Dead Space

This was apparently a must play title which I never heard of but what makes this game fun is that it is very playable by anyone who likes survival horror RPGs.  I do not normally like survival horror because I am quite the noob when it comes to the FPS twitch.  Most games do not forgive you if you miss that one shot which most of the time is your last bullet.  This game gives plenty of ammo and plenty of ways to dispatch on coming zombie alien infestations and if that's not enough you have difficulty levels that you can knock back a notch if you just want to bash aliens senselessly.

In any case Dead Space is a survival horror game set in a well rendered 3D environment of the hull of a massive futuristic space mining facility.  You play an engineer sent with a full military outfit to respond to a maintenance distress call from the space mining vessel which apparently is suffering from a massive power failure.  On top of it all there's a cute blond somewhere aboard the mining vessel waiting for you who appears to be frantic from the happenings aboard her ship.  The opening cut scene which appears to be seamlessly rendered with in the game environment explains that your ship has had a rude awakening and is also now stranded on the derelict mining vessel.  It does not take too much time to realize that something is terribly wrong aboard.  Most of the space mining vessel's crew is decimated brutally by an alien infestation that wanders the silent corridors and vents of the vessel's bulkheads; furthermore, your military outfit is reduced to you, a computer hacker, and a gun-ho military man in charge.

The controls are relatively easy to master.  Other than the fact you can't jump in the game the controls are your basic ASWD FPS action.  There are various other controls which toggle secondary functions of equipment and weapons and SPACE is actually mapped to stomp on stuff under foot (very important when conserving ammo in this game).  Weapons must be aimed with while holding the right button and fire by pressing the left hand simultaneously with the right.  A sole mouse left click will swing your character's held weapon as a melee device.  The character inventory (very key to a good RPG experience) is actually integrated as a projected display from your character's environment suit and various indicators such as life points, remaining ammo, and secondary device energy are indicated as integrated displays on the suit as well.  These details add to the game's overall emmersiveness and also allow for an easy learning curve to the game's interface.

The story is a mash up of various popular sci-fi horror stories that focus on making players feel the claustrophobic tight spaces and hopelessness one would feel in the reaches of deep space.  On top of it all are the cheesy formulaic character conflicts and relationships that are as well borrowed from the genre.  But if you can tolerate the throwbacks to pop sci-fi the game is fun and just challenging enough (even on easy) to warrant its $20 price tag on Steam.