I recently finished playing Dead Space, which I quite enjoyed. The next Playstation 3 game I’m looking at is Resident Evil 5. They’re both ostensibly survival horror titles, although Resident Evil has certainly slid away from that.
I think there’s a lot of similarity between the two games, but more specifically, there’s a similarity between Dead Space and the older Resident Evil titles. I believe that as Resident Evil has undertaken a major shift beginning with Resident Evil 4, Dead Space has taken up the mantle once held by the Resident Evil franchise.
Resident Evil 2 is probably my favorite title in the series, in no small part because that game scared the everloving snot out of me. I jumped – literally – more than once when playing that game. I have very fond memories of sitting in my mom’s house in a dark room wearing headphones, and falling out of my chair every time a T-virus infected zombie smashed through a window or a Licker dropped down from the ceiling.
Beginning with Resident Evil 4, the formula changed. It was an action game. A third-person shooter rather than a survival horror game. I’ll admit that I loved Resident Evil 4, but it was not a survival horror game. Dead Space, on the other hand, is quite definitely a survival horror game, and it gave me some of the best scares I’ve had since Resident Evil 2. I’ll admit that I’ve become a bit acclimated to game scares, and largely because of that, the game doesn’t have me jumping the way I did when I was 19, but Dead Space did a damn good job.
Of all the games I’ve bought for my Playstation 3, I think Dead Space is also the first “keeper”. Generally, when I’m done with a game, I’ll sell it on EBay and use the money to buy the next game I’ll be playing. I only keep it when the game is so good that I plan to replay it some day. Oblivion, Mario Galaxy, Call of Duty 4, Resident Evil 4, and Mario Galaxy are all games that have fallen into that category. But I sold Uncharted and Assassin’s Creed. I’ll definitely be selling Mad World. More on that later.
Resident Evil 4 didn’t have much in the way of scares, and from what I’m hearing of Resident Evil 5, it’s sounding like the even-numbered ones are the really good ones. But Dead Space did a better job of scaring me than any other game since Resident Evil 2. That’s why it’s a keeper. That’s why I’m proclaiming that it’s taking up the mantle once held by Resident Evil. Word.
