Slowly I make my way down the hallway; straining my neck with each step forward to make out what might be hiding in a nook or cranny. Frantically spinning around to make sure nothing is behind me every few seconds... I'm scared shitless. Every corridor would be the same cramped dark metal tunnel if not for the horrific carnage and strange symbols left behind by some diabolic interior decorator. As I round the corner, a figure stands there casually eyeballing me. Raising my plasma cutter, I for some reason, hesitate to shoot. No tentacles. No slashers. No erratic movement. No hostility. It appears to genuinely be human - at this point I'm not really sure.

The figure remains eerily still as I approach. Callously turning its heads back towards whatever it was working on before I "disturbed" him. Peering past him I can finally see he is not alone. Laying on a hospital gurney is another "survivor." The same blank look is on his face while his friend performs surgery on him. Surgery isn't the right word though. Butchery is more appropriate. The "patient" shows no desire to fight back or try and get away on his one remaining leg. He has no impulse to scream in agony as he is cut into. Perfectly content to be rent asunder.


I'm not ashamed to say it: Dead Space freaks me the hell out. I played it entirely at night and always alone, but I don't think it would have mattered. The creatures and nightmarish visions aren't what plagues me. I'm thoroughly numbed to images of dead babies that sprout tentacles. Desensitized to dismembered limbs floating in zero gravity and mutilated corpses shambling around.

Its the tension that gets to me.

The feeling of being out of control and constantly in "fight or flight" mode, never reaching that point where you can take on the world or dismiss a creature as trivial. Always being on your toes lest you be rent asunder by hideous creatures that want you to join their ranks. I had to stop playing Dead Space several times. One time I threw in Halo 3: ODST and played it through on Legendary (no small feat) for a bit of tension relief.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no flimsy wristed, fruit cup. I've mowed down lickers in Raccoon City. Witnessed Pyramid Head raping demons. Jumped a little as hounds burst through a window in Resident Evil. I've even run from Scissorman in Clock Tower and been stalked by mannequins in Condemned. Hell I endured the nightmare that is the marine portion of Alien vs. Predator 2.

For those not familiar, Dead Space is an action/adventure game more aptly described as a third person survival horror, set on a spaceship deep in the vast unexplored reaches of space. You play as Isaac, an engineer who is headed to the USG Ishimura alongside a military team to answer a distress signal coming from the now dark ship. Within the first few minutes of the game, the entire team is slaughtered by alien creatures called Necromorphs.

There's basically two kinds of Necromorphs, as the game will eventually explain. Those that create new Necromorphs from dead bodies and those that create more dead bodies by killing every damn thing in sight. Don't mistake them for zombies either. Zombies are slow. Zombies die to head shots. Zombies are dumb. These are none of the above.

The GUI is minimal as your life bar, ammo levels, etc. are incorporated into your suit's design. This intriguing design element helps you to really immerse yourself into the extremely dark environment. Further escalating you is an eerie ambient-only soundtrack that heightens the mood created by dark, yet vividly horrific graphics. The graphics are definitely the star, as they blend the cold environment of a spaceship with insane levels of gore and destruction.


The story may not be brilliant and the protagonist is pretty much a silent errand boy that willingly jumps into hell time & time again. However, the background story and mythos crafted throughout the game really shine. The plot however does a really good job of constantly keeping you somewhere between scared shitless and uncomfortably tense.

That's the problem. Even at rest you feel uncomfortable. I had to take breaks and stop playing it fairly frequently. I couldn't take the constant deaths and struggle to play through it on the hard difficulty like I normally could. I can't really recall any super scary moments. Just an overall feeling of unrest. A feeling that you never really shake while playing the game.

I'm recalled of an incident in college where I went to a haunted house. One of my friend's girlfriend was so scared that she ran through the whole thing. She refused to look at anything and thus evaded almost every actual scare despite being scared shitless the entire time. I felt like becoming her at times while playing Dead Space. In one stage, I was so tensed out and in need of a break that I just ran through the last few rooms of it to get the hell out. Normally that strategy just doesn't work.

At no point did I feel at ease or like a God. All enemies were deadly, whether encountered for the first or hundredth time. There is no falling back as I pulled off head shot after head shot. Head shotting a Necromorph just results in a headless Necromorph chasing you. Running away just results in the Necromorphs crawling into vents and dropping on top of you or blocking your escape. You pretty much have to kill them.


Better news yet, the only way to kill Necromorphs is to systematically dismember each and every one in a specific fashion. Sure you can knock off their heads, but that just hurts 'em a little. Drop its legs and it might slow down to a crawl or decide to launch deadly objects at you. To really kill them you have to take down their arms, tentacles, exposed organs, legs. Whatever it takes. There is no planting a clip center mass and expecting death. No single bullet head shot FTW. Miss enough or waste ammo hitting solid flesh and you will find yourself always on that last mag before inevitable death. Just make sure you don't shoot certain Necromorphs in certain places or it'll just become all the more deadly.

If you're not pissing your pants because of the Necromporphs, it is due to the environment. I'm not talking about creepy level designs filled with corpses and gore. I'm talking cramped spaces with very little room to run that happen to be very poorly lit. Large open rooms are far and few between. There are no pretty battlefields to trollop across. Sure there is an outside. It just happens to be a giant vacuum of emptiness called space. You only have a limited amount of oxygen before you die when you're "outside" or in an area where "outside" forced itself inside. "Outside" in Dead Space sucks.


I'm not here to review Dead Space two years after it came out though or discuss its merit as a game (even if it happens to be a solid 9.0). I'm simply here to say its the scariest damn game I've ever played.

Before Dead Space, I never had to stop playing a game because I was too tense. I mean, I've seen somewhere in the area of thousand horror movies, played most every survival horror game out there, yet this game pushed all the right buttons. It got to the point where I found myself in need of turning the game off to relax.

No, I never really jumped like I did in some other game's pivotal moments. But, I've never been so thoroughly disquieted while playing a game or watching a movie ever. Yet, I never see this game on lists for the scariest game ever. What's the deal? I can't be the only one who finds this to be the absolute overall scariest game ever.

Let me know what you think. If you've never played it and can stomach tense/scary games, pick up a copy, by all means. You should easily be able to find a copy for $10-$20 on the Xbox360, PlayStation 3, or PC. Its the perfect time killer for those waiting for BioShock 2 or Final Fantasy XIII.

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