The derelict, skeletal structure of an immense craft hums with eerie silence. With their own blood, crew members have written their goodbyes on the metallic walls, crying solitarily in the dark depths of space. As a lonely descent into the madness of the aftermath, Dead Space runs the gamut of sci-fi horror inspiration. But through immaculate vision, developer EA Redwood Shores twists a glut of conventions in its favour, spawning something entirely novel. Continue »
Well, this never happens. EA’s fresh survival horror IP, Dead Space, has been bumped up to October 14th for the Xbox 360 and PS3. First announced to ship day and date on Halloween, then pushed forward to the 21st, and now this; the release plans have been strange to say the least.
Development teams are almost always hitting a massive crunch before a looming date, but maybe Dead Space is all but done at this point. It seems like a possibility. And EA has put a lot of confidence — perhaps too presumptuously — in its broad sci-fi universe; with animated comics and even a feature length animated film. In this industry good release news is odd, especially when a new IP is being treated so well. Let’s have more of it.
Another week and more games to review. Here’s what we have brewing for you:
Wall-E (uh oh), Geometry Wars Evolved 2, Bionic Commando and Too Human
And we leave you with some fantastic new footage from EA’s increasingly appealing Dead Space. Enjoy.
In an attempt to organize the hellfire of media and information pouring from this year’s E3, here is a list of compiled release dates for titles announced in and around the time of the expo.
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway/ September, 2008 (recent trailers said August, delayed again it seems)
Yakuza 2/ Septermber 9th, 2008
Dead Space/ October 21st, 2008
Fable 2/ October, 2008
Little Big Planet/ October, 2008
Tom Clancy’s EndWar/ October 14th
Gears of War 2/ November 7th, 2008
Tomb Raider: Underworld/ November 21st, 2008 (Euro release)
Resident Evil 5/ March 13th, 2009… A Friday, how convenient.
I Am Alive/ Spring 2009
This post will be bumped up to the top any time new information surfaces. Keep yourself locked here.
A derelict spacecraft floats among the stars and seemingly hollow halls ring with silence, but not all is dead on the Ishimura vessel… you know what lurks in the dark. Now, throw in a track of little girls singing a strange twisted version of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and you have the latest trailer for Dead Space, a thoroughly unsettling affair. This year’s BioShock? It certainly wants to be, and that’s meant in the best way possible.
And, just a note, if the video box doesn’t appear right away have patience. The video is indeed streaming and will appear when fully loaded.
We’re getting an Aliens game from Gearbox with macho marines and big guns, and that’s all well and good. But the original Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, is a far better film and probably the finest fusion of horror and science-fiction to ever grace the silver screen. Unfortunately, the single alien dynamic isn’t well suited for a videogame, though the moment to moment finely paced horror and minimalist style certainly are.
Dead Space is looking like it might fill that void, by channelling Scott’s masterpiece. It’s a science-fiction/horror geek’s dream with long walks through eerily silent corridors accented by pitch perfect and precise jump out of your skin moments; this is what EA is striving for.
It’s a very tall order to pull off, and one that is difficult to keep fresh in terms of gameplay. Condemned achieved it, though its sequel slightly faltered by often leaving little to the imagination, robbing the immersion and tension that was built up so well.
And so we come to the person who directed this latest Dead Space trailer (shown below), James Wan, the ham-handed creator at the helm of Saw – a movie that has mind bogglingly become a hit franchise. The horror genre is slipping away in cinematic terms, thanks to movies like his with their sadist aesthetics and porno sensibilities, appropriately branded “torture-porn”. It’s a subgenre more in common with gruesome internet sites featuring truly nauseating and highly realistic gore galleries, rather than any attempt at using the language of the
cinema to build tension which infests your imagination.
While Wan’s trailer is by no means bad, it isn’t the problem. The possible influence of his style on a truly promising game like Dead Space, one that lives on brooding tension similar to that of Alien, would only lead to a fumbling fall on its face — just like so many before it. And when you have a creative endeavour that has the potential to be akin to Ridley Scott, rather than hack directors who have forgotten the essence of horror, that is something to be celebrated. “What you don’t see is infinitely more frightening than what you do”, a phrase that embodies the fear of what goes bump in the night and is, in turn, the formula for truly timeless horror.
Dead Space is a great new franchise being created by Electronic Arts, who seem to be making great strides in vanquishing thoughts about EA and their unique ability to rehash titles. Dead Space takes place on a barren planet mining facility that is floating, unmanned, in space. An engineer named Isaac heads for the facility expecting a routine communication systems repair. Little does he know, his worst nightmares are awaiting his arrival.
EA has created some unique gameplay mechanics for this new title. Zero-gravity plays a large role, as players are expected to often battle, solve puzzles and navigate while floating within the confines of the ship and in the blackness of space. A great dismemberment system has also been incorporated rewarding players with pinpoint accuracy. Many foes can be taken down very quickly with well placed shots, but the head is not always the weakness. Many foes can become more powerful and aggressive if you attack and destroy certain areas of their body. EA has also assured us that each enemy has its own specific weak point that players will have to learn quickly if they wish to succeed.
Keep and eye out for Dead Space this Halloween. Although, I can’t help but think this possible gem may get lost within all the great games coming this holiday.