Too late for a review? I think not!

 

 Have you ever heard the expression "if it were a snake, it would have bitten me"? I know have, dozens of times. However, I really never considered it to apply to games, at least not in the literal senses. I cannot tell you how many times I bumbled through the video store, looking for new games to quench my thirst that appeal to my less than normal sense of taste; so as a rule of thumb, I typically stay away from games which have been hailed by the media or thousands (or millions) of gamers across the world. Besides all of that, I'm just too busy working or watching the news. Moving on, this game Dead Space is certainly something right up my alley. I had passed this game up dozens of times as I dumbly strolled down the aisle at the video store, never giving it a second thought. When a game is new, the staff places a title near the top shelf, which is typically eye-level for most people, and as it ages, it slowly moves toward the bottom, and finally they put it in a bin at the front where they sell them for $5-$20. I found Dead Space as it was on the bottom shelf. 

I wasn't expecting a life altering perception of games, especially of the horror genre, but Dead Space opened my eyes to what a great horror game should be. In the game, you take on the role of Issac Clark, a simple engineer who has been dispatched to the USG Ishimura, which had earlier sent out a distress beacon. Upon arriving, however, you're met with the equivalent of Resident Evil in space. At least in Resident Evil they had somewhere to hide -- they could travel far away, hundreds of miles to escape. On the USG Ishimura, there isn't any escape, unless you can make one.

 I know the game has been out for two years now, but I'm sure there are still a lot of people out there who haven't played it, so I won't go any further into the story and spoil it. But if you want to be on the edge of your seat, wooed by very polished graphics, scared but still wanting more.. Dead Space is for you. I'm not a professional reviewer or anything, but I grade things on a scale of 1 to 10. I give Dead Space a 9.3 out of 10.

 Dead Space 2 is currently in production, and that's one game I will definitely be buying when it's on the top shelf.