Electronic Arts appears to continue their trend of astonishing games this year with the release of Dead Space. Dead Space verbalizes a much needed jolt of verve into the survival horror video game genre. Since its inception, Dead Space immerses the gamers in a world of sinister deeds and chaotic drama.

The storyline transpires in space, and it revolves around a protagonist named Isaac Clarke. Isaac Clarke is an employee and engineer of an organization known as the Concordance Extraction Corporation. Additionally, his employer supervises mining ships in outer space. One of the mining ships that the Concordance Extraction Corporation monitors is called the USG Ishimura, but all communication is lost between the USG Ishimura and the Concordance Extraction Corporation. As a result, Clarke and two of his colleagues (Zach Hammond and Kendra Daniels) get onboard another ship identified as the USG Kellion.

Soon afterwards, the USG Kellion and its crew are sent to the USG Ishimura to presumably mollify the communication failure. Another problem that seems to be on Clarke’s mind is that he has received an esoteric message from his former girlfriend Nicole Brennan. Brennan is a medic, and she is one of the survivors on the USG Ishimura. Regrettably, Clarke’s mission takes a wrong turn with plenty of horrifying consequences. Dead Space features a plot that lures gamers in straight from the onset, and it never relinquishes that fire until the climactic ending.      

The gameplay has an enormous emphasis on strategic dismemberment. Strategic dismemberment entails assaulting multiple body parts of each adversary. Many times, you will fail to kill foes by simply shooting at their heads. As a matter of fact, a headshot will only make the enemies more assertive.

Speaking of the opponents, they are referred to as Necromorphs. Furthermore, the only way to dispatch Necromorphs is through the use of strategic dismemberment. Thankfully, there is a stasis mechanic that slows down time. This makes it much easier to attack the Necromorphs one at a time. The caveat to this is that there is a limit to how much stasis is available. Once the stasis meter is depleted, you cannot utilize stasis. However, you can replenish stasis with packs and at stations.