Dead Space (Xbox 360)

The mining vessel USG Ishimura has gone silent. Isaac Clarke and a team of engineers travel to the ship via the USG Kellion to make repairs, only to find that the Ishimura has been invaded by an alien life form that has wiped out the entire crew. With the Kellion destroyed on landing and separated from his team, Isaac must find a way off the Ishimura, even if that means tackling the deadly alien foe in order to survive.

If there are any negatives I could mention about Dead Space, it would be in what's lacking rather than problems the finished game possesses. There is no multiplayer for one thing, and with the great weaponry and environments featured in the main game, there is definite missed potential there. With this lack of replayability, you might be left wanting a few extra chapters within the story mode to compensate. But with just 12 chapters clocking in at around an hour each, you may wish Dead Space was longer.

While it lasts, though, you'll have a blast. As a survival horror should be, the game is genuinely scary, utilising horror movie conventions and playing on our fears and primeval needs in an endlessly inventive and intelligent way. There are clear inspirations, Alien, 2001 and Star Wars being the most obvious, but the shocks and scares are never predictable.

Dead Space's filmic musical score must be applauded, but, in what is a testament to the fantastic work of the sound design department, every little sound - be it your own echoing footsteps or a piece of creaking machinery - will leave you jumpy. As an under-prepared engineer (your only weapons are engineering tools and your suit is designed for manual labour) who spends the vast majority of this game alone, in silence, your fear is mostly heightened by subtle moments of amplified sound - something as simple as a drip - and you'll be on edge for the entirety of Dead Space.

This edge-of-your-seat approach is also realised by some simple yet enormously effective storytelling and design techniques. For example, within the first five minutes of Dead Space, we are informed of and are witness to the nightmarish-looking alien threat using the Ishimura's air vents as a means of travel; the entire game is set in the Ishimura's dark, claustrophobic rooms and corridors, which happen to be covered in vent openings. Suffice to say, from these first few minutes onwards, you'll look at every wall, ceiling and floor with constant suspicion and alert. Simple, yet very, very effective.

The layout of the Ishimura is also incredibly detailed and complex, a stunning combination of 2001-style sterility and the blue collar space truckers aesthetic of Alien. As posters, ads, dried blood and graffiti adorn seemingly every available space, it's obvious how much effort has gone into creating this game. Aside from the back log of the over 100 video, audio and text logs created by the ship's staff that you discover to piece together what happened prior to your arrival, there are also subtle signifiers in the Ishimura detailing incidents that are superfluous to the main story. One of the best I found - in a dank, empty bathroom - was a pile of discarded litter, followed by blood marks leading out the door, implying that someone had been surviving in that room for a long time only to be dragged away and killed. Little details like that are found throughout Dead Space, cleverly increasing the fear factor as well as giving a real impression of life on this ship before the entire crew vanished.

Playing as Isaac Clarke is easy and you'll get the hang of it very quickly - the only issue some gamers might have, especially when you are becoming surrounded by deep space zombie-monsters, is that there is no 180 degree-turn button; I, on the other hand, found the game to feel more real and immediate without one. The idea of having an inventory, map and objectives list as a digitised interface screen fitted on Clarke's upgradeable suit is also genius.

For most people, though, the best unique feature of Dead Space will be the zero-gravity element, whereby you can go about tasks and fight enemies in zero-gravity zones of the Ishimura (or space itself), jumping great distances and climbing up walls like an insect. It's a magnificent aspect of the game.

A truly great game when taken on its own merits (try not to focus on what could be added to make the game even better) that is full of shocks and excitement, you won't be disappointed playing Dead Space. The question is whether you can handle 12 hours of pure jump-out-your-seat horror.