The first time I saw the Lullaby trailer for “Dead Space,” I was certain that the game was going to make me crap my pants. I mean that quite literally. The combination of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and mangled corpses sent chills up my spine. It was the first time in my life that a song from my childhood had been used to strike fear into my heart.
Unfortunately, the retail version of the game was far less scary than its E3 2008 trailer. Though EA Redwood Shores did a tremendous job of creating tension throughout the experience, I found that there were very few moments in which I was genuinely afraid.
While traversing the numerous decks of the USG Ishimura, there was hardly a moment in which I didn’t have a weapon ready to fire. Whenever I opened a door, I always made sure to back up a few feet, just to be safe. “Dead Space” forced me to stay alert at all times. The constant threat of a Necromorph assault kept my head on a swivel and my fingers near the L2 button (a.k.a. run). However, being tense is not the same as being scared.
There are many tense moments in “Dead Space.” The isolated setting, coupled with the somewhat limited supply of ammo, kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. However, despite the sometimes overwhelming odds, I never feared any of the enemies. In fact, I found some to be incredibly annoying. I never harm children, or things that appear infant-like, but those damn Lurkers deserved more beatings than I could dish out in one lifetime. Instead of being terrified whenever they appeared, I relished the opportunity to dispatch the tendril-sporting aliens. Other enemies, like the Brutes and Exploders, were certainly cool, but failed to make me tremble with fright. Though, I did find the Exploders’ maniacal laugh incredibly unsettling.
Perhaps I am at fault for some of this. Rather than avoid all previews and pre-release footage for EA’s new survival horror IP, I willingly gobbled up every available morsel of information. Therefore, I had seen most of the monsters prior to the game’s release. This dulled the shock of the first in-game Necromorph sighting. Instead of being surprised by their grotesque features, I simply said, “So this is the guy from that IGN article.”
Have I scared you away yet? Don’t be a wuss. The rest of this post is just a click away on page 2
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Well, if you go around and read everything there is to something (in this case “Dead Space”) then you will loose the “thrill” of the game.
Is just like saying:
You are walking down the hallway and I tell you, “There is someone that is going to jump out of the 3rd door on the right”, if you know, you will be expecting it, but if you don’t know, then you will get scared or W/E it is you feel when someone sneaks up on you.
I know I’m shielding myself from any H.A.W.X. info that might be out there.
That shouldn’t be too hard.
A friend of mine bought it this afternoon.We played it for two hours or so, one of us was playing and the other had the headset on his head(cause my Benq screen doesn’t have any onboard audio). It was quite hilarious when the guy with the headphone heard something coming, it was like:”Dude, I think somethings coming, target the legs!! xD ”
Great game btw
It could also be that the general public is desensitized to the classic horror genre.
They need to change it up…I mean..evil haunted zombie anything is done..
Maybe some psychological game where you gotta find out wtf is going on in the real world, while you constantly see visions of demons and stuff (you are kind of schitzofrenic (sp?)) so some of them are horrible hallucinations while others are the real deal…combine that with ammo limiter and that would scare the crap outta me. And these demons are not poping out of windows…its kind of almost thin air or improbably hiding places
the game scared me a lot.
guess i’m a wuss
*looks at the IPOD episode of the podcast*
hmmmm
agree with you Havok. I think this and Silent Hill Homecoming (and possibly RE5) aren’t as scary because, like you said, the amount of ammo and the feeling of being a “bad ass”. Heck, when i have described this game since renting it, I say it is “Event Horizon” (a favorite horror movie) meets Halo … to which I get the question “Then, is it scary if you are kind of powerful”
The biggest scare I got out of the game was at the end … no spoilers.
I actually went out to buy this game today, I figured that i could bring it over my friends on halloween to add to the horror movie marathon.
unfortunatly i guess alot of people had the same idea because it was sold out. i decided to get far cry 2 instead (i was in the shop already with enough games to trade and get it for free)
Finished the game today and I’ve got to say that you’re 100% right, tense but never really crap-your-pants scary. I think the weapons were just too effective to give you the “underdog” feel. I knew flat out that anything I came across (collossal or grotesque as it may be), was going to get a whooping. Plus there were only 2 enemy types in the whole game that could attack you at range… and they sucked… I mean where’s the difficulty in shooting things that HAVE to run toward you and then get halted because you shot off their legs?
Great game all round but certainly nowhere near on par (in terms of fear induction), with the mac-daddy of all horror games – Call Of Cthulhu: DCotE. Now that game made me crap my pants and THEN some!
Bottom line – If you like Jericho, Bioshock, System Shock, etc… you’re gonna like this game.
i didn’t get genuinely scared till the very end like last 20 secs but the game is awesome
Yeah, I agree with Sifer. The last few seconds of the game are a bit of a mindf***, but I wasn’t really afraid at any other point in the game. I had a lot of fun though; any game that screws the gore slider that far to the right gets a big thumbs up from me.