The Elitist's Favorite Game Moments: Dead Space.

Like many of our Favorite/Least Favorite Game Moments, this too is chock full of spoilers! Read with caution, but seriously, go play this freaking game.

     Dead Space 2 is up and coming, and my roommate recently beat the first one, so it's a game that has recently been on my mind quite a bit. It helps that it is a fantastic game that I have played and replayed. It seemed like quite a fitting installment to my favorite game moments. Dead Space (1) was a game that, in my opinion, brought the horror/thriller genre back to life. It took such a basic style and revitalized it with a new ideas for combat (strategic dismemberment!), engrossing plot and amazingly detailed environment. A psychologically involved game that pulls you into your faceless characters shoes and really puts you in the state of mind that is needed to make a game as dark as Dead Space a truly emotionally sinister experience.

Would you brave death for her?

     Dead Space begins with you watching a video of a beautiful woman, who seems very sad. She is saying things that lead you to believe that something very bad has happened. Her tone is remorseful, she speaks as someone who has lost everything, she wishes things could have ended differently. She has always loved Isaac, and she only wanted to see him again. You see, Nicole was on board a planet-cracker class frigate named the Ishimura. Isaac Clarke, Kendra Daniels, and Zach Hammond receive a distress signal from the planet-cracker, and so like any hero worth his weight, Isaac must save his damsel. The crew of the USG Kellion (Isaac and crew's ship) arrive at the Ishimura only to crash land on the ship, destroying their shuttle, and forcing them the find another source of transportation. After they unravel this mystery.

This would make me sad

Upon landing on the Ishimura they discover that the crew has been transformed into these horrid mindless abominations called "Necromorphs" The transformation is the result of an alien life-from that infected the colony and crew after the Ishimura uncovered a relic called the Marker. I won't go into much more detail, but Isaac, in his quest to save Nicole, encounters unspeakable horrors. Every turn leads him closer and closer to a gruesome end. As he explores the ship he is constantly under siege by these blood thirsty necromorphs, he encounters survivors of the Ishimura who have lost all remains of sanity and humanity. He watches men kill themselves, finds data logs of the crew spiraling into hysteria, killing and destroying everything around them, he is constantly defending himself from the absolute horrors the Maker has brought to the Ishimura. He continues on, to save Nicole. Isaac goes on mission after mission, being told be different people, who to trust. Who can he trust now? He is separated, alone, desperate, everyone wants his help, but who is it that just wants to use him. Hammond is killed, another friend gone. All of these atrocities soon lead to Isaac taking the Marker back to the planet, as he was instructed to do by a surviving doctor aboard the Ishimura. Upon returning the Marker, Daniels appears, and she brings harrowing news.

The source of so much agony. So much destruction.

      You see, the Marker has a way of getting into peoples minds, it's alien (well mostly. play the game) and it has been playing Isaac this whole time. So has Daniels. Isaac discovers that Daniels is a government agent and has been charged with returning the created Marker back to her higher-ups. She leaves Isaac to die, but before she goes, she destroys his world. (The only video I could find had disabled embedding I guess to be greatly inconvenient, so watch it here.)
     It's brief, but it is powerful. Isaac watches this video, watches it to the end, and then a man who has seen more death, darkness, and insanity then any man alive, a man who has survived and fought against alien forces beyond his comprehension, a man who has been hardened in order to keep living to save this very woman, breaks, if only for a moment. The idol of his soul, the thing keeping him moving and fighting this whole time, has been gone. She is dead, and Isaac is alone. This character has no face (at this point) no voice, no real character to speak of, but through his stumble back, his head hung low and shaken with grief, the silence interrupted only the shuffle of the Marker and the somber music, pure unrestricted anguish was portrayed. It's fleeting, he recovers the way he can due to his reinforced psyche, but for that moment, he was broken.