While the game is both visually and audibly unsettling with moments of disarming stillness, you can forget about the languished atmosphere of Silent Hill. The battles are madly frantic with smooth controls to back them up, but don’t mistake this for the bullet-bonanza that Resident Evil has become. Dead Space treads a precarious line directly through the middle. Floors drenched in corpses, noises from the ventilation shafts, and painfully inhuman howls remind you at every turn that you are the one being hunted. All you can do is hope that the energy pack on your plasma cutter can last one more room.

Necromorphs don’t care if you’re a headshotting sharpshooter. That just shaves off eight pounds of dead weight. Cut off their legs, and they pull themselves with relentless ferocity. I saw a few instances of Necromorphs trapped by environmental objects and corners, but it’s difficult to gauge the intelligence of an inhuman A.I. that has no discernible eyes. Honestly, I needed the break anyway. Using a system dubbed “strategic dismemberment,” you need to slice Necromorphs apart piece by piece until they have nothing to drag their throbbing torsos with. The only problem is that Isaac doesn’t have a gun to his name.

An assortment of rock-cutting tools, a handheld flamethrower, and one hell of a haymaker will have to do. Isaac also has two known, non-lethal toys at his disposal – the object moving Kinesis charge, and a time-bending Stasis field. It’s squeamishly satisfying to watch an airborne Necromorph’s limbs and head separate in slow-motion and float past you. You can also set up some interesting combos, like picking up a supply crate with Kinesis and using a cutter shot to blast it off. In true survival-horror fashion, every weapon and ability eats through batteries like a ten year-old laptop, but that’s what upgrades are for.

Credits can be looted off corpses and spent on energy packs, medkits, and new weapons at automated shops throughout the Ishimura. It’s a little ridiculous to think that the employees had to pay for their own equipment, or that the kiddies could walk up and buy flamethrowers. I suppose the shops might be there for independent contractors or something along those lines. Regardless, I wouldn’t have lasted long without them, or the fancy suit upgrade.

Sorry for the low-quality, but you can see Isaac checking out his new kicks nonetheless.