The Dead Space remake is a grisly cut of classic horror - The Verge

Debuting on next-generation consoles and PC, it’s the kind of game where everything glistens, from the slimy explosive tentacles wreathing its futuristic spaceship to the ornate brassy ridges on protagonist Isaac Clarke’s suit.

The Dead Space franchise is a third-person shooter series defined by a clever twist: you’re in a disaster zone overrun by grotesque zombie-like monstrosities dubbed “necromorphs,” but instead of a bullet to the head, the creatures go down when you sever their blade- or bomb-like limbs.

Dead Space 2 turned telekinesis into a full-fledged secondary combat option — letting you do things like freeze an enemy with stasis, chop its arm off with a plasma cutter, and pin it to a wall with its own severed limb.

It maintains the methodical but not artificially slow pace of the original, creating suspense with shameless sudden blackouts and enemy jump scares but mostly avoiding the heavily scripted sensory assaults and quicktime sequences that Dead Space 2 became known for.

Enemies have familiar glowing weak spots to aim for, and you’ll stomp gigantic supply crates to release the futuristic equivalent of a single $100 bill, carefully collecting money for supplemental ammo and dopamine-drip upgrades like new suits.

We’re thankfully past the period where blockbuster shooters have to pretend to be nuanced high art, but the remake is simply better at pragmatic genre storytelling: the underappreciated craft of giving characters enough personality and relatable motivation that I want to listen to them talk.