Joystiq hands-on: Dead Space

EA is changing. I want to believe that. First, selling off lucrative but terribly stale license to the competition. Then, a new president who's chanting the mantra of innovation. And then, acquiring renowned developers who (get this!) willingly and enthusiastically partner with the corporate monolith that used to be EA.

Bioware president Ray Muzyka thinks EA's changed (he talked his new employer up in his presentation at the EA Spring Break event last Monday); EA's own (formerly unhappy) employees think it's changed. With a lineup of new properties ranging from innovative and well received (like Skate) to ambitious but less successful (think Army of Two) – as well as the extraordinarily successful EA Partners program that sees the publisher's name on everything from Valve's Orange Box to MTV Games' Rock Band – most signs point to change. But EA has yet to match the critical success of rivals like Take-Two, whose BioShock and Grand Theft Auto games have reached a level of praise practically unknown to EA.

So when a new survival horror property was announced on the cover of October's Game Informer – proudly proclaiming its development by "a renegade team at Electronic Arts" – our curiosity was piqued. A new IP, a new genre, an impressive (and external) graphics engine? A series of developer diaries, comic books, interviews, and press materials continued to stoke the fires of innovation, encouraging everyone to think of the game as something new for EA: a game where story and atmosphere aren't trimmings wrapped around a stale license but fundamental components of the experience. EA was essentially building a "Shock" game (System Shock, BioShock), only they named it Dead Space and I finally got a chance to play it last week.
EA was finally ready to share the game with press at its Spring Break event, but only behind closed doors and with an appointment. Without an appointment (I swear I never got that email!) it was a long wait for an open slot, but I finally got in. The entrance to the Dead Space ... space was front and center when you arrived at the club, a small room built out of dark curtains housing little more than the game's producers, a television, and a half-dozen chairs. Oh, and it was dark.

Lucky for me, they were looking for someone to actually play the game as they guided the lot of us through it. I instinctively raised my hand, forgetting that I used that very same hand to both write and hold gamepads, so most of my notes were hurriedly scribbled down after my chance at bat. Most notable was producer Chuck Beaver's real-time commentary: While some of it coaxed me into the right rooms and mocked my inability to actually shoot enemies (hey, the invert y-axis capability hadn't been enabled yet!), Beaver spent the majority of his time explaining where we were and what we were doing. Not unlike BioShock, Dead Space is more about delivery than game mechanics and, to that end, EA is positioning the Ishimura as their Rapture.


The Ishimura is the setting of Dead Space: a giant mining ship that's recently cut off all communication to Earth. Isaac, our protagonist, is an engineer sent to investigate the ship's communications abilities. Only thing is, it's not a communications issue, it's a freaky-ass space monster issue (easily confused, we know). That framework – everyman engineer on a mining ship – influences myriad aspects of the game's design. Isaac's armed with repurposed tools (think space nail guns) and the Ishimura was a vessel built to sustain life in deep space.

Our demo guided us through several unique areas of the ship that displayed a refreshing range of environments when, in reality, the ship is really just one single environment. Sure, our limited demo was carefully selected, but if you're worried about a bland corridor crawler, our brief experience would indicate your fears are misplaced. Peering out the side of the ship, a massive hole torn in its hull, we could see an enormous crater on the nearby planet – the mining site of interest and, ostensibly, the source of the ship's recent ... infestation Beaver tells us. While in that uncompressed space, the audio is frighteningly silent; you don't "hear" it, you "feel" it. A body floats quietly by (I'm coached to shoot it and watch the physics system react); drops of fluid (hydraulic fluid? blood?) fly about in droplets, just like your high school physics instructor told you it would. Someone cracks a "no one can hear you scream" joke.

Back inside the ship, we encounter a massive room and have our first introduction to the game's zero-G gameplay. Leaping from one surface to another, the process is disorienting at first, but I quickly find my sea legs, and engage a series of power bricks. This is a training example of one of the game's environmental puzzles, I'm told. Further into the ship's medical bay, we witness a grisly scene, showing the mental breakdown of one of the crew. Past that, we meet our first enemy. They're not the most unique space baddies we've ever seen (HR Giger's Aliens these are not), but they're certainly effective. Grotesque mutations of the ship's former crew, they're a pointy, aggressive lot with glowing eyes and flailing tentacles. Bring on the action.

Gunplay was certainly solid (and surprisingly difficult ... or maybe that was the inversion setting still messing with me), but my first thought wasn't the traditionally slow pace of "survival horror." Beaver later told us that the action-tastic Resident Evil 4 was a major influence in terms of gameplay (he name-dropped BioShock and Mass Effect for story, big surprise), explaining the game's more action-fueled approach to combat. After witnessing the ship's captain converted into one of them, only to have him come lunging through a glass wall while the alien infester scrambled up the wall (what? It doesn't die?) we were done with our hands-on ... but not before Beaver shared one more treat: a miniboss character from later in the game. He let Isaac die, only to have the enormous creature tear him in half in a prolonged death animation. The producers giggled to themselves. "So it's rated E then? " someone quipped.

Like I said, I want to believe that EA has changed, and I want to think that Dead Space will be the success they've been looking for. Not in terms of sales, mind you (Madden does just fine, I'm told) but in terms of critical or even "artistic" success. That "renegade team" moniker they've used to describe the game's origins may have been a "renegade" idea at EA, but ask any creative person if this idea sounds "renegade": a passionate team that pitched their own idea to top brass, instead of working on the assembly line for another title. It's far too early to tell if Dead Space is going to be "that game" but its renegade team certainly appears to be on the right path. And that path just so happens to be carved straight through a derelict spacecraft infested with a killer alien parasite, all wrapped up in a religious mystery.