kramit
03-12-2010, 11:48 PM
Just wanted to share my thoughts for anyone considering buying this.
I personally found the game extremely stressful to play, just like I do with Resident Evil games. My fight or flight adrenaline response tends to be on the "stupid high" end. I had to play this game in short bursts. Never knowing when something will bust out of a vent, worrying about ammo, saving a million times even when it's really not necessary. So if you can't handle that kind of stuff be warned. The scares are almost exclusively shock-based. Even when a video feed from one of your buddies kicks in, it is unexpected and there is often a loud burst of static. It gets downright silly.
That being said, despite how much I hate shock games, I played this one all the way to the end, and it is not a short game. The plot is only mildly interesting, it was generally pretty predictable, but definitely not the worst. The plot is comparable to Doom 3, really. The combat is fun, but you find yourself facing the same short list of enemies over and over and it gets a little tedious.
What really kept me playing were the jaw-dropping visuals and effects. If I could choose one game to play in a movie theater, it would be Dead Space, hands down. Although I'd probably rather just watch someone else play this time :P The effects, the lighting, the "set design" (for lack of a better word). The introduction where you are looking out the floor to ceiling windows of your ship and come out of "warp" over the Ishimura, asteroid field, bright star in the distance... Is only a sign of more good things to come. I'll spare you the spoilers but, there are several sections in this game that are memorable purely due to the lighting and set design.
The total lack of a HUD is a great touch too. All the info you need is either part of your suit or projected out in front of you. You can move the camera around and the projections move in 3D space, it's very cool.
I did have to play around to get rid of mouse lag. The final solution for me was to turn off vsync in-game, force vsync off in nvidia control panel and force triple buffering on in nvidia control panel. This left me with some awful tearing here and there, but overall it was ok, and the remaining mouse lag was negligible. I can see how some might find the controls a little awkward but, I got used to them quickly and only stumbled in a few of the more complicated and frantic segments. I didn't have to change them at all.
The only complaint I have with the visuals is the corpses. They litter the ground, and when you walk over them you kick them all over and it seems like they have no weight. It ruins the immersion a bit. If you stomp on one and it gets caught between your legs, it will tweak out and sometimes fling off to the side. It's funny at first, and then kind of annoying.
Anyways, I got this game on sale and it was worth every penny. It's regularly $30. If you can handle shock games and your PC can handle the graphics and effects (it ran extremely well for me, where other games have choked), I would say it's definitely worth $30.
I personally found the game extremely stressful to play, just like I do with Resident Evil games. My fight or flight adrenaline response tends to be on the "stupid high" end. I had to play this game in short bursts. Never knowing when something will bust out of a vent, worrying about ammo, saving a million times even when it's really not necessary. So if you can't handle that kind of stuff be warned. The scares are almost exclusively shock-based. Even when a video feed from one of your buddies kicks in, it is unexpected and there is often a loud burst of static. It gets downright silly.
That being said, despite how much I hate shock games, I played this one all the way to the end, and it is not a short game. The plot is only mildly interesting, it was generally pretty predictable, but definitely not the worst. The plot is comparable to Doom 3, really. The combat is fun, but you find yourself facing the same short list of enemies over and over and it gets a little tedious.
What really kept me playing were the jaw-dropping visuals and effects. If I could choose one game to play in a movie theater, it would be Dead Space, hands down. Although I'd probably rather just watch someone else play this time :P The effects, the lighting, the "set design" (for lack of a better word). The introduction where you are looking out the floor to ceiling windows of your ship and come out of "warp" over the Ishimura, asteroid field, bright star in the distance... Is only a sign of more good things to come. I'll spare you the spoilers but, there are several sections in this game that are memorable purely due to the lighting and set design.
The total lack of a HUD is a great touch too. All the info you need is either part of your suit or projected out in front of you. You can move the camera around and the projections move in 3D space, it's very cool.
I did have to play around to get rid of mouse lag. The final solution for me was to turn off vsync in-game, force vsync off in nvidia control panel and force triple buffering on in nvidia control panel. This left me with some awful tearing here and there, but overall it was ok, and the remaining mouse lag was negligible. I can see how some might find the controls a little awkward but, I got used to them quickly and only stumbled in a few of the more complicated and frantic segments. I didn't have to change them at all.
The only complaint I have with the visuals is the corpses. They litter the ground, and when you walk over them you kick them all over and it seems like they have no weight. It ruins the immersion a bit. If you stomp on one and it gets caught between your legs, it will tweak out and sometimes fling off to the side. It's funny at first, and then kind of annoying.
Anyways, I got this game on sale and it was worth every penny. It's regularly $30. If you can handle shock games and your PC can handle the graphics and effects (it ran extremely well for me, where other games have choked), I would say it's definitely worth $30.