The biggest issue with the PC version is the inability to save when and where you please combined with where the game drops you after death. While these are certainly the same on the console versions, PC gamers like to save when they want – and it doesn’t take away from the spirit of the design to do so. BioShock on the PC allowed this and you didn’t hear too many screams of how it was too easy.

Dead Space breaks this Cardinal PC rule. It also breaks the rule that says ‘never make a gamer replay something 20 times.’ This is also a part of the design that can get annoying. In certain fights, boss fights specifically, the battles take place in various stages. After completing one stage of the fight, the boss tries a different attack—pretty standard stuff. But in Dead Space you can’t save between stages and if you die you have to do the entire fight over again. This is classic fun murdering game design. In fact, the final boss fight is so infuriating that it almost prevented me from completing the game, and even after finally doing so there was no sense of completion – just a release of frustration energy.

The game does liberally spread out save check stations so you can save your progress fairly often, but still, this is a PC edition – and there’s no reason why we should not be allowed to save when we want, and there are enough instances where you might play for a solid 15-20 minutes without finding a save station and if you have to leave and get back to real life – tough.

Still, Dead Space is worth playing. It’s not a BioShock sized home run, but the Zero Gravity sections and the admittedly tense moments are worth experiencing. If you’re torn on which version to buy, you won’t find a true PC adaption here. It’s not a bad port, but the lack of a true save game feature is likely to irk PC gamers who demand such a feature.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .