Warning. Massive, complete and total spoilers to follow. If you have not played both Dead Space games and seen both movies, prepare to be spoiled. Seriously, you've been warned.
Dead Space is a game I hold very dear to my heart. I still count the first one among the best action-tinged survival horror, above Resi 4 but under AvP 2, and the second one made some interesting innovations to the formula whilst still retaining it's heart and soul. And now, with the announcement of the third entry, I'm noticing a lot of outcry. So about here is where you're expecting me to lend my voice to the fury, right? Well, I hate to disappoint but I'm going to present my own view here, completely contradictory to the angry mob.
I am very excited for Dead Space 3.
Let me riff a little on the essence of horror. Horror comes in three forms: the self, the uncanny and the other. The original Dead Space focuses brilliantly on all three of these. Horror of the self is mainly based on two things: The Shadow, which is the Jungian term for the area between what we believe ourselves to be and what we truly are; and our secret shames or desire. Dead Space's antagonists, the Necromorphs, are a personification of The Shadow, a culmination of everything base in humanity. Our need to feed, to procreate, to kill. Their appearance however falls into the category of the Uncanny. The Uncanny is something that looks almost how we would expect, but somehow isn't quite right. It's most effective when applied to the human being as we have such a good idea of what a human should look like. It's why someone with a funny eye, or an amputee, can freak us out so much. Necromorphs often times look like us. The poor sap melted into the wall is especially Uncanny. And finally, the location of space, and a spacecraft and planet, provides us with The Other. The great fear of the Unknown. There is a lot of synchronicity between Dead Space and the Alien franchise. Both the game and movie began on a spaceship and thrived on claustrophobia and a feeling of helplessness. Then the sequels subsequently went for a more action focus, realising a crucial thing: once you know what it is, it's not scary anymore. Sure, Dead Space still had the power of the Uncanny and the Shadow, but we've grown used to it now. Even the few new enemy types can't shake us that much. So what do we do once we're not afraid of the big bad anymore? Kill it. Kill lots of it. Dead Space 2 tried to work in more psychological horror, but for the most part failed with a much less subtle approach than it's predecessor. Insanity isn't effective if we know we're insane. The revelation of Nicole being a vision from the Marker at the end of the first game was so effective because we, like Isaac, we were so certain she was real that we felt just as shaken as he was afterwards. I remember when I first saw the trailer, a part of me really hoped that the whole "necromorph invasion" in the game would actually be a psychotic break by Isaac and he ends up destroying everyone on the station before killing himself. That's just how I would've done it, but I was riding on a crazy high from the deeply unsettling Penumbra: Black Plague at that stage. Man, you ever want to experience true insanity from a first person perspective, play that game. You never know what is real and what is not.
So now we come to Dead Space 3. Isaac is back, and this time he brought a friend. Countless games before (i'm looking at you Resi 5 and you FEAR 3) that playing horror games with a friend is not scary at all. But Dead Space 3 is not a horror game. It's a TPS with some freaky monsters to kill. It's time to get even and I say bring it on. Necromorphs aren't scary anymore, we know everything there is to know about them. WE know what they are, we know where they come from, we know how to kill them. So let us kill them. Once and for all. I also like the fact that we can finally take the fight to those Unitologist bastards, the true monsters of the Dead Space universe. I hope the series continues after 3, but not with Isaac, and hopefully not with the necromorphs. Visceral Games have created such a unique and interesting universe, filled with so much untapped potential. I'm excited for Dead Space 3, but most of all, I'm excited for what is to come afterwards, for Dead Space's "Prometheus".
Altman be praised.
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