Tell me if you have heard this before: you’re (basically) alone on a floating space hulk; the crew is dead and mutated monster things are lurking the halls trying to eat you. You have access to nifty powers like telekinesis and the ability to slow down time and you sport an armored suit that you can upgrade as you progress through each section of the ship. Oh, and you also can spend money at vending machines (“stores”) where you can buy stuff like guns, ammo, and health packs. You learn about the fate of the crew via audio files and video logs found lying on the ground. This ship is dark and grey with weird symbols written in blood covering the walls, flickering lights, strange noises, yadda, yadda. This is Dead Space—an entertaining yet fairly standard sci-fi horror game.

The big question: is it scary? The answer depends on what your definition is – it’s certainly a game that causes you to jump every now and then, at least until you figure out the tricks that the various monsters use, and then it becomes a bit too predictable. The mood is ominous, but again, if you have played System Shock (it even has a horticulture level!) or any recent survival horror game (or even BioShock for that matter) so much of the game is familiar territory that it’s a bit difficult to create any real suspense.

There are a lot of sweaty-palm moments, without a doubt. Trying to figure out how to escape from a room when you are trapped inside with a crazed regenerating mutant with huge claws will make any gamer frantically spin their mouse trying to locate the exit. Sadly, these segments are spread out and middle portion of the game drags a bit. There are 12 chapters in all and it lasts about an hour or so per level and too many chapters give you the feeling that the developer started to run out of interesting level ideas. There are novel gameplay ideas such as space walking with a limited air supply, or being thrust into a "Zero Gravity" chamber and floating around and shooting monsters in mid air. But by Chapter 9 I just wanted it to be over; I felt like I had seen pretty much all there was to see.

Still, to call it “scary” is a bit of a reach despite the “gotcha” moments. Part of the problem is the story. You have zero emotional attachment to your character – a guy named Isaac. You board the ship with other crew members, who you conveniently are separated from early on, but their dialogue is pretty weak. We are supposed to feel something for Isaac’s wife, who was on board the ship when the crazy monster things took over and yet somehow survived and you receive video messages from her on occasion begging for help. Isaac never talks and while that’s not a requirement, establishing some sort of emotional link between the characters would have helped a bit. The story about what actually happened to the ship is a mix of evolution, greed, religion, and insanity. It’s Déjà vu all over again.

We already reviewed the Xbox 360 version , and while Brian enjoyed the game a bit more than I did, it’s important to discuss the PC specifics. The game was tested on an Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3 GHz processor with a GeForce 8800 GT video card. The game ran at a solid frame rate with everything cranked up. It looks superb. I did suffer from two hard crashes, forcing a reboot of the machine, but after 15 or so hours, two such hiccups aren’t criminal—just a bit annoying.