Dead Space

[MarketTantrik]

DEAD SPACE

 

Developer : EA Redwood Shores

Publisher : Electronic Arts

Designer : Glen Schofield, Bret Robbins

Engine : Unreal Engine 3

Platform : Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC

Release date : N/A

Genre : Third-person shooter, Survival horror

 

Synopsis

Dead Space is a science fiction survival horror Third-person shooter video game, being developed by EA Redwood Shores. It will be released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. The game is being developed on Unreal Engine 3.

 

Plot

Your company receives a distress call from the USG Ishimura, a “Planet Cracker” class ship that takes dead planets, and destroys them to extract valuable ore for the company. In the assumption that the ship has had a mechanical failure, Isaac gathers coworkers Lt. Zach Hammond, security officer, and Kendra Daniels, local Tech specialist. As you set out to meet with the ship upon the cruiser class Kellion, you soon realize that this is no ordinary distress call. In the classic sci-fi manner, you soon find that the ship has been over ran by a mysterious alien race. After boarding the ship, you are separated from your party and this routine check, becomes a race for your life. You're trying to learn what went wrong, perhaps to come to grips with your own fate. Of course, the alien infestation factor becomes clear early on when you see a hovering yellow space slug barf white puss into the mouth of a screaming soldier who melts under the corrosive fluid into a deformed, deranged alien beast. Then, when the melted, slimy ex-man shambles toward you, quivering with tentacles and cannibalistic intent, the survival half of the horror kicks into the game. You level your weapon--an energy-based mining tool--and fire at the beast, decapitating it instantly. Except the beast is still coming, but its head isn't its head anymore. It lunges and wraps itself around you, biting into your neck with a toothy maw protruding from where its heart used to be in its chest. You struggle, your blood spurts into free space, and you beat the beast back. After that, you take aim to slice off an arm, then a leg, causing it to flop onto the ground and drag itself toward you, one claw at a time. You've heard of death by dismemberment, but what about survival? Your only hope, as you make your way about repairing the ship, is to cut the creatures up before they make you one of them.

 

Characters

 

Isaac Clarke

 

A space engineer who works for the Concordance Extraction Corporation (C.E.C), fixing "giant mining ships". He's not like Master Chief from Halo because if you put Master Chief in a horror game, you’re not going to be that scared. He can take on hordes of aliens. The creators wanted Isaac to look cool, but at the same time, maybe you’re not all that safe. He’s vulnerable.”

 

Weapons,armor, and abilities

 

Plasma Cutter: One of the mining tools that Clarke uses. Works great on most enemies for severing heads, arms, legs and the like. However, dismembering certain villains will cause interesting results. Like cutting the leg off of one creature may disable it, while doing the same to another, will cause it to adapt, running on all three toward you. In some cases, by cutting off the head, instead of getting an instant kill, an alien like figure pops out of the neck and latches on to Isaac. Another enemy the "pregnant," will let loose a horde of bat-like creatures from its belly to attack you if hit.

 

Stasis Gun: Can slow time, but only for the object you have targeted, not the whole game

 

Isaac's suit: Clarke's suit is rather interesting, because it's more than just a futuristic space suit. It ties itself into the ship's network and automatically updates him with surrounding information, such as item details, holographic video transmissions and computer stations. It also tracks Isaac's health with a highlighted energy bar that runs along his spine, keeping players in the action of the game without having to pause and access a menu screen. The suit also comes with its own air supply, which will be key for sections of the ship that have decompressed, and gravity boots, which will keep Clarke attached to the hull or other sections of the ship.

 

Item Modification: Clarke will also be able to take his engineering skill and modify his acquired arsenal with extra equipment to be more powerful in battle. For instance, he will modify items to create a kinetic movement gun as well as an item that places an opponent in a temporary stasis field.

 

Kinesis: Kinesis is another unique feature that allows you to pick up and or throw objects in your surroundings. When running low on ammo, it is a great power to have as you can pick up fallen foe and use them as weapons towards the oncoming enemies.

 

Necromorphs

 

An alien race that inhabits the human body. Once in, the body becomes distorted, and mutated. The alien can infect others. The main way of killing them is dismemberment. However, dismembering certain villains will cause interesting results. Like cutting the leg off of one creature may disable it, while doing the same to another, will cause it to adapt, running on all three toward you. In some cases, by cutting off the head, instead of getting an instant kill, an alien like figure pops out of the neck and latches on to Isaac. Another enemy the "pregnant," will let loose a horde of bat-like creatures from its belly to attack you if hit.

