17 Minutes in the Void with Dead Space 3
If you have a fraction of an hour to spare and don’t mind the horrifically macabre, you absolutely have to check out this gameplay footage from next year’s Dead Space 3. Hosted by the game’s Creative Director and Senior Audio Artist, we’re given a backseat view of famed space engineer Isaac Clarke’s latest trek through the bowels of hell.
Focusing on the single-player version of the campaign (which alters to accommodate a co-op character in the storyline), the “Eudora Demo” covers familiar ground for the series – isolation, heavy, deliberate strokes of shadow, and brutal, unforgiving enemies. What has been upped is the game’s sense of scope. Environments – in this case a wrecked space station – are dauntingly large and have this certain aesthetic that not only makes them feel once lived in, but makes you feel the oppressive force of death that has overtaken the empty, creaking hull.
To quote a time-tested institution of my childhood: Viewers beware, you’re in for a scare. (Or not, I just very much needed to say that.)