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Dead Space (video game): Difference between revisions
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[[Closed Circle|The game takes place in the Ishimura]], a spaceship of the Planet Cracker class, a series of ships which find mineral-rich planets and literally lift whole chunks of them into space for mining. During a mining excavation on a faraway planet, the miners discover a strange artifact of apparently alien origin. The artifact, dubbed the Marker, was apparently causing problems amongst the colonists who were working on the surface of the planet. Eventually, it's decided to transport the Marker to the Ishimura. [[It Got Worse|It did not end well.]]
Luckily (or not), a [[Distress Call]] managed to get sent, and a crew of (two) [[Space Marines]], led by Sergeant Zach Hammond, is sent to investigate. Along with him are two engineers, tasked with helping repair any damage done to the Ishimura that might have caused the distress call: systems engineer Kendra Daniels and [[The Engineer|mechanical/electronic engineer]] [[The Hero|Isaac]] [[Action Survivor|Clarke.]] Clarke also has a personal reason for undertaking the mission: his [[Damsel in Distress|girlfriend]] Nicole is part of the Ishimura's crew, and he fears for her safety.
What they find is the ostensive definition of [[Hell on Earth]] (or rather, {{smallcaps|[[In Space]]!}}): the crew of the ship has been annihilated by a series of creatures (dubbed Necromorphs by the Ishimura's scientists) who have [[The Virus|the ability to infect dead tissue to raise their numbers]]. This results in [[Zombie Apocalypse|zombie-like]] [[Body Horror|mutated monsters]] infesting the entire ship. Even worse is that there is apparently a cult called the Unitologists, who believe that the Marker is actually of divine origin. The name of the game is now not rescue, but survival: Isaac and the rest of the rescue team must now [[The Great Repair|find a way off the ship.]] Using his engineering skills and whatever [[Improvised Weapon|hastily-weaponized power tools]] he can find, Isaac must help his fellow survivors escape this hellish situation... [[Go Mad
Gameplay wise ''Dead Space'' shares a lot of similarities ''[[Resident Evil 4]]''. There is one button to aim and one button to fire; ammo, health, [[Apocalyptic Log|audio logs]], and money are found scattered about the Ishimura, but are in limited supply, so the player has to ration everything accordingly ([[Blatant Item Placement|though Isaac will almost always manage to find health on corpses when he really needs it]]); and there is a store where Isaac can buy ammo, new weapons, upgrades for his weapons, and upgrades for his suit, and store extra items cluttering up his inventory.
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* [[Absent Aliens]]: In the backstory, at least. Most of humankind believes this, seeing how they've spread into the galaxy and found absolutely nothing. Oh, how wrong they were!
* [[Action Commands]]: Mash "A" to escape enemies' clutches (or "X" or "E"...). Hard to tell if it is actually doing something unless you succeed in pushing the crazed creature away before it kills you.
* [[
** Though sometimes one has to wonder, what with all the Quarantine Lockdowns that trap you with a mob of Necromorphs, and how ''smug'' she sounded after that stunt with the tomato plant in Hydroponics...
** The only real human-built AI, named "CECL," only officially appears in the [[Alternate Reality Game]] "No Known Survivors" (though one of the recurring whispers you hear in the main Dead Space game is a recording of some of the things she says). CECL is a "Litigious Risk Computer" which can be consulted for survival/accident odds, or ''dating advice'' odds, and is even capable of simulating conversations between two people to a remarkable degree. During No Known Survivors' intermission, CECL speaks with rough disdain of the human need to have closure and "happy endings," but isn't really malevolent.
