Stars, scares and dismemberment. Welcome to the survival horror hues of Dead Space, where everything is black, white... and decidedly red all over.
"Horror and scary are very hard to do," says Chuck Beaver, Producer of Electronic Arts' forthcoming survival horror title, Dead Space. It's an appropriate comment given the game's aim to offer not only third-person action on a very intense and polished level, but to provide the sort of atmosphere that would have you jumping from your seat in abject terror. Appropriate, but somewhat ironic, seeing as the title that should have you utterly terrified is alarming its own team in more ways than one. You can't deny it's a more than promising sign that Dead Space is definitely on the right scare track...
The horror, the horror!
"It's a very iterative process," explains Beaver. "Horror is the intersection of lighting, voice acting, sound effects, visual effects and millisecond timing, apparently. The bullseye for horror is not only tiny, but unforgiving if you miss.
"If you are trying for funny, the bullseye is much fatter, and you can miss it and just end up less funny. If you miss the horror one, there is no less scary consolation prize. There is only this weird instant mockery of whatever you were trying to pull off and, strangely, high comedy. The amount of tuning it takes to get horror on point is startling."
It shows the large task ahead of the Dead Space team in the creation of a game which melds the genres of sci-fi with horror to create something that's immediately playable but with the sort of futuristic and visceral tone of movies such as Event Horizon and the Alien saga. As an everyday engineer by the name of Isaac Clarke, your job is to fix a broken communication array on a large mining vessel called Ishimura, only to find the crew has been transformed into grotesque and savage creatures. Your new primary mission among everything else? Survival.
Dead inside
Part of Dead Space's immense potential comes from its willingness to envelop the player into its brutal world of xenomorphic frights. "Everything is designed to keep you immersed in the game," says Beaver. "From the lack of traditional Heads Up Display - as it's all on Isaac's body - to the pause-less Inventory - although you can pause the whole game- , to the lack of pre-rendered movies and cutscenes."
Intriguingly, Electronic Arts didn't have to go too far in getting ideas for this streamlined HUD. "It was sort of a gift from our fiction," he explains. "Since we're sci-fi, we had complete license to assign everything to a holographic device on Isaac's suit. It was a small step then to embed the functions in the fiction of futuristic mining equipment that you would wear.
"The health bar on the back was like modern air-gauges on scuba gear, meant to inform your diving buddies of your status. The ammo counter on your forearm is a hologram, as is the weapon select data. The entire inventory screen projects into real space next to Isaac, also accomplished in the hologram tech and fiction. The future is a wonderful place."
Moving monsters
With horror playing such a large part of Dead Space, it shouldn't surprise anyone that there's a massive array of creatures, called Necromorphs, all ready to rip into you, each with their own visual look and deadly behaviour. "Some of the Necromorphs are basic Slashers, with giant talons arching over their shoulders," divulges Beaver. "Others are cloning samples from the medical deck gone haywire from the infection, turning into baby-like tentacle nightmares.
"Others are just tentacles. Others are pregnant with smaller swarms of enemies, waiting to burst forth if you shoot the host's belly. Some guard doors and hallways, stuck to walls, with a barbed tentacle that can one-shot your head off. My favourites are the ones that have an explosive sack for a left arm. And then of course we have bosses and mini-bosses."
In turn, Clarke is capable of retaliating in a way only an 18+ rated title can - dismemberment. Using the range of improvised weaponry available, you can strategically cut off alien limbs and even use the severed parts as weapons. Placed within an environment where gravity itself can be manipulated through the use of a telekinetic styled tool called Kinesis, and the zero-g nature of space (Beaver admits that this and tuning the real physics into something enjoyable and playable was a lot of work), there's plenty of experimentation that can be had in defending yourself against hostiles. All of which creates a novel way of mixing combat and visual gore with 3D environmental puzzles into a seamless whole.
Waking the Dead
With so many elements coming together so nicely, it's a relief to see the level design of Dead Space is looking equally superb too. There's an appropriate ebb and flow shown in the early stages, building tension and setting a pace that echoes some of the best of the genre, set around the eerie and utterly lonely quietude of space.
"There are the cramped dark damp steamy hallways you would expect," describes Beaver. "You go outside the ship. There is a huge centrifuge. You will visit the hydroponics towers, huge mining bays and zero-g rooms. And of course, people live here, so you'll see places you would expect on a floating city, like mess halls and crew quarters." All of which will be covered in the viscera of Necromorphs' horrible labour. It's going to be a heck of a ride, and there's no doubt the development team is as excited as everyone else is with Dead Space's possible brilliance.
"We're pretty psyched to introduce a brand new sci-fi horror game to the world," says Beaver. "We've got something that's fresh and new and exciting and a huge departure for EA. This is a very [adult] title that we're very proud of."
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