Dead Space "Mini-Review"

Title :
Dead Space

Reason for buying:
I have watched a lot of horror movies lately and somehow it affects my gaming taste. If you want to know, I just re-watched the original Exorcist and yesterday night I watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose. So I decided to get a game that can scare the hell out of me.

System and Game performance:
I use Asus G1S (8600m GT) with 175.64 stock driver that was downloaded from Asus website. I use Notepal infinite to cool down my laptop and the maximum temperature that I had was 92 C after playing for 2 hours. The game run smoothly with zero lag/stutter on high setting. Please note that I have done zero modification on my laptop in attempt to cool it down.

Plot:
An unlucky engineer named Isaac and his team embarked on a rescue mission after responding to a distress call from a spaceship. The ship-docking guidance system of the ship that they were going to rescue was offline, causing Isaac's ship to nearly crash during the landing. They also found out that the crew of the spaceship were brutally slaughtered and infected by some kind of alien species. Isaac and his team must stay alive to uncover the mystery behind the horrible things that happened there.

Initial thought after playing the game for 2 chapters:
The camera angle that follows the main character is pretty much the same as Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War, however this is totally a different game. In my opinion this game is more suitable to be played with a game pad because no matter how hard I tried to adjust the mouse sensitivity and the keyboard buttons to suit my liking, I was just unable to get the hang of it. Enemies are way faster than the main character and the main character does not move as fast as Leon from RE4. You'll basically end up relying on playing cat and mouse with the enemies in order to face them one by one instead of facing multiple at the same time. The ammo are limited, not as plenty as RE4 and Gears of War, so you cannot just pull a load of Rambo stuff all the time.

The kind of experience that you'll probably get:
Do not expect this game to be like F.E.A.R. They're both scarry but I think Dead Space is just more like Doom 3. You'll encounter a lot of dark corridors with claustrophobic atmosphere. Is this a horror game? More like a thriller to me. There are some nice things here, such as maps and video recordings are displayed in 3D Holographic manner, but to be honest I prefer a simple 2D map like Resident Evil series--boring and simple but easy to be read and very to the point.

The bad things (so far) :
Slow loading progress during save game load and starting a new chapter Sometimes it can take up to 1 minute. It could be my laptop or the driver problem here.

 

You got it already?
Wow...
Any screenies ?

 

nice, im very happy i will be able to play it on high =))

 

92c is HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

7200rpm HDD may noticeably improve load times. Breaking the street date for the PC release. :O

 

The G1s runs like that, Asus says it`s ok. So I dunno, the 8600M GT is rated at 120C according to them...

 

Thanks for the mini-reivew strider3871! Now I can't wait for it...
Some screenies would be good too...

 

I have read about issues with the keyboard/mouse controls of the PC version a few times now. No different in your mini review I see. Too bad Seems to me that's enough to turn me off for now. Far Cry 2 is getting my October game dollars. No Dead Space for me. Maybe a future patch will fix this?

 

indeed, mine runs at about 100, but i overclock it.

it's like 50 when idle though.

hasn't caused a prob yet.

 

The game is out already in Singapore. By the way, I just posted some pictures from my first gameplay. Guaranteed to be spoiler free

 

play fear or replay doom 3 with the lights off and headphones on. doom 3 will scare the snap out of you.

 

dracula is ok

 

goto ea games and they have a similar button for games you might be into

 

F.E.A.R. on high settings, sound up, and in the dead of night is freeaky. Tell me you're not scared when this random ghost girl stalks your mind for most of the game:




I hope Dead Space is a hit, looking forward to getting the crap scared out of me again.

(I also loved The Exorcism of Emily Rose, good movie)

 

Those screens of Dead Space look very nice. It was supposed to be out today for PC but the Future Shop I was at this afternoon didn't have any copies. I hope they plan on stocking the shelves with FC2 for tomorrow.

I loved FEAR. I hope Project Origin is just as atmospheric as the first. It WAS pretty creepy. Doom 3 was creepy too, but I got tired of monsters jumping from dark closets and doorways.

 

Clean screens. I'm pretty stoked about this game. Getting it right after class today.

 

anyone got higher res screens?

 

what resolution are you running it in.

 

1280 x 720, all settings on high with vsync ON

 

I've read that turning V-Sync on locks you at a max of 30fps, so you'll need to disable it to reach a higher framerate.

I'm getting my copy in the mail today; I'll post some impressions too.

 

I'm not.
I just don't find fear fearful at all. it might be the difficulty setting, I was playing on medium.
I guess I was just too busy blasting people in the face with a shot gun, man thats the most satisfying thing ever.

 

the first fear was fearful , Persus mandate was Sh!t and thanks for the review mate,

 

Do you mean in general or is this specific to Dead Space? Because vsync relates to the refresh rate that your monitor is capable of displaying. In terms of most LCDs this means 60 FPS (60 Hz).

 

Vsync just syncs the framerate to the refresh rate. If the monitor can only do 30Hz or 30 updates per second, then the framerate will be locked at 30FPS. Simple as that.

