Dead Space
Dead Space is the first survival horror I've played since the Silent Hill series. The game starts as you, an engineer sent to fix a ship that apparently has a technical problem with its communication array. Only to find out after you dock, that the dead crew have somehow morphed into necro-something and want to kill you. Unlike usual shooters, unloading entire clips in the chest of an enemy doesn't kill them, and if it does, you've wasted a lot of ammo. The correct method is to shoot off their limbs, and not their head (which it turns out makes them more dangerous since despite being blind, still manage to find you in a 100 foot square room).
One thing that really must be mentioned about this game, is the amazing menu system, which appears in front of the character, and doesn't pause the game, which can be annoying when you want to heal, but its nicely done. Despite the story being practically like Aliens, only with a zombie virus that mutates the dead and makes the living go mad.
After fighting the enemies a few times they become predictable, you can tell that if a room is empty, it soon won't be or a brute is nearby. And if there is someone on the floor, it is best to shoot them anyways, just to be sure. One thing I didn't expect was the fact they can survive in the vacuum of space, which would make sense since they are already dead, but if that was true, why would removing their limbs stop them, but when you first enter and vacuum and then return via the same route, you don't expect to see one in front of you, as well as not being able to hear them (one nice feature I like that is in there). And for some reason, everytime you enter a quarentine room you can always bet that the doors will lock, and despite being designed to keep things within getting in or out, they have surprising amount of air vents that allows enemies in but hold you there.
Not even babies were safe from this thing, and for some reason this ship either carries one hell of a slutty crew compliment and the worlds largest abortion clinic onboard where they store the dead fetus', or they were transporting a breeding colony since when you enter the medical area, you suddenly notice all the dead babies on the wall, and the necro-baby version of them running on the walls.
The game is very linear, there is not much chance to explore, and I did not realise I had to shoot the green XBoxes boxes to gain what was inside of them, or that anything that glows blue contains something I can use till I got to the second level, at which point I got on the tram to go back, only to realise that I couldn't. However it is easy to get around thanks to the lazer you can project on the ground to show you were to go, and the game makes good use of the ambient sound, so much so that walking around usually I keep the gun ready, even when going through areas where I had already killed everything.
Occasionally you come by crew members that have somehow survived, that have either gone mad and worship these necros as life after death because of some weird religion based on a guy who said he saw a UFO, or they die the moment they meet you since your bad luck apparently.
The one thing thats annoying, but in a good way, is the lack of ammo up until near the end of the game, most of the time I'm spending my money to upgrade my character so I don't die as quickly. When I reached the barracks on the solider ship, I knew I was about to be bombarded by hordes of enemies, mainly super fast necro zombies.
The last boss was too easy in my opinion, just a combination of knowledge of enemies already faced, I felt the indestructable necro zombie was more of a challenge, and even he was easy to hold back when you realise that the time-freeze gun is what to use against him. Still there was a great choice of weapons, though I stuck with the basic starter one to get the achievement for completing the game only using that one. A lot of the achievements available seems impossible to get on the first run through, but as usual you get an achievement for every chapter you complete, which I don't count, you might as well get an achievement to kill every enemy you come by in the game, not like you have a choice anyways with the stupidly long delays in opening a critical door when a boss is chasing after you.
Still, I really enjoyed this game, and it scared the hell out of me in some places, with enemies jumping out that I didn't expect. I recommend you also watch the mini film, Dead Space: Downfall, which gives the backstory mory padding when you've completed it, at which point you will will understand everything (if you didn't read all the logs lying around).