Gamesradar previews the upcoming horror game, Dead Space. Dead Space is trying something new in horror games. Its not going to take place in a haunted castle, haunted city. Or anything really haunted. It will take place in outer space. Which seems like a prime location to make the player feel alone and almost helpless.

No need to be very afraid with this one - at least, not as far as the game’s quality is concerned. Two of our correspondents have sat down for extensive run-throughs of Dead Space; both have come back from EA HQ with good words tumbling from their slack-jawed mouths. It’s hard to believe that no one has thought to mine the ‘haunted house in space’ theme for a videogame project before this, given that there’s an entire bloated genre of this stuff in cinema.

That merely means EA has more to play with - and a sizeable library of reference material to cherry pick from. Can you spot the movie references splattered about in the plot? We counted about 10: deep space engineer Isaac Clarke answers a distress signal from a stricken ship (one), only to find it overrun by parasitic aliens (two). He must then fight his way through the vast ship (three), trying not to panic on account of him just being a Regular Joe (four... it goes on).

The game is already in an advanced state. Clarke has a real clunkiness to his movement that’s entirely intended to reflect his oppressive environment and his heavy protective suit. Adopting a similar over-the-shoulder view to Resident Evil 4, his aiming is slow and deliberate, only adding to the sense of desperation

The creatures he dispatches are pretty disturbing; weird amalgamations of men and giant creepy-crawlies. The hook comes from using regular tools - well, as regular as you can get in The Future - to messily dismember alien scum, but if you lop the wrong bit off, you’ll only piss ‘em off even more. Sci-fi horror fans should be excited.

Dead Space looks great. The ship, the Ishimura, is cavernous. It is mostly shrouded in darkness and you’ll only ever catch fleeting glimpses of your tormentors in the shadows. There’s a real solidity to the machinery and infrastructure you pass by; it’s a cliche but there’s a real sense of cinematic drama in the game’s visuals. Sound design will also stimulate frequent involuntary bowel movements.

Sayyed via gamesradar.com »