First off, a couple of things. For the first handful of chapters, I filmed a second playthrough since I only decided to actually film everything after I had started and I did not want to (initially) start over despite that is essentially what I actually did. So the first four chapters are from my second game file while the rest of the game is footage from just my first game file. I wanted to bring that up because one, it is very obvious since I did practically no editing on these videos, and two, there might be someone out there actually counting how many credits and power nodes I am picking up in the first four chapters, and that it will likely be off once Chapter 5 starts when I go back to using the recordings from my primary game file.
CHAPTER 1: HONORABLE INTENTIONS
How about that intro with the fly-through around the Sprawl to the seamless transition to gameplay!? One of the things I love doing in the Dead Space games is coming across and reading or listening to things happening to other people. Reading people's diary entries, emails, medical notes, or just writing on walls and tables helps to make the world feel real and lived in, rather than a pristine environment. I also love that you are playing as a member of the Church of Unitology, which I find to be a unique perspective, especially in this series.
I feel that this first chapter did a great job introducing a lot of the mechanics that you need to play the game, especially if it is a player playing a third-person survival horror game on a touch-screen mobile device for the first time. Starting out very slow with simple tasks to get you used to the touch screen controls is a smart way to go, as well as the frequent banter between Tyler and Vandal to show this new relationship and what to expect to some extent for the rest of the game. That being said, I think that there should have been some kind of tweak for the touch controls when it comes to clicking on anything in the in-game world or firing off your kinesis beam and not accidentally firing off a round, but I will bring that up in later chapters.
I like that the combat here is held off until the end of the stage, but here, the necromorphs just keep respawning, something I believe is a first in the series up to this point. You could hypothetically run around the room killing necromorphs as they respawn infinitely or until you made enough mistakes that you died. I know that from a game design standpoint, using the lit-up hallway is supposed to direct your attention past the respawning necromorphs, and maybe being a veteran of the series and knowing how lockdowns in this series playout ended up having a negative effect of thinking I knew what to expect and anticipate how the game operated.
CHAPTER 2: EXIT WOUNDS
I love, love, love this chapter as it does just a handful of things in regards to sanity effects that I love to see in video games where there is a question as to the mental stability of the playable character.
First off, there is the reflection of Vandal in the glass pane that could be chalked up to just a strange light/reflection distortion. I don't know, it's science fiction, there could be some bending of light and reflection that creates this type of reflection on a windowed surface using a type of material we just haven't invented yet. Or it could be the first sign that the Marker is having an effect on Vandal's mind. It is subtle (subtle for Dead Space mind you) that could even be missed if the player is moving quickly (quickly for Dead Space) and doesn't register the reflection.
Then, if you decide to use a Power Node in the node slot to enter the storage room a little earlier in the stage, you are eventually greeted with not only more credits and another Power Node, but your first of many gory visual hallucinations. I definitely missed this room the first time I went through the game (and the first time on this playthrough series), so I was glad that I experienced this on my second playthrough. Maybe it wasn't a hallucination at all but a premonition instead since you do end up seeing "Infidel" written in blood later on in the game. Or maybe the room really was filled with body parts and bloody writing but Vandal's brain was blocking it out?
This is why I love what IronMonkey did for this game. The game gives you a moment to take in the blindingly white room and the fact that it is essentially a large closet with not enough room to maneuver much only amplifies the claustrophobic feeling when the room suddenly is filled with body parts and blood splattered all over the walls. What's great too is that the room does not go completely dark, with the blue light along the walls and storage boxes all remaining illuminated the entire time is a great effect.
And then there is the highlight of this chapter, which I feel is only somewhat spoiled by the pop-up text of "Escape the room..." before you have time to take in the room itself. There is not even time for you to turn around to find that the door is no longer present. But how the game starts adding assets to the room when you reach specific locations and only reveals them after you turn around without any kind of additional aural clue like a splatter or "chunk" sound, or visual indication like the lights turning off or there being a flash is just. . .I cannot really describe how much I love that type of effect. But! Once you kill the last necromorph, there is that darkening of the lights momentarily and when they turn back on, Vandal finds themselves outside of the room they were just in.
What I love about this particular instance, is that it calls into question what Vandal was actually doing for the nearly two minutes they thought they were in the room fighting off necromorphs in a room with no exits. Were they just standing there at the entrance to the room, staring blankly? Were they actually just moving back and forth in the hallway firing their plasma cutter at nothing? Because you do use up ammunition in that sequence so they must have been using up ammo somehow. In the moment it is a bit disorienting, but when you are playing, you just as quickly move from this onto then to locate the lift down to the lower sector like you are prompted, but it is only later when thinking about what actually happened, that is where a large portion of my love for this game comes from. The post-game introspection.
So those are the first two chapters in Dead Space (Mobile) and as good of a pair of introductory chapters as you could ask for. Neither chapter is overly long so you do not feel overwhelmed by the game, and it gives you plenty of time to breathe, especially if you are only playing one chapter at a time. I am sure that the challenge could have been upped on a higher difficulty setting on a subsequent playthrough (we will get to that in later chapters), but I am only looking for a fun survival horror game, not a punishing one, especially with touchy touch-screen controls.
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