Image from IGNI'm officially 1/4 of the way through Dead Space, and there was something about the overall feel of the game that I thought was worth mentioning: the underlying sense of deja vu.
Normally, that wouldn't necessarily be a good thing. And to Dead Space's credit, it does do a few good things to make the game stand out on its own, such as the emphasis on shooting limbs and everything that happens in space or low-gravity scenarios. But it's pretty clear to see that Dead Space is clearly built off of other influences.
The third-person shooting action and survival horror elements are directly lifted from Resident Evil 4. The story progression though big events or small collectibles such as audio logs came from Bioshock and Metroid Prime. Much of the space station aesthetic comes from Metroid Prime. Outside of games, Dead Space takes a ton of cues from the "Alien" series of movies.
To be fair, if you break down 99% of anything ever made, you can find all the elements that came before it to create the final product. In Dead Space though, the game doesn't try and hide where those influences came from. If anything, I really feel like they tried hard to at least match its influences in terms of quality, if not surpass them.
Throughout my experience so far, I always feel like I'm playing a mash-up of a bunch of other people's ideas. But damn, they're executed so well in Dead Space. The overall level of polish and detail so far is spot on with what I think this game should be. It's fun, very exciting and constantly scaring the pants off of me. There is a moment towards the end of chapter 3 where you encounter something that is 10 times more insane than anything you've encountered up to that point and I almost lost it. I was actually yelling at my TV and mashing buttons during a moment that required precision because I couldn't help myself.
All of the things it borrows from other games kind of makes Dead Space a more "comfortable" experience. Not in the sense of being less scary, but being able to quickly jump into this world and have fun. It's always in the back of my head that I'm not playing something wholly new, but as long as it stays this good, that's totally fine.
Normally, that wouldn't necessarily be a good thing. And to Dead Space's credit, it does do a few good things to make the game stand out on its own, such as the emphasis on shooting limbs and everything that happens in space or low-gravity scenarios. But it's pretty clear to see that Dead Space is clearly built off of other influences.
The third-person shooting action and survival horror elements are directly lifted from Resident Evil 4. The story progression though big events or small collectibles such as audio logs came from Bioshock and Metroid Prime. Much of the space station aesthetic comes from Metroid Prime. Outside of games, Dead Space takes a ton of cues from the "Alien" series of movies.
To be fair, if you break down 99% of anything ever made, you can find all the elements that came before it to create the final product. In Dead Space though, the game doesn't try and hide where those influences came from. If anything, I really feel like they tried hard to at least match its influences in terms of quality, if not surpass them.
Throughout my experience so far, I always feel like I'm playing a mash-up of a bunch of other people's ideas. But damn, they're executed so well in Dead Space. The overall level of polish and detail so far is spot on with what I think this game should be. It's fun, very exciting and constantly scaring the pants off of me. There is a moment towards the end of chapter 3 where you encounter something that is 10 times more insane than anything you've encountered up to that point and I almost lost it. I was actually yelling at my TV and mashing buttons during a moment that required precision because I couldn't help myself.
All of the things it borrows from other games kind of makes Dead Space a more "comfortable" experience. Not in the sense of being less scary, but being able to quickly jump into this world and have fun. It's always in the back of my head that I'm not playing something wholly new, but as long as it stays this good, that's totally fine.