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* [[An Economy Is You]]: Semi-justified. The items available at the stores on board the ''Ishimura'' - futuristic power tools,<ref>Albeit ones stated by [[Word of God]] to have been illegally modified into weaponry by the crew in an attempt to fight off the Necromorphs</ref> ammunition for futuristic power tools, safety equipment suitable for using futuristic power tools, repair/upgrade supplies suitable for futuristic power tools, [[Healing Potion|futuristic first aid supplies]](which you would most likely need if you regularly use futuristic power tools) - are things you would expect from vending machines on board a futuristic mining ship, and just happen to be quite useful for surviving a [[Zombie Apocalypse]]. But it would have been more realistic for them to offer food, drinks, and toiletries as well.
** [[Fridge Brilliance|Maybe they do, but Isaac isn't really interested in those options, and skips over them, or tells his RIG to filter them out]].
* [[Another Man's Terror]]: You encounter a dying man who fought his way through the ship. He gives you a note and then dies. You have to finish what he started, scary beasts chasing you and all.
* [[Apocalyptic Log]]: Much of the story is told through logs left by the crew, but you learn most through the logs left by Acting Chief Engineer Jacob Temple and Doctor Elizabeth Cross, {{spoiler|[[Everybody's Dead, Dave|God rest their souls]]}}.
** The {{spoiler|opening transmission from Nicole}} is also an apocalyptic log, although you don't learn that until the end.
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** Also, the name of the ''Ishimura'' itself, which means "Rock-Village" in Japanese. Rather fitting for a mining ship.
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: You live, but {{spoiler|all of your companions are dead, as well as the people you knew on the ''Ishimura''. You find out that your girlfriend killed herself long before you arrived, and that you've been talking to a hallucination of her produced by the Marker - which, by the way, almost certainly drove you at least a little insane... And there's a sequel}}.
* {{spoiler|[[Black Dude Dies First]]: Of all the named characters who appear in the game, Hammond is the first one to die. That said, he manages to survive until about 4/5ths of the way through the game, and after he finally buys it most everyone else follows suit pretty quickly.}}
* [[Boom! Headshot!]]/[[Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain]]: Played straight and subverted. Shooting a Necromorph's head will kill it... if you've blown off at least one of its other limbs (or two, depending on what you're shooting). Shooting one in the head from the get-go, however, will only make it go berserk.
** However, after the head is removed, if you throw it or shoot it, it pops like a melon filled with firecrackers.
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* [[Cosmic Horror]]: When the game isn't freaking you out with body horror, it's freaking you out with H.P. Lovecraft's old standby.
* [[Critical Existence Failure]]: Averted. Isaac doesn't die until that last sliver of blue is gone, but he does increase his heart rate, breathing rate, and slump over while moving if badly injured. Also, while having no lasting side-effects, Isaac starts panting and gasping heavily with increasing intensity as his air reserves run out.
* [[Corridor Cubbyhole Run]]: Chapters 3 and 4. First, you have to run a circular through a now-active centrifuge to reach an elevator and leave the area, ducking into large niches in the walls when the arm goes past or being torn to shreds. In the next chapter, you have to run over the outside of the Ishimura and hide behind metal walls to avoid getting splattered by asteroid impacts. Made interesting as you are exposed to space in both cases, so if you take too long, you asphyxiate, while Chapter 3 also has Necromorphs pop up in each cubby.
* [[Continuous Decompression]]: Averted. When an airlock opens, the air will rush out in a second or so.
* [[Cutscene Power to the Max]]: The Necromorphs are ridiculously more powerful when they're not directly facing Isaac; they can one-shot anyone who happens to be behind at least one pane of unbreakable glass. It's also implied that a single Leaper somehow managed to destroy the ''Kellion'', and a single Slasher killed almost the entire crew of a fully-armed warship, then ''infected'' them despite that Slashers can't do this at any other point in the game.
* [[Dangerous Windows]]: The Ishimura doesn't have many windows. But it does have chest high vents that act the same way as windows for incoming monsters.
