How Dead Space's Scariest Scene Almost Killed the Game | War Stories | Ars Technica reddit

As movies like Event Horizon and Supernova have shown, dumping monsters into a spaceship isn't an automatic recipe for effective horror. The setting is only part of what makes Dead Spaceso scary. It's also an impressive contribution to the sci-fi horror genre in general, better than most Hollywood attempts, with a surprisingly decent storyline and art direction that's as painstaking as it is disturbing. If invoking terror in the player is the primary goal of any survival horror game-such as the long-running Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises-then Dead Space is a rousing success. The challenge is to keep your cool and surgically disassemble your targets, even as the sound of pincers squealing on metal means that more of these things are coming.

Severing a leg will slow them, but some will keep scrambling across the floor at you. Maybe their brain is distributed throughout the body, or perhaps they don't have brains at all. One or two shots will carve off a target's limb, but the hallowed, universal anti-zombie tactic-aim for the brain-is useless against these creatures.

The weapon you're using is not a gun, but more of a futuristic cross between a nailgun and a reciprocating saw. Like him, you are not a space marine, which is a problem, considering the number of mutated, corpse-like horrors sprinting down the corridor at you. There are two things you have in common with Isaac Clarke, the hero of the new game Dead Space (available for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360).

How Dead Space's Scariest Scene Almost Killed the Game | War Stories | Ars Technica reddit