Dead Space: Don't Judge a Game by it's Demo

Although it really doesn't live up to it's title of being "scary" the same way Silent Hill (1-4) or even the old Resident Evil games did, Dead Space is a surprisingly good game if you played the demo first.

I went through a phase where I'd download a whole bunch of demos and play random games to see what was cool. Lesson learned from all of that was most games on the XBL marketplace with demos available are usually games of lesser-quality. For the record, I've only played one demo on the marketplace that I couldn't get enough of (ET: Quake Wars.. underrated game), and the rest of them were a waste of time.

Dead Space's demo is included in the "waste of time" category. The demo was confusing, too hard and it didn't tell you the strategy you needed to approach it with in comparison to the full game. In the game you're supposed to shoot enemies in the legs and arms, not the body or the face. In the demo, they don't mention anything like that (at least not to my recollection, or I didn't want to read), so I went in firing and got overwhelmed within a couple of minutes.

I even played the demo twice, and both times I got wasted. I thought "if the game is going to be like this, then no thanks". For some reason, something compelled me to rent it. I threw it on the bottom of my gamefly list.

A couple weeks later, it shows up. I don't play it for a week or so, then finally break down and pop it in. To my surprise, it's actually pretty good. The visuals are awesome (probably primarily because it's set on a space station with a few points of very good outside views.. :D), the sound is decent and the gameplay is decent. Even the controls are decent! Surprisingly, EA as a developer has made a game I'd call worthy of playing all the way through!

I actually have very few complaints about this game. For what it is, it does it well. Again, it's really not a scary game at all. The original feel of Silent Hill 1 and 3 were 5x the horror game of Dead Space. Silent Hill 2 and 4 to a lesser degree but they still had the mind-gnawing sense of paranoia in some places. My only legitimate complaint is not being able to accurately tell what you're looking at/clicking on. A few times I've had to wrestle with the game to pick something specific up or use a specific object when there's 2 or 3 right next to one another.

The only weird thing about it is their selection for perspective. It's in 3rd person but your character is way off center and takes up a decent portion of your view. But it's not like it blocks anything you're trying to see, like it does in Halo 3 when you have a Turret or Missile Pod. Some of the animations in Dead Space are pretty clumsy, too.

The Dialogue is also surprisingly good for an EA game. Their takes on menus and the lack of any sort of HUD while playing makes for a more surreal experience, too.

Anyway, if you get a chance to check it out, I'd rent it and play it for a week or so. It's a good game. If you played the demo and thought the game sucked, don't let that be the judge of the full game. If you haven't played the demo, consider yourself lucky.