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* [[Finishing Stomp]]: A good idea when you're not quite sure whether that Necromorph in front of you is dead yet. Also a good idea when you're not quite sure whether there's an Infector nearby who might make a new Necromorph out of that human corpse in front of you. And finally, a good idea if there's a crate you want opened in front of you. ''Not'' a good idea when it comes to certain enemies who happen to be explosive, but in 95% of all cases, stomping the crap out of something will make your situation better - even if it's just by relieving stress.
** Isaac believes it's cathartic as well: he puts a ''lot'' of emotion into his voice when he stomps on something.
* [[Flatline]]: This sound is emitted by a RIG if its wearer (e.g. Isaac) dies. Also, {{spoiler|when Hammond, and later Kendra, gets killed, Isaac can hear flatlines.}}
** Also, if you listen closely in the beginning, you can hear flatlines when the two [[Red Shirt]]s you brought with you are killed.
* [[Forced Tutorial]]: USE RUN TO MOVE QUICKLY OR ELSE.
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* [[Informed Equipment]]: Isaac's weaponry and equipment are kept in [[Hammerspace]]; despite that the inventory is an in-universe object, the things it represents are just sucked into Isaac's feet and deposited in a pocket dimension for when he needs them.
* [[Ink Suit Actor]]: The characters with names and faces are voiced by the same people in whose likeness they are made.
* [[Insurmountable Waist High Fence]]: The flimsy metal barricade in the Medical Bay, which for some reason requires an entire level centered on building a makeshift explosive device to shift, despite the player character's entire armament at that point supposedly consisting of industrial cutting tools.
** Oddly inverted in areas featuring zero gravity. Isaac ''should'' be able to accidentally walk off the unprotected edge.
** You also can't step off the edge of the floor only a few inches from the top of a ramp.
* [[Ironic Nursery Rhyme]]: You won't hear ''Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'' the same way you used to...
* [[Jump Scare]]: A particularly unexpected one happens at the very end.
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* [[New Game+]]: Beating the game once unlocks the hardest difficulty mode, a shittonne of credits, and ten Nodes.
* [[No OSHA Compliance]]: Even before the [[Zombie Apocalypse]], the ''Ishimura'' isn't exactly the safest place in the universe. For example, it has nozzles designed to spray acid across a hallway at a set of storage rooms at regular intervals.
* [[Not Quite Dead]]: Occasionally, Necromorphs that you have only damaged will play dead and ambush you when you try to walk past. {{spoiler|The Hunter Necromorph refuses to die, growing back its limbs when you cut them off and even coming back after you cryogenically freeze him. Eventually, you have incinerate him with a shuttle's engine fire to finish him off for good.}}
* [[Not Using the Zed Word]]: The Necromorphs. Ironically, the game makers basically summed them up as "Space Zombies."
* [[Oh Crap]]: Kendra's reaction {{spoiler|to the [[Hive Mind]]. Seconds before it smashes her into paste.}}
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** {{spoiler|Doctor Mercer's office contains various heads in jars}} and {{spoiler|a room in the Medical Bay contains the Hunter and another victim in large jars}}.
* [[Perpetual Motion Monster]]: Necromorphs don't need to eat, sleep or breathe and are essentially immortal. The Hunter even more so; not only does it share those attributes, it can regrow limbs endlessly.
* [[Personal Space Invader]]: Every Necromorph tries to grab Isaac and gnaw his face off, but the Lurkers are especially prone to this, and the several giant tentacles Isaac must face grab him and drag him down the hallway.
* [[Plot Hole]]: Almost anything regarding the ''Valor's'' crash and destruction requires disbelief to be not so much suspended as hung, drawn, and quartered.
* [[Powered Armor]]: Subverted somewhat. Isaac's suit is basically a fabric spacesuit when the game begins, and the various suit 'levels' add bar-like plates to the exterior of it, making it roughly akin to futuristic splint mail as the game progresses. Played straight with the Military Suit, which resembles a cross between [[Star Wars|Stormtrooper armor]] and [[Halo|MJOLNIR armor]].