 

Inspiration

 

The developers drew inspiration from many different games, movies, and people, up to and including the films Event Horizon, Alien, and The Thing, as well as from videogames like the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series. David Fincher's visual style was also mentioned as a source of inspiration.

[MarketTantrik]

EA won't "gimp" 360 Dead Space despite tough PS3 dev

By Wesley Yin-Poole

 

From Videogamer.com

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EA Redwood Shores will "optimise the crap" out of the PS3 version of upcoming sci-fi survival horror game to make it great.

 

The executive producer of EA's new sci-fi horror game Dead Space has told VideoGamer.com that the development team won't "gimp" the 360 version because the "PS3 can't do it".

 

Speaking at an event in London today, where we got some hands-on time with what's looking like one of 2008's most interesting new IPs, Glen Schofield said that currently the development team is leading on the 360, but will switch to the PS3 in a "month or two".

 

He stressed that both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 versions of the game will "be the same" when it's eventually released, planned for late 2008.

 

Dead Space, set for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, is a gory sci-fi survival horror game which sees engineer Isaac Clarke battling against a horde of mysterious aliens who have infested a huge ship. It is one of a number of brand new games from EA planned for 2008 and beyond.

 

Numerous EA Sports games have faced criticism from PS3 owners who have suffered poor quality ports of games like Madden, with frame rate issues the chief culprit.

 

When asked how the Dead Space team was finding multi-platform development, Schofield responded: "Difficult."

 

He added: "Right now we're leading and building and doing everything on the 360. Pretty soon in a month or two we will switch and lead on the PS3. That is so that you're not downgrading the PS3 later. We're putting all our engineering muscle into making the PS3 great, and then we'll know that the 360 will be great."

 

However, when asked if there will be any differences between the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, Schofield said: "The plan has to be, and it will be, on parity with the 360."

 

He said: "Sony has seen the game so they know that that's what they want out of us. But I can absolutely assure you that the PS3 and the 360 will be the same. We're not going to gimp the 360 because the PS3 can't do it. We're going to optimise the crap out of it and make the PS3 really good, sort of like Burnout."

 

On the issues surrounding PS3 development, Schofield said: "I'm from an artist background. But from a developer point of view it's called the Fill Rate. It (the PS3) can't handle the physics as well. I mean it can, you just have to get at it. Just more and more engineering. Special effects are tough. It's a beautiful machine and it is very powerful. It's just it's not as easy to develop for right now.

 

"What happened was the 360 came out a year ahead, so we started developing early on it. Then all of a sudden it was the lead SKU. So it won for two years. For two years it was the one we were just working on. And so our knowledge base is around that. Now you see the tide is starting to turn especially in Europe. So it's really just engineering catching up with it."

_____________________________________________________________________

 

I fail to see the relation between fill rate and physics.

 

Do you think developers "gimp" Xbox 360 versions of multi-platform games because of the PS3?

 

--MT

[reaper]

[MarketTantrik]

CVG previews Dead Space

 

From CVG

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Survival Horror press events are as predictable as sunrise. A handful of journalists are huddled into a bus, then taken to a 'secret' location. There after they'll ride a 'spooky' dark elevator down to a shady basement, full of PR execs dressed as spacemen and grating that looks like it's been ripped straight off the GamesMaster set.

 

With its first foray into the genre, Dead Space, EA has thankfully noticed that survival horror games are getting a bit by-the-numbers.

 

OK, it's not exactly going to re-write the genre with a spaceman shooting hordes of hideous alien critters, but on actually playing it we were please to discover it's shaking things up in more ways than one.

 

The premise is familiar to any fan of horror flicks or scary games; you play as Isaac Clarke, your regular circa-year 2500 space engineer who's been called out (with a small security team) to investigate a gigantic mining frigate that's lost contact with Earth.

 

Predictably, when Isaac's shuttle reaches the frigate he discovers that the problem is more than just a dodgy satellite dish. In its mission to harvest a dead planet of its resources, the frigate stowed aboard a violent alien parasite that's infected the 1000-strong crew, using them as its hideous mutating hosts. It's a bit like Event Horizon meets Red Dwarf. But better than that.

 

It's not the most original set-up in the world but its obvious right from the off how EA has taken genuine consideration in how the world is presented and feels.

