and comes home to hit buttons. I'm not saying that my life is a complete waste; I have an amazing boyfriend whom I love dearly and have great friends, it's just that I don't feel as satisfied with beating games like I use to. I might spend a couple hundred hours with games but with nothing to show other than to say, "Hey I beat that!"

I still enjoy games...I still love playing them...I won't lie, I'm freaking out over my new video card and Fallout 3 coming out tonight but it's to the point where I want something more. So I think after Christmas, I'm going to follow me dream and buy a cello.

This is why I spend $15 a month...

Some of you might recall this year's April Fool's prank by Blizzard talking about a special Bard class being introduced into Lich King. While it was obviously a joke, a part of it is making its way into the expansion.

A special weapon called the Arcanite Ripper is based off the the current ax, the Arcanite Reaper dropped in Kara, has been added to the game. The weapon, when activated, turn you into Bergrisst- the guitarist from Level 80 Elite Chief Tauren.

Tea Time: The Medium

So I'm going to start a new segment that I'll do weekly called Tea Time. Basically, it's like Kotaku's 'Tell Us Damnit!' where they give a topic for everyone to talk about. However, mine is called 'Tea Time' and features the amazing picture of the old lady above!

This week's topic is: The Medium.

We're all heard the terms 'hardcore' and 'casual'. They're tossed around the gaming community like crazy and developers use them to categorize their audiences. But what I want to know is where is the line drawn? When is it decided as to what makes someone 'hardcore' and what makes someone 'casual'? But most importantly...Where's the medium?

It seems that the community has forgotten general gamers- people who have lives yet play games that aren't pick-up-and-play games. People like me who aren't "hardcore" in the sense of spending hours upon hours perfecting my skills at a game but who want something with a bit of substance.

So you tell me, where's the line? What is 'hardcore', 'casual', and 'average' to you? Or do you hate these terms?

Speak your mind! It's tea time!

Gears of War Figures

Apparently my family was out somewhere when they came across a couple of the Gears of War figures and wanted to know if I wanted one. It was a bit of a decision to pick between Marcus and Dom (who's my favorite)- which is why I settled for Dom.

The figure is...Alright. It's not the best but it could be much worse. I think the blue is too bright on the armor and the head is a bit weird but hey, it could be worse. You can see a close up here. Though there is one thing I did notice about it:

Children under 3 can't play with it because they might choke on it even though they're not even suppose to have it in the first place!