* [[Press X to Not Die]]: If a creature grabs hold of you, just mash the right button and you'll pry them off, and oftentimes unleash a can of whupass whilst doing so (such as kicking the lurkers clear across the room). A few instances, such as the Hive Mind's grab and the tentacles dragging you to your doom, require you to aim, rather than just mash.
* [[Psychic Link]]: The Hive Mind apparently has one of these with the other Necromorphs, though in practice it doesn't really affect the proceedings and the Necromorphs seem to largely do their own thing.
** It might be more intelligent that it looks: the moment Isaac begins moving the Red Marker, Necromorphs everywhere increase in numbers and try to stop him every step of the way.
** And the Marker is really pulling a [[Mind Screw]] on Kyne {{spoiler|and Isaac}}.
*** Also, right at the start of the second mission, Isaac runs into a dying, blinded woman cradling and talking to "McCoy" (at that point, McCoy was a rotting, dismembered torso). She tells Isaac that McCoy said he'd show up, and hands him a kinesis module. {{spoiler|This is likely the Marker tricking her into giving Isaac a needed tool so he could do his part in returning it to the planet}}.
* [[Psycho Strings]]: The entire soundtrack.
* [[Raising the Steaks]]: Some fish get attacked by the Necromorphs.
* [[Randomly Drops]]: Sort of subverted. Item drops are randomized, but ammunition dropped tends to only be from weapons Isaac is carrying. All ammunition drops that don't fit this are fixed and will be available from the same location in every single playthrough of the game.
** There also seems to be something of a pattern in how often medkits are dropped (especially when Isaac's health is very low) and where stasis-recharge packs are more likely to recharge (in the areas where this ability is required more often).
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* [[Took a Shortcut]]: You really do have to wonder how some of the characters manage to get around the ship without being killed, considering they're running around a ship infested with undead killing machines. Hammond and Kendra are somewhat justified, given that the former seems to have military training and the latter spends most of her time sealed in a secure control room {{spoiler|and also turns out to be a Spec Ops agent}}. But you really have to wonder how the unarmed, rather doughy-looking Dr. Kyne, as well as the unarmed and completely batshit insane Dr. Mercer, managed to survive for so long when everyone else got killed.
** Simple, {{spoiler|The Marker is safely leading Kyne around the ship}} and considering {{spoiler|how intelligent the Hive Mind is}}, all of Mercer's help means leaving him alive is more useful than transforming him into a Necromorph.
* [[Tractor Beam]]: It's called "kinesis," thank you very much. Also, the gravity tethers.
* [[Tuckerization]]: See [[Shout-Out]] above.
* [[Unusable Enemy Equipment]]: The ''Valor's'' armory is full of weaponry Isaac can't take, and he has to buy all his own gear save the Plasma Cutter; no other weapons appear in the game as pickups, even though they're supposed to be industrial tools used in the standard operations of the ship he's on. You can't even take the rifle off a guy who was just killed two feet in front of you. That said, he finds a metric assload of ammunition free for the taking.
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* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: Admittedly, the only creatures you interact with are undead aliens, but Isaac can maim and mangle them just as badly as they can brutalize him. Cutting limbs off, punting babies like footballs, ripping heads off in chokeholds, tearing tentacles out... and this is actually ''encouraged'' by the game; it's more ammo-efficient to dismember your opponents.
** True. And it is also true for human corpses. You never know when an Infector is about to pop up and infect all the corpses in the room. Just dismember them all for good measure.
* [[Video Game Flamethrowers Suck]]: Poor damage. Short (and even weaker) damage over time. Very fast ammo consumption. Short range. Virtually no stopping power or dismemberment ability. You can't even use it in a vacuum. Is there any reason to get this thing? ...Well, when you fully upgrade its damage, ''blue fire''.
* [[Video Phone]]: Isaac has an ultra hi-tech video phone with a projected holographic screen as part of the RIG suit's [[Comm Links|Comm Link]].
