Dead Space
One of the games I've been playing lately is Dead Space. I was kinda taking a gamble with it when I bought it, 'cause I've only seen a single trailer. But sometimes it's fun to gamble.. I usually do it with movies because I hate being spoiled by the trailers when it's something I've already decided I'm going to see anyway (although I strayed from that path with The Dark Knight, because by accident I saw a picture of The Joker and then I couldn't help myself from finding out more about him.. but I digress).
So what did that single trailer tell me then? Well, that they turned Event Horizon into a videogame. Personally I'm a huge fan of the movie 'cause it combines two of my favourite genres in a successful way, science fiction & horror. Now, this is a VERY rare thing to do. It's hard enough to make a successful sci-fi or horror movie by itself (and trust me, I know, I've seen a lot of garbage in my time), let alone combine the two. But when they succeed it can be a real gem. Interesting note though, the movie has a score of 22% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I guess most people still consider the movie a piece of trash.
Now, the movie is about a spaceship called the Event Horizon which disappeared without trace on its first mission, only to reappear 7 years later in orbit around Neptune. A small crew approach it to learn what went wrong, but they have no idea what they're getting themselves into.
This ship just screams to leave it the hell alone.
So how does Dead Space resemble this movie? Well the game begins with an opening movie in which a small crew has been sent on a mission to discover what went wrong with the USS Ishimura. The ship is called a planet-cracker, because it breaks planets apart in search for precious materials.
They crashland inside the ship and soon discover that something is terribly wrong with it. There are some differences with the movie, but you can still see that it's highly inspired by it. Luckily they do it very well and it's great fun(/terror) to play.
It's third person and you play an engineer, which is interesting because your weapons are actually engineering tools and instead of doing headshots all the time you're supposed to shoot at (or cut off) limbs for a change. I'm halfway the game now and I really like where this is going. It's not so much scary playing the game but definitely disturbing at times. I have some nitpicks though.. for starters the main character doesn't talk.. maybe he's a mute, I don't know, it just doesn't really work for me anyway. Also they introduced two gimmicky powers, slowing down time for specific objects and some kind of telekinesis power which helps you to manipulate objects. The problem is that you don't do all that much with it, so you keep forgetting it when it's important. It would have been better if they had cut one from the game and focussed a little more on the remaining one. But the thing that bothered me the most was that there was a part where I had to shoot asteroids in first person for two minutes or so. It felt like something you would do on the Millennium Falcon and it was completely out of place. You're playing this third person action-horror game and then all of a sudden you have to shoot at asteroids in a first person view.. it just felt entirely wrong.
Still, these are just nitpicks really.. I'm really enjoying the game so far and will post what I found of the ending some other day.
So what did that single trailer tell me then? Well, that they turned Event Horizon into a videogame. Personally I'm a huge fan of the movie 'cause it combines two of my favourite genres in a successful way, science fiction & horror. Now, this is a VERY rare thing to do. It's hard enough to make a successful sci-fi or horror movie by itself (and trust me, I know, I've seen a lot of garbage in my time), let alone combine the two. But when they succeed it can be a real gem. Interesting note though, the movie has a score of 22% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I guess most people still consider the movie a piece of trash.
Now, the movie is about a spaceship called the Event Horizon which disappeared without trace on its first mission, only to reappear 7 years later in orbit around Neptune. A small crew approach it to learn what went wrong, but they have no idea what they're getting themselves into.
This ship just screams to leave it the hell alone.
So how does Dead Space resemble this movie? Well the game begins with an opening movie in which a small crew has been sent on a mission to discover what went wrong with the USS Ishimura. The ship is called a planet-cracker, because it breaks planets apart in search for precious materials.
They crashland inside the ship and soon discover that something is terribly wrong with it. There are some differences with the movie, but you can still see that it's highly inspired by it. Luckily they do it very well and it's great fun(/terror) to play.
It's third person and you play an engineer, which is interesting because your weapons are actually engineering tools and instead of doing headshots all the time you're supposed to shoot at (or cut off) limbs for a change. I'm halfway the game now and I really like where this is going. It's not so much scary playing the game but definitely disturbing at times. I have some nitpicks though.. for starters the main character doesn't talk.. maybe he's a mute, I don't know, it just doesn't really work for me anyway. Also they introduced two gimmicky powers, slowing down time for specific objects and some kind of telekinesis power which helps you to manipulate objects. The problem is that you don't do all that much with it, so you keep forgetting it when it's important. It would have been better if they had cut one from the game and focussed a little more on the remaining one. But the thing that bothered me the most was that there was a part where I had to shoot asteroids in first person for two minutes or so. It felt like something you would do on the Millennium Falcon and it was completely out of place. You're playing this third person action-horror game and then all of a sudden you have to shoot at asteroids in a first person view.. it just felt entirely wrong.
Still, these are just nitpicks really.. I'm really enjoying the game so far and will post what I found of the ending some other day.