 

When you first pick up the pad the suited-up main character feels weighty and, surprisingly, very unlike a faceless game character in a suit.

 

Part of the reason for this is EA's extensive focus testing on how to make Isaac a "human" character. What we're left with is a ballet of decent design and animation work that gives off the impression of a fragile bloke under the helmet (he's NOT Master Chief).

 

Issac will react to noises in the scenery, batter off and flinch at pursuing monsters and pant as if he's genuinely knackered. The focus testing must've worked, because we quite like him.

 

At first the immersive set-up can be disorientating. There's no HUD; no aiming cursor and the field of view is so tight you can almost smell the brass polish on the back of Isaac's skid lid.

 

This makes for a very up-close, in-your-face experience and in the classic survival horror tradition you're not the most manoeuvrable of space engineers either.

 

Isaac is sluggish when it comes to moving. It takes a while to turn him around making it easy for enemies to pull a swift one from behind. It's a solid and well-tailored system guaranteed to send chills down your spine - though that might've been the "spooky" smoke machine EA rigged up behind us.

 

Searching the halls of the abandoned and blood-splattered space frigate is a trouble-less process. Console and door holograms pop-up and are instantly visible so it's easy to see what you're supposed to be up to.

 

The in-game displays are part of a wider idea to make everything the player does an activity. In Resident Evil when the going gets tough you can simply pull up the inventory menu and have a breather, but not in Dead Space.

 

Menu-wise, everything is displayed in-game; if you want to have a browse through your inventory to boost your health, you'll have to do it through a hologram projected in front of your face.

 

This way, if the hordes of screaming monsters get too much for you, the only way you're going to be able to calm down is by finding a quiet room. If you need to boost your health during a fight you'd better do it quick. This system keeps you in the game all the time and looks bloody cool.

 

The development version we played had a pause function assigned to the start button, like every other game. But EA says it's unsure whether that will make it to the final game. We're hoping, after all this effort, they take it out.

 

Pacing has obviously been of some concern. In one room you'll activate a console, see a creature run off down a corridor and then progress onto the next room to find nothing. In another situation you'll enter a room that's purely there to be unsettling; bangs and screeches (not the one from Saved By the Bell) in the dark and revolting organic puddles pulsating.

 

With the left trigger (we were playing on 360) you can hold up your weapon. To start off you've got a pistol with a blue laser sight as you stroll through the ship comfortably looking at the great shadows in the process.

 

Although EA's trying not to chuck in all the clichés of the genre, eventually something does jump out of the shadows; and it's ugly.

 

Dead Space's monsters look less like zombies than a bloke who's been folded in half and then infected and grown. A bit like the creatures in The Thing but with even more flailing limbs.

 

They're not quite as unsettling as the monstrosities you'd find in Silent Hill but they're certainly fun to shoot. They'll swing and claw and you at you with any number of bloody tentacles but a single shot from most of Dead Space's unique guns will take a limb right off.

 

Aiming is tricky at first because of the lack of any kind of cursor. You need to get used to tracking the laser sight of your weapon onto the required target - especially with bigger guns that shoot up to three projectiles at once.

 

But whether it's an arm, head or claw, they'll keep on coming. Take their heads off and they'll swing around madly. Take a leg off and the disturbing critters of the frigate will keep on crawling towards you. This is when you tap the right trigger to smack them with one of many unique and violent melee attacks. Yes you can stomp on heads. It's a violent game, this one.

 

Thanks to the physics engine the entire process of aiming, swinging your gun and blasting a creature across the floor feels weighty and satisfying. Scattered arms and legs roll around like snooker balls, try and lift a corpse and you'll lug it around like a piano.

 

Oh yeah, did we forget to mention you've got your own Half-Life-style Telekinesis device? Each gun can be use to pick up objects and lob them across the room and it feels a lot more weight-conscious than Valve's effort.

 

Not all shooting

This comes into use later on in our hands-on time when, along with another of your toys - the enemy time-slowing 'stasis' attack, we tackle a room where gravity has gone completely out the window (or is that port-hole?).

 

It's an impressive scene; bodies and bits of machinery float majestically around the Zero G chamber, where using our TK and Stasis toys we manage to stick giant plugs into erm, giant plug sockets. Not the scariest thing in the world, but it's a nice break from navigating dark corridors with our flashlight.

