Dead Space Remake, the preview – Nerd4.life

Electronic Arts showed us in Dead Space preview, the remake of a survival horror that in 2008 left an indelible mark in the memories of horror and science fiction fans. The graphics have been rebuilt with the Frostbite Engine, the sound is greatly enhanced and the adventure enriched with several new surprises, fortunately the gameplay has remained the same as fourteen years ago …

Space gameplay

And it’s great to come back today, as publishers slowly realize that taking all forms of complexity out of video games is starting to become counterproductive. The best thing about this Dead Space Remake is his own be a 2008 gamedesigned and built without fear of frightening users too much either through the actual action or with too elaborate puzzles, or a level design that is not satisfied with two corridors placed on the cross. Mind you: complex does not necessarily mean difficult.

Dead Space had its own difficulty levels, but even choosing the easiest mode the game never treated you like an idiot, remaining fulfilling and in its own way. delightfully tortuous. Dead Space, the original like this remake, prefers to think that if you started it it is because you are also willing to play with it, you have not taken the pad in your hand because you are bored or you have thirty minutes to throw away. But if you raise that level of difficulty …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivSgl-OOEI

Dead Space can become a real nightmare. The enemies of the game are the necromorphs, aberrant creatures who live the bodies of the dead by crippling and reinventing their forms, a bit like what happened in John Carpenter’s unforgettable The Thing. Of necromorphs there is one everywhere, while Isaac Clarke is only one, and he is not even a warrior, a soldier, a policeman; he does not even have suitable weapons, indeed this poor devil does not even have one and is forced to use mainly his mining equipment. But it would have been much worse for a cook: Isaac’s tools are in fact designed to carve rocks and precious stones, getting along quite well even with the skinned bones of the necromorphs that we can minutely mutilate until they are no longer a threat.

In this remake, the developers entrusted part of the direction to an AI that will regulate the intensity of what we encounter on our way revolutionizing the atmosphere of the game in real time, for example by acting on the lights, sound and fighting, as well as changing the type and number of necromorphs that will wait for us along the way.

Welcome to the Ishimura

This occurs mainly inside the station Ishimuranow totally at the mercy of this catastrophic alien infection. The structure’s pipes hiss hiss, lights come and go, many of the vital systems are out of order and will need to be reactivated throughout history.

The work done by EA reasons is commendable: the details have increased dramatically, but the character of the setting has remained unchanged. It is as if the game has always been like this, but this is certainly not the case and a quick review is enough to realize it.

In the remake, the Ishimura is a continuous, load-free environmentwhile the whole adventure will proceed in a single sequence shot. To make the game better, at least hopefully, new rooms, new passages, new secrets have been added and the lore multiplied through new documents and an enhanced environmental narrative. There will also be new dialogues and Isaac Clarke will return to speak exactly as it did in the second and third installments of Dead Space. New weapons have been introduced and, as already told during the first wave of information, the necromorphs are now made up of several layers of flesh, muscle and bone that will realistically and progressively give way under our blows.

Faithful to the end?

Dead Space Remake seems to keep faith with the promise of making current, without distorting it, a game that has now become a classic in all respects. The graphic aspect of this remake has a unique strength, but despite having been rebuilt with a new engine they remain somewhat dated elementslike some NPCs. The sound, which is as important here as polygons and textures, has all the credentials to increase the volume of immersion, and above all of fear, beyond the emergency threshold.

Starting from a quality game like Dead Space has certainly helped the developers of this remake, but the work done should not be underestimated. What we need to understand, and we can only do it with the full game in hand, is whether the more delicate changes, especially those concerning the balance of difficulty, will be able to preserve theessence of the original game. It would indeed be a disaster to restore Dead Space so well on the technical side, just to tame its challenge, the strategic depth of its peculiar battles.