I bought Dead Space yesterday (man, I love Steam's sales), and I have to say it's more like System Shock 2 (possibly my favorite game ever) than Bioshock ever came close to being. Not being able to use the mouse in the inventory is a pain in the ass, though. Overall, though, only a minor case of portitis.

Hmm, I didn't take it seriously till I read your post. I might consider buying it but what do you mean by no mouse use?

Dead Space is currently the best goddamn game you can buy for $20 for the consoles. For that price point, it's a hell of a game and a great value.

Console only? I don't own any consoles.

I was speaking for the consoles because that's where I do most of my gaming. I know it's out there for PC but I don't know the price point. Probably about the same, if not a few bucks cheaper.

Wow, I will have to try it, then.

I was also a fan of system shock 2.

I also liked system shock 1 but nobody makes games with such a maze exploration aspect anymore where you can get seriously lost and thereby screwed. I remember how at one time a lot of games were all about incredibly complex dungeon exploration that required you to make maps.

It's $20 on Steam (was $10 yesterday). The PC version has mouselook, of course, but when you pull up the inventory, you have to navigate with arrow keys. It's a relatively minor annoyance, but still an annoyance, particularly because the game does not pause when you're accessing the inventory.

The interface is pretty neat. Everything is presented as AR projections from your suit, with the inventory, video communications with other characters, etc., appearing as windows projected in the air.

Just got it. I am having to manage hard drive space but maybe as soon as I'm done with my third playthrough of Alpha Protocol I'll uninstall it and have room to try out Dead Space.

The combat has an interesting twist in that you are explicitly not supposed to aim for the head. Blow a necromorph's head off and it will keep coming; to put it down, you have to aim for the limbs. Dismemberment is key.

The first weapon you get, the plasma cutter, is your best friend. I'm in chapter 5 now (chapters being relatively short) and it's still the best all-around weapon I have.

I used the cutter all through the game. Its a great weapon.

The cutter is great, but I got some awesome mileage out of the assault rifle, too. Once you upgrade that one fully and get a nice pile of ammo you can do some damage with it.

Well that sounds pretty System Shock 2. I went through the whole game stockpiling bullets and repair tools so that at the very end of the game when there were huge amounts of enemies I could go total Rambo with the assault rifle and not worry about ammo.

My wife got this for me yesterday, funny enough, and I just started playing it today. It is indeed fun, although I'm not sure yet how I feel about such a linear plot. I'm having gamer's dilemma, not being 'required' to upgrade my gun ever. The scenery is great. Makes me want to play Eclipse Phase

Dead Space is more than a little Eclipse Phase. Dead Space is gonna give you great ideas for EP.

You're may not be required to upgrade your gun, but the plasma cutter does get even better with a few upgrades. Or did you mean being forced to switch to a different weapon?

I mean I never have any reason to get a different firearm, so I'm sort of scratching my head and wondering what to do. I'm probably going to buy the assault rifle, both because I'm more comfortable with burst-fire weapons, and because I need to spend my cash on SOMETHING.

Buy energy nodes. At 10,000 credits a pop, they make a neat cash sink while allowing you to upgrade your RIG and plasma cutter. If you really want a secondary weapon, grab the line gun.

Just to be perfectly clear, I owned the last boss with my fully upgraded Assault Rifle and my stockpile of ammo.

Fun fact: You can bias the game towards your desired ammo types by carrying only those weapons. Like the game really REALLY likes to give you saw blades for the saw gun even though it's supposed to be random based on what you're carrying. I kept getting odd ammo for guns I wasn't using. So when I started carrying only the cutter and assault rifle, the ammo for those weapons just started POURING in. I had hundreds of rounds saved up for each weapon by the end of the game.

I'd consider upgrading your Stasis module, too. It helps nicely when a Brute is in your face and you can slow them down long enough to get behind them and really mess them up.

Darn, somehow I missed that offer. Was part of EA week on Steam I guess. Saw some videos of Dead Space 2 from E3 and liked it.

I bought Dead Space shortly after it first came out for the PS3 (yeah, I'm a console gamer ). I played it through in about 7 hours straight and instantly fell in love, it's just beautiful. For those of you who don't know, there is a trophy (PS3) or achievement (Xbox) for playing the game through using only the plasma cutter, though I don't know if there is any such thing for the computer version. I found the assault rifle useless except for dealing with the little fat-belly-burster tri-pod thingies. Also, keep in mind, on the hardest difficulty every round counts. My preferred weapons are the plasma cutter and line gun, the shredder blows, the force gun takes to long to charge for a good shot, except in a few certain situations. A tip I've found very useful, when you are about to enter a room with corpses on the floor, telekinesis them to you while you are standing just outside the doorway and stomp them to shreds, it keeps them from being reanimated.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm eagerly awaiting Dead Space 2, rumor has it that melee will be much more useful, the suit even cooler, and the main character (same guy from the first) will be even closer to total insanity. It should be fun.