I agree that FEAR wasn't all that scary, mabe the first time I saw alma crawl at you in the vent, that was unexpected and made me jump but.. that game just has too much action going on to really be scary. How can you be afraid of something when your carrying a gun that shoots rail spikes?

Dead space looks cool though. I don't really understand what people are talking about with the controls, I guess I'll have to see for myself. But if it does need a controller, I have a few, does it support controllers? most PC games do these days. I won't be able to see for myself yet though since first of my priority is to get Farcry 2 tomorrow.

 

I'm currently playing the Xbox 360 version (my computer won't handle the pc version too well ). I don't see any problems with the movement speed of the character. The really annoying thing is that some of the text logs are barley readable on a standard def tv

 

Whoever said I couldn't handle this at max settings on 1920x1200 is wrong. Don't underestimate a single 8800M GTX, I'm so pleased with it.

This game is gorey. I love it. As far as the controls are concerned, they're VERY fluid. You must not be getting good FPS if it lags. However, there does seem to be some kind of discrepancy while aiming. Everything but aiming is totally smooth. That's my only qualm right now really.

If people want I could put up screen shots of the game at 1920x1200 on max settings.

 

That's because you are playing it on a 360 w/a 360 controller. The complaints stem from the PC version using a keyboard and mouse. I have not heard if a controller on PC is the same as 360 or not.

 

If the monitor is locked at 30hz. You will see 30fps. Vsync or not.

 

So aiming is the big challenge then. It's sad that aiming, the best feature in PC gaming, is the worst feature in a game.

And yes please. Give us screens.

 

Funny. I couldn't finish Doom 3 because it scared the sh1t out of me and made my heart stop too many times. Except for one or two moments F.E.A.R. wasn't a problem for me. I will be checking out Dead Space when it gets here.

 

It's not exactly the worst feature. I have no problem blowing off limbs still. It's just that it could definitely be smoother. It seems to skip here and there.

Also, as far as lack of ammo goes, while playing on Hard, I still have an abundance of ammo. You just need to utilize Stasis + Melee tactics more often. Use your guns for crowd control where as if you're only fighting 1-2 enemies at a time the best idea is to melee them.

 

Have u done any upgrade to your equipment? Those power nodes are just rare, plus I am a bit confused which one is a priority? Stasis upgrade? Weapon? Armor? Maybe it's too early to tell since I am still on chapter two now, in fact I won't be having any chance to play again anytime soon because I am a bit preoccupied with my job.

By the way I was surprised to know that Dead Space is actually based on Godfather engine.

 

sh!t i cant wait any longer..

 

I just got dead space... wow

Max settings (including in game AA) runs at 1280x800 with a constant 26-35 FPS

I'm going to go back to screaming like a ninny

 

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Funny, that.

I couldn't finish playing Doom 3 because it was painstakingly tedious, and utterly and insultingly predictable.

 

Bah that reviewer makes me want to stab my eyes out. He is painful to endure. On the other hand, I made it to some level after Hell in Doom 3 and gave up. I got bored too lol. It was fun but got very tedious. I lasted as long as I did out of determination, not enjoyment. But the game did give me some scares!

Edit: Oh and I paid $7 for it, off the shelf - woot! I think I got my money's worth.

Edit 2:

Oh I wanted to mention that I have read elsewhere that disabling vsync does indeed help with the mouse lag in Dead Space. Not sure why it would, but it does. I still wish there was a demo though.

 

I would say it's mostly preference. I'm only at chapter 4 now, when I finish the game I could give a better perspective. I'd say if you're having trouble in a particular aspect, say health for example, you could opt to increase health or focus on getting new armor first. There doesn't seem to be any absolutely necessary upgrade.

If anything, as far as vsync goes, it's like removing a limit to your FPS. If it "fixes" mouse lag then those users might not have steady FPS in the first place...

 

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i'll agree with you on that, but ****, it looked pretty.

 

Very much agree with that last review.

 

Ennea what kind of performance you're getting?

 

I only got to play for about fifteen minutes last night, but I was wowed by the graphics, and how well it runs on my comp.

1680x1050, all high, and my framerate was never below 60. With Vsync off and mouse sensitivity turned up, I feel no lag in the controls. Also a big shout out goes to whoever decided to make pressing Caps Lock lock you in Aim Mode indefinitely; I was really worried about having to hold down the right mouse button.

 

ehh Sounds good to me, its seems that the performance is stable.

 

I've got screenshots to upload later but basically I get as high as 99+ FPS in inactive environments and around 50-80FPS in active ones. Don't understimate a single 8800M GTX!

I might write my own review/guide later, if anyone is interested.

 

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you've just made my day with that statement

 

Does anybody know how to kill the "Stuck on the wall" Necromorph? I have encountered three of these before the food storage area in chapter 6, but that time there were always some explossive barrels lying around ready to be propelled to them. I tried burning them using the flamethrower but it didn't seem to work. Cutting them is also useless. Any tips?

 

You could just bust out the line gun and secondary it. Should instat kill, if not leave it barely alive.