“Resident Evil 4 but in space” is a hell of an elevator pitch, but does “Resident Evil 4 Remake in space” have the same impact? I’m not really convinced. Here’s why it took me almost a year to finish the Dead Space remake.
Sci-fi horror is my jam. I’m pretty sure the first movie I ever saw was E.T., and it scared the absolute crap out of me. Ever since I was a kid, the wonder of space exploration has been married to the fear of the unknown. I’m not alone. Some of our greatest stories are about the unfathomable terror lurking in the cosmos. The movie executive pitch of “What about this existing movie but in space??” is such a cliche that I’ve already used it twice in this article. There is no Dead Space without Event Horizon — a movie about a starship that goes to Hell (and it rules) — and there is no Event Horizon without Alien, literally pitched to executives as “Jaws in space.”
Dead Space is part of the sci-fi horror conversation, but it’s also part of the video game conversation. Initially released in 2008, it was the first game I remember that successfully recreated the feeling of Resident Evil 4. The tight, over-the-shoulder camera angle was claustrophobic yet allowed for precise aiming, which the developers twisted by focusing on slicing off limbs rather than racking up headshots.
But I already wrote about what the Dead Space remake does well. Why did I stop playing it?
A funny thing happened in late 2022/early 2023: three highly anticipated video games came out one after the other that were all fundamentally the same. Developers on The Callisto Protocol, some of whom made the original Dead Space, crunched to get their game out before the remake. CP didn’t make much of a splash, leaving things wide open for Dead Space to carve out an audience before the remake of the game that inspired it, Resident Evil 4, arrived in March.
It was a funny case of trends colliding, these three titles scrambling to make a name for themselves. Based on Capcom’s recent track record, there was a good chance the RE4 remake was going to be pretty good and expand on the original in interesting ways. Part of what I love about the original Dead Space is its focus, and I was worried that new features would crowd what I remember as a tight, terrifying experience.
I could have used a little more crowding.
I dropped the Dead Space remake about 60% of the way through the story, right before the military ship arrives. The new game is slick, pretty, and scary, and it has made big improvements to the writing and performances, but there isn’t enough meat on the bones. The gameplay loop runs out of steam, no matter how many tough enemies or fleshy walls the game throws at you.
One of the best things about Resident Evil 4 is its variety and how it surprises you with entirely new enemy types late into the run time. Dead Space introduces mutated soldiers that can phase through time but fighting them isn’t fundamentally different from the other monsters.
The game’s weapon upgrade system requires you to focus on only a few weapons at a time, and shooting a ricocheting saw blade at your enemies isn’t cool forever. Even the flamethrower’s new alt-fire, which drops a wall of flame that enemies are stupid enough to wander into, loses its spark by the endgame (sorry).
And speaking of the endgame, I’d forgotten how long the final mission down on Aegis VII is. What could be a nice change of scenery — from cramped, gothic corridors to wide open spaces — is just more gothic corridors. The final boss fight is kind of whatever, but the game commits an egregious sin: it puts a long, unskippable cutscene right before it. If you die fighting the game’s last boss, you have to watch the whole thing again.
I dropped Dead Space in March because I was losing interest and didn’t want to jump right from one third-person survival horror game to another with RE4. While I finished Dead Space this time, the last few hours were a slog. It’s obvious this remake was greenlit so they could remake the game’s far superior sequel — and maybe even try to redeem its extremely flawed third installment. Here’s hoping they get that chance — and take even more of their own — next time.
The above article is part of a series from Colin Munch on the video games he’s dropped this year. Here’s a list of the others, so far:
Published: Nov 30, 2023 04:30 pm