By Tanner Linares
Make us whole again, Isaac.
The original Dead Space, to this day, remains
one of the best survival horror games of all time. In a similar vein, the original
Resident Evil, to this day, remains one of the best survival horror
games of all time. Both are quite influential to the genre, of course, but the
two games now have another thing in common: in both cases, I doubt I’ll ever
replay the original again. With Resident Evil, the 2002 remake improves
on the original in every single way. Better voice acting, much better graphics
(which still hold up shockingly well today!), a better story, and expanded
with new content. In neither case do the remakes simply copy and paste the
original and toss a new coat of paint on, but they don’t take anything away,
either. It’s a clever formula of repeating everything but improving it, and
then still adding more.
The unsettlingly industrial atmosphere of the
USG Ishimura returns here, just as horrific and terrifying as ever. No turn of
its many cramped corners feels safe, and in the twelve hours it took for me to
complete my first run of this remake, at no point did the tension ever
alleviate. It doesn’t overstay its welcome nor does it end too soon. It ends,
just as it did before, with an incredible bang. All of what made the original
environment and monsters so unsettling returns in glorious, gory grandeur,
ready to tear you to pieces for daring to underestimate them.
For anybody who has played the original Dead
Space, the most significant change to the game will be noticeable from the moment
the game begins: Isaac Clarke is now a human being. When Dead Space 2 launched
in 2011, it changed Isaac Clarke from a stoic, silent errand boy into a fleshed-out character in his own right. In a way, this felt almost jarring, but it
certainly created a more compelling protagonist for the player and story at
hand. This change is the beating, bloody heart of this remake. Rather than
simply being told what to do left and right, showing little to no reaction to the
numerous displays all over the distant, floating horror that is the Ishimura,
Isaac now clearly displays his engineering prowess. He devises solutions to
problems for himself, and he contributes greatly to the story overall. When characters
you get to know do end up passing, it feels like he actually cared about them.
No longer a passive observer, Isaac now proves why he should be the
protagonist of a story rather than simply a vehicle for the player to
experience a world. That’s not to say silent protagonists can’t work in other
games, but the original Dead Space often felt particularly awkward at
times as a result of it.
Isaac’s newfound voice is not the only significant
change in the story, however. Several other members of the supporting cast are
similarly fleshed out to varying degrees, but in all cases, it served to make
them feel more three-dimensional and more human. In the original game, Daniels
and Hammond’s contentious relationship appeared to stem from nowhere, simply existing
from the start of the game. While there is a sense of mild animosity early on,
now their relationship with one another unfolds in a way that feels natural and
earned, with Clarke no longer being a simple eavesdropper, but even playing
mediator at times to keep them focused on the dire tasks at hand.
Several incredible gameplay improvements have
been made as well, bringing the feel closer to the more refined sequel to the
original, but improving upon that as well. Zero-G play no longer feels as stiff
as it once did, and instead feels elegant and natural, never once feeling
bothersome or intrusive. My personal favorite change to the overall gameplay is
the complete lack of loading screens. The whole game from start to finish plays
out in one continuous shot, similar to Santa Monica Studios’ recent entries in
the God of War franchise, as well as Halo Infinite (though the
latter did feature a scant few loading screens throughout.) As with said God
of War titles, the only loading screens you will encounter will be upon your
(possibly numerous) deaths. Even the main menu plays out seamlessly, as it faintly
displays your most recently played save in the background before smoothly
panning the camera out and back into gameplay.
On the negative side of things, there is truly
not much I can say. The cover art is certainly nowhere near as good-looking as the iconic art from the original game's case. I experienced only a single technical hiccup throughout my
entire run of the game, which did cause a crash, but even when I continued the
game (which loaded incredibly fast) I had lost no progress. Personally, I never
quite got used to Isaac’s new face after being so used to the original for
fifteen years, but it’s not a bad change. My inability to get used to it is unsurprising,
given that throughout the game’s entire run, he only removes his helmet three
or four times for perhaps five minutes at most. The change in Impossible
difficulty to simply being a permadeath version of Hard mode is not quite to my
tastes, though perhaps others will be glad to not face a massively increased
jump in difficulty the way the original provided. One other small issue I have
is something I did not even notice until it was pointed out to me: in the
original game, if you wanted to save money, you had the choice of not
purchasing new suit upgrades as they were made available to you, and even
skipping some and buying later ones instead; however, in the remake, you must
purchase them in their intended order. It is a small gripe, though it does take
a bit away from player choice and risk/reward play that many players likely would
have enjoyed.
There are many clever risk/reward decisions quite a
few times throughout the story. Many times, players must divert the ship’s
power to various systems needed to make progress, but sometimes players are
given choices in how to do so. Early in the game, the player has the choice of
either turning off the lights and keeping the oxygen, or turning off the oxygen,
thus relying on oxygen tanks scattered throughout the area, but keeping the
lights on for full visibility. There are other examples, some of which involve
fans or fire, but it is a fun element to the game, one which, if anything, was
underutilized at times and could have been fleshed out a tad and appeared just
a few more times.
This remake adds new side missions which were
not present in the original. While there are only three side missions in the game,
each of them serves a solid purpose. Two of them serve to further flesh out the
story for some of the supporting cast members, and while I won’t spoil how they
go about doing so, I will say that they add to the immersion and story in such
a way that their absence would feel almost criminal now that they are here. The
other side quest rewards the player with wider access to optional areas, and in
a fun twist, doesn’t revoke that access when beginning a New Game+. None of the
side quests ever take you very far out of your way. In fact, for the most part,
I found I often progressed naturally in them through normal play while following
the main story simply because of my own explorative nature. The game does a
good job of letting the player know that they cannot progress certain
steps of side missions until later, preventing me from wandering around in
hopes of finding something that was yet unavailable to me. Only once in the
game did I find myself backtracking only for the sake of the side missions, and
this was largely self-inflicted as I had purposely waited until all of the side
missions’ steps were available at once before pursuing some of them. These side
missions are quite elegantly implemented into the overall experience and never
felt too distracting from the gory meat of the wider game.
While the original’s disgustingly beautiful
gore is of course a key aspect of what made it work so well, it is re-upped and
reinvigorated beautifully here. It was always incredibly satisfying to CUT OFF
THEIR LIMBS with my trusty Plasma Cutter, throw severed heads at enemies, and
wander the blood-soaked halls of the ship. While I used only the starting
weapon in my initial run, the other weapons proved to be just as satisfying in
my New Game+ run that I am currently working through as a result of the game’s
excellently high levels of replay value. You’ll likely never fully upgrade all
weapons without a few runs under your belt as a result of the resources made
available to you, and the final suit upgrade isn’t even available until you’re playing
in a New Game+. Most importantly though, a key alternate ending is only able to
be seen by gathering all of a new collectible, which can only be found on a New
Game+ playthrough.
On the whole, the Dead Space remake follows
the best possible formula for remaking a game. It cuts nothing from the original,
but improves upon just about all of it, without simply copying it exactly as it
was while adding to and improving the formula at nearly every opportunity. Thanks
to following the same formula that made the 2002 Resident Evil remake my
gold standard for how to properly remake a game for over twenty years, this now
will stand alongside it, firmly holding the high bar in place. Story, characters,
gameplay, and atmosphere are all retained, improved, and expanded in this
wonderful new version of Dead Space, making it the definitive choice for
anybody looking to finally play this classic. I doubt I’ll ever play the
original again.
“Bad, Good or Great?”
Great
This review can also be found on Vocal at this link.
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