Never have I felt as on edge while playing a game as during my late night play sessions with Dead Space.  EA’s Dead Space was originally a game that was under my radar due to the simple fact that it was surrounded by so many top tier games when it was first released during holiday season of last year.  I had vowed to eventually bring it back to the forefront and I’m thankful that I did because it has blow me away from start to finish.

With a generic name like Dead Space one would think that this is simply another space marine FPS game cast from the same mold as Halo 3 and Gears of War 2.  But you’d be sadly mistaken if you were to make that assumption because Dead Space’s world has more in common with Bioshock than either of those two games.  Both Bioshock and Dead Space adhere to an eerie ambiance that permeates every moment of the player’s experience.  Whether it’s the story or the world itself you’re immersed in a experience rather than playing through one like you would in the former two games.

Survival Horror Done Right

In Dead Space you’re put in the shoes boots of a ship engineer (glorified custodian) named Issac that is tasked with slowly activating the various areas of a huge ship that you’re currently stuck on.  Along the way you uncover a huge conspiracy that may or may not be the cause of the ghastly creatures hellbent on throwing a wrench into your plans.  Since you’re an engineer you’re equipped with weapons that are pretty much futuristic tools that work perfectly to lop the lim

bs off of your would be assailants.  You will also be outfitted in a suit that can be upgraded and has the handy features of being able to pick up items using a telekinesis type power and slowing down enemies or machines (which sorta kinda makes sense in weird way while dealing with the huge engines on a spaceship).

Dead Space achieves what many survival horror games attempt to and that’s the simple act of being scary.  It does so by making sure the player is as immersed as possible in the game by limiting the amount game-yness that can be experienced at any given time.  Your health, power, and ammo can all be seen just by looking at your character.  All your in-game menus are also shown in teh form of a holographic display that appears in front of your character but only has depth when you look at it the hologram is paper-thin if you rotate the camera around your character which is a really slick effect.  You’re also constantly surrounded by moans and groans as you move throughout the levels which keeps you on edge even as you’re sitting in a room that’s obviously empty.

There’s not much else I can say about the game really.  It’s a fantastic ride that can be predictable at some points but utterly satisfying during others.  I loved the fact that about a quarter of the way into the game I had learned to hold up my gun whenever entering rooms which saved me being caught off guard like I suffered through the early parts of the game.  My constant vigil only helped immerse me into the game and made the experience all the more enjoyable.  I’d suggest Dead Space to anyone that is looking for a truly satisfying action horror game, also I’d suggest checking out the animated movie they released in tandem with this because there’s a lot of back story that may not be a necessity to enjoying Dead Space but does help flesh out the story.

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Mirror’s Edge reminds me more of an old school platformer ala Mega Man than it brings to mind any other games that use the first person viewpoint.  Rather than picking up guns to take out your next target you’re steered towards running away from conflicts whenever it is possible.  I found myself memorizing jumps in an effort to easily traverse the environment without taking too much damage.

While I chose to take the pacifist route that had me disarming and running off when faced with danger, the game did offer me the option of picking up the guns dropped by enemies and using them.  But to emphasize its focus on movement the game slows your character down once you’ve picked up a weapon and utlizing said weapon takes some finesse.  If that was the case in any other game this would be a major negative point but since Mirror’s Edge is not a FPS game I consider that slight misstep negligible.

Deep Breaths and Stay Calm

I died, a lot, yet I continued to come back because the risk was worth the reward of finally completing a particularly difficult area or finally figuring out how to get to my goal.  For the most part many of the environmental puzzles made sense simply by looking at the environment.  This stayed true up to the last 2 chapters of the game, which had me feeling more frustrated than accomplished because of many of the “cheap deaths” that could happen.  Couple this with the fact that it was also around this same time that many of the enemies became stronger and a lot more aggressive and you have a recipe for an instant headache.

Mirror’s Edge is an experience that I would suggest to any modern gamer.  While it may frustate many to the point of giving up, sitcking with it is a reward that’s worth having.  It’s utlization of the third person view is some of the best I’ve seen to date, which only baffles me as to why they chose to do many of the cutscenes in a brightly colored anime style that only worked to pull you out of the experience that was so perfectly crafted throughout the game.   If you have patience  and enjoying platforming I’d suggest picking up Mirror’s Edge, otherwise at least give it a try so you can see how viseral of an experience it can provide.

There have been games before that have used Zombies and the undead as the “baddies.”  What sets Left 4 Dead apart is how close it gets to duplicating the pacing of a real Zombie flick.  They’ve created an AI “Director” that chooses at random when would be the best place to surprise the hell out of you.  It is a feat to behold that almost never gets old because of the spontaneity.

Left 4 Dead also gives you a chance to see how it feels to fight on the other side of the Zombie Apocalypse.  The Versus multiplayer gameplay let’s you battle it out against other real players switching from one side to the other trying to stop the opposite team from reaching the safe room.  This switch up in gameplay definitely resists the fatigue that can sometimes set on while playing FPS mutiplayer games.

The one an only drawback to this game is the insufficient amount of maps to play on.  While this will eventually prove why many people migrate away from the game, hopefully Valve will have some new downloadable content  before that happens.

We need more games like Mirror’s Edge, Portal, and Bioshock.  The one key factor that all of these games have is that your exploration of the world around you is what will lead you to progressing and fleshing out the story.  This utilization of exploration = immersion has the gamer actually searching out the nooks and crannies of environments that are mere set pieces in other games.

• Mirrors Edge puts you in the shoes of a parkour messenger and you literally feel like you’re doing the jumps with her because of how it uses the first person viewpoint.  Your gut clenches slightly when making those long jumps from roof top to roof top as if it would be you plunging to the streets below if you missed.

• Portal uses the first person perspective to give you freedom to figure out the puzzles it provides you with.  No glowing bread crumbs here, just plain ole brain power pushing you forward.  The only things that drive you forward is an disembodied voice that mocks you throughout the game rather than guiding you along and your own drive to escape the walls of what looks to be a huge hamster cage with you at its center.  The lack of any type of combat allows you time to figure out how to escape the cake’s evil lie at your own pace(play the game and you’ll understand!).

• Bioshock puts you in a world that is a beauty to look at an enigma to ponder.  Your eyes are met with an almost Utopian city under the sea yet it’s gone terribly wrong yet the only way the game provides for a narrative is exploring the world for yourself and listening to eerily and disjointed audio files strewn about the world.

Each works because they actually utilize the uniqueness of the first person viewpoint.  Here’s my message to all game developers looking to use the First Perspective in their games…use it to tell story or convey a new experience not just a way to put out yet another FPS game in an already over saturated market.  Less games like Legendary and more games in the vein of the Half Life series…please.