 

Jumping from wall to ceiling is a simple (if slightly head-spinning) process of pressing Y and literally diving across the room. Using the telekinesis gun you can then pluck useful objects like the odd grenade out of the air.

 

Naturally our little ballet scene is quickly ruined by the "clink clink" of six-armed freaks scattering across the walls. But it's a chance to try out a new gun yet to be seen outside of the dev team.

 

The unnamed gun is a nasty but brilliant gadget that wouldn't feel out of place in a late 90s Turok game. You shoot a spinning buzzsaw along a blue laser sight, cutting the faces and chests off of any stupid alien mutant that decides to get in the way.

 

One of the victims is a disgusting 'fat' monster that scatters spider babies when we rip him apart with our toy. EA's certainly put some effort into its enemy design.

 

Just when we thought our playtime had seen all there was to jump out of the shadows, a console in our chamber activates the air lock, and the oxygen is violently and loudly sucked out of the room... leaving us in complete, eerie silence.

 

If Dead Space gave us anything to take home, it was this awesome moment in the airless room. All you can hear is the breathing and beeping heart monitor inside Isaac's helmet.

 

The odd dim thud of machinery whisking past, and Isaac's feet connecting with the metal grating can be heard.

 

Scenes like this and the sheer amount of variety on display in just one level is encouraging. Let's just hope they can keep it up throughout the entire game. If they can, you're in store for some quality scares.

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[MarketTantrik]

TASTY SCREENIES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tyler]

I like the setting. And any game with the words "survival horror" attached to it immediately lights up a spark of interest in me...

[MarketTantrik]

It seems like the game has borrowed elements from Half-life, Bioshock, Prey and Event Horizon.

[Tyler]

Event Horizon... exactly what I was gonna say!

[SchizoidFreud]

Event Horizon... exactly what I was gonna say!

 

fk yea!! and not to mention, it also resembles a bit of doom 3..

[STICK3Rboy]

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/view.php?id=3678

 

EA Dead Space developers entertain eliminating pause button

 

Here's some free advice for gamers looking to score EA's space horror game Dead Space -- take care of any bathroom business BEFORE you pick up that controller.

 

In an innovative twist (or is that masochistic?), gaming site CVG discovered that EA developers working on the survival space horror title Dead Space are considering the idea of removing the pause button.

 

The move isn't finalized yet, but instead of allowing a player to stop the action and use a health pack, the developers have opted for a holographic menu system that is displayed in real-time on the player's in-game visor.

 

Basically, if things get hairy and you need a boost, you'll have to run like hell to a quiet, enemy-free room to do it. And, if you haven't figured it out already, the lack of a pause button also has real-world implications on activities like bathroom breaks and eating.

 

Put simply, this could literally be one of the first survival horror games that causes a player to soil himself. And to think, critics said there's no emotional attachment in video games!

[jackhammer06]

you are kidding me...no pause button??? :shock3: ....

[KnackChap]

wow ea's got some creative talent

[MarketTantrik]

Probably because the game can be finished in 83 minutes.

[Tyler]

Meh... there's always the Xbox Guide button...

[SchizoidFreud]

Dead Space Dated

 

 

If Event Horizon is one of your favorite flicks you should definitely keep an eye out for Dead Space, EA’s take on the whole "infinite space... infinite terror" aspect.

 

Unlike conventional survival horror games like Silent Hill, Dead Space is a lot more action oriented in the veins of Doom 3 and here’s a little heads up in case you have no clue as to what this game’s all about:

 

Dead Space is being developed as a single-player thriller that delivers the chilling, claustrophobic feeling of being isolated in a dark environment, while being stalked by some truly horrific enemies.

 

Dead Space will be released on the 31st of October 2008 for the PC, PS3 and Xbox360. Head over to the official site for more info.

[Tyler]

Unlike conventional survival horror games like Silent Hill, Dead Space is a lot more action oriented in the veins of Doom 3 and here’s a little heads up in case you have no clue as to what this game’s all about.

 

And that's supposed to be a good thing?

 

Silent Hill >>>>> Doom 3

 

Either way, I'm looking forward to this game. Let's hope it doesn't turn out to be another Clive Barker's Jericho...

[nash]

Jericho was an epic fail and for some reason this game just doesn't have me excited

[SchizoidFreud]

i had very high expectations from jericho after playing undying, too bad it sucked

[SchizoidFreud]

New Screenies! :-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have a next gen doom 3

[MarketTantrik]

No can see teh pixels