Normally I stay away from scary/horror games, even if I’m really interested and want to play them. Typically I enjoy being scared, but not so much those types of games because the creators are usually pretty devious and know how to craft some terrifying moments. Dead Space, from EA, was no different. I basically forced myself to play it a little because I was really digging the things I’d seen about it. I played it on PC, but stopped after some technical issues.
Aini got it on Xbox 360 and forced me to play with her, because she, like me, is a huge scaredy cat when it comes to scary games. We would voice chat on MSN while playing the same parts of the game at the same time half a world away. It was the first time I’ve ever done something like that and it worked surprisingly well. I’d say we played “co-op” except for the fact that she would often have me enter a new deadly room and discover all the “ah, shit!” and “omgomgomg!” moments before she’d enter knowing what to expect because of it being my job to describe them all. Thus, this awesome pic was created by Aini.
A typical moment when we played together.
After playing for about 3 hours straight on a late Friday night, I had to take a break from all the horror I was forced to endure. Aini, usually fairly frightened by horror games as well, summoned the courage to keep going without me. Well, without me playing before her. She still stayed on the mic so I could hear all her scared yelps and cries. She ended up finishing the game way before me, and I was very proud of her! Luckily I retained a lot of her hints and tips when I got the 360 version from my friend and caught up quickly to where I stopped on PC. Even though I let Aini ruin many of the big turning points in the game for me, I still enjoyed playing it myself through to the end. Unfortunately I had to often play alone without someone to keep me company, so I’m fairly proud of myself for finishing it. I’m normally a huge wuss when it comes to these types of games (I made my old roomate watch me play through the entirety of Resident Evil 4 for example).
Sup?
The graphics in the game are amazing, and the detail of the world and story they created really shined through. The battle system was really innovative in that it forced you to slow your enemies down and de-limb them rather than pumping bullet after bullet into their bodies like other games. This added a fair amount of strategy in stressful situations, but the ability to use an ability to slow them down and “freeze” them helped out a lot.
Overall, I really enjoyed the game. There wasn’t a lot of boring backtracking, and the times when it was used made perfect sense. After awhile though I began to hate my comrades who continually bossed my poor character around the entire game. “Hey Isaac, thanks for turning the air purifier back on, but can you get the engines started?” “Thanks for the engine work! How about getting gravity restored?” “Man, sure is great having gravity… But could you wash my car now? Thanks, dude!” But … overall, fun times. I’m glad Aini made me play with her. <3