* [[Viewer-Friendly Interface]]: Nearly every panel you can interact with is in huge font with simple words and large symbols. Also, you basically never have to search for functions; the exact thing you are looking for will pop up if you approach the respective terminal.
* [[The Virus]]: The Necromorphs, the race of baddies who make up the [[Zombie Apocalypse]]. Unique in that they can't actually infect living people - they have to be dead first. Precisely how the virus itself is transmitted is [[Plot Hole|never particularly clear]], since the only vector seen, the Infector, can only create one specific type.
** Although {{spoiler|the Hunter was created by injecting the infection directly through the forehead of a living victim.}}
** [[All There in the Manual|The motion comic]] goes into more detail on this, showing a corpse infected by contact with a bacterial colony transforming into an Infector and proceeding to reanimate other nearby dead.
** Not to mention the book, in which a scientist {{spoiler|injects himself with suspicious alien tissue, becoming an Infector soon after.}}
* [[Voice with an Internet Connection]]: Kendra and Hammond, for most of the game.
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* [[We Will Spend Credits in the Future]]
* [[Weaponized Exhaust]]: {{spoiler|Used to kill the Hunter.}}
* [[Weapon of Choice]]: Not exactly canonical, but given that the Plasma Cutter is perhaps the most useful weapon in the game (see [[Boring but Practical]]), as well as the first weapon you get, and the only weapon you get for free, it's not surprising that Isaac is usually portrayed in promotional material as using it.
* [[Your Head Asplode]]: The Scientist in Chapter 2.
** Also, the cackling mad woman who commits suicide as you enter the room {{spoiler|in the Unitology 'coven'}}. Too bad you can't pick up her pistol, since {{spoiler|this is just moments prior to the Hunter's second appearance}} (though all things considered, a pistol would probably be useless).
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* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: {{spoiler|The fake battery-life indicator flashing red is there to screw with players' minds.}}
* [[Bribing Your Way to Victory]]: The iTunes Store has several DLC packs with suits and credits that can give you a leg up on the early parts of the game. You certainly don't need them in standard gameplay unless you want to totally break the game, but if you attempt the [[Harder Than Hard]] Nightmare Mode, it may come in handy.
* [[Chainsaw Good]]: In contrast to Isaac, who was limited to punching Necromorphs, Vandal starts out with a one-handed plasma saw (essentially a chainsaw with an energy blade) for melee attacks.
* [[Corrupt Church]]: You play as a newly-converted Unitologist engineer recruited to unleash Necromorphs into the Sprawl.
* [[Downer Ending]]: After defeating the final boss, {{spoiler|Vandal is seriously wounded and tries to get help but no one answers. The game ends with Vandal's helmet lying on the ground, with a trail of blood starting from where she was lying down. Meanwhile, [[The Bad Guy Wins|Tyler reports to his superiors that his mission has succeeded,]] setting the table for ''[[Dead Space 2]].''}}
* [[Face Heel Turn]]: {{spoiler|All this time, Tyler Radikov was setting up Vandal.}} And boy, does Vandal get pissed off by this betrayal.
* [[Foregone Conclusion]]: If you've played ''[[Dead Space 2]]'', you know this game is not going to have a happy ending.
* [[The Hero Dies]]: {{spoiler|In [[Dead Space 2]], Isaac discovers a recording next to Vandal's eviscerated corpse ; the aforementioned conditions in which the log is found, combined with the fact Norton notes that that was her final log, indicate she died in the end. Or does she?}}
* [[Interquel]]: This game takes place between ''[[Dead Space (video game)|Dead Space]]'' and ''[[Dead Space 2]].''
* [[Karma Houdini]]: {{spoiler|Tyler Radikov}} gets away with {{spoiler|manipulating Vandal/Karrie Norton into allowing the Necromorphs to spread throughout the Sprawl}}.
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