Quickie First Impressions: Dead Space = Creeptastic

I am sure I am so very late to this party, but a friend recently picked up a PS3 (Final Fantasy Hardcore fan) and a copy of Dead Space then asked me to come over and check it out as he started to play it to see what I thought. Personally, I think tough guy that he is, he didn't want to 'fess up that he didn't want to start playing it alone..and that's okay with me. It was worth it to see him jump when one of the "creatures" "goosed" him in a particuarly dark area.

Up until that point, I'd seen the animated vignettes/ Dead Space movie and the EA website along with the fantastically atmospheric No Known Survivors webite (I particularly enjoy Intermission: breathe vignette, vocally and the words...so sinister. "You...forever smaaashing your face against the wall..." Perfect). Yet aside from the build-up and the too short demo, I hadn't really seen much more of the game until the other day.

Quickie First Impression: VERY atmospheric and creepy. Good voice acting. Visually a lot of peek-a-boo with super bloody things or much worse reveals to reward your curiosity. Controls seemed a little....crowded at first and I did not like that I couldn't reassign the button functions. On the other hand, the sheer level of grotesque, blood and creep of enemies is impressive. Stasis is bullet time applied to puzzles as well, which is a nice use. I did decide this was probably not the game for me to play at 2:00 a.m. alone, without the heater and in blissful dolby sound unless I want to scare myself silly, because dismemberment as a big part of your gameplay survival, even if you think it might be justified is still... kinda icky and stuff. Plus the ambient sounds are just all kinds of chilling and I place then in Lustmord/Halloween/Goth mood-worthy category (I did mention I have very wide and eclectic musical tastes, right?). Overall this shows as good, moody stuff and reminds me more than a little of many of the good points that were in the very first Resident Evil game: creating a sense of urgency and mystery, fostering paranoia and making me feel stalked. I'd have to play a little deeper to give a more thoughtful review and that isn't likely to happen for a while yet.

So, if any of you have checked it out or picked it up I would really like to hear your thoughts - positive or negative. I'd at least know how high or low on my list of games to get this one should go.

Trivia-I-Didn't-Know-But-You-Probably-Did: Did you know the lead character that you embody, Isaac Clark, is named after Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke innovative sci-fi writers? How cool is that -- VERY that's how cool!

Thanks for looking!