Dead Space is a lot like a Michael Bay film. If you go into it expecting a deep, enthralling, and memorable story, you're likely to come out of the theater disappointed. But if you go for the action and the mind-blowing special effects, you'll probably be talking about it the whole car ride home.

The story of Dead Space revolves around an engineer named Isaac Clark. Clark and his crew are called to the USG Ishimura (a mining vessel known as a "Planet Cracker") to resolve some sort of communications problem. But things do not go as planned, and you end up crash landing on the very ship you came to fix. It doesn't take long to realize that something horrible has taken place, and the game wastes little time in introducing you to "necromorphs", parasitic aliens that have taken over the bodies of the Ishimura's fallen crew. From its onset, the narrative of Dead Space seems to carry a lot of potential, but the game's plot becomes rather forgettable toward its conclusion, and the predictable turns the story takes can be realized without much thought.

All of Isaac's stats are displayed on his suit, removing a traditional HUD altogether.

Fortunately, the gameplay delivers. Dead Space throws you into the dimly-lit halls of the Ishimura without any HUD. Instead, your character's stats are all displayed on his RIG - an engineering suit that can be upgraded at various points throughout the game. Your health gauge runs down the backbone of your suit as well as your oxygen and stasis levels, and your ammo is displayed through a holographic meter that pops up above your weapon whenever it's drawn. Not having any onscreen distractions goes a long way toward drawing you into the game's atmosphere, and it's something that other developers should take note of in the future.

The enemies that Isaac faces only add to the creepy nature of the experience. Necromorphs are relentless creatures that will stop at nothing to infect whatever sets foot on the space craft. They are so relentless, in fact, that you can cut off their heads and they will continue pursuing you, flailing their arms about, wildly hoping to strike you down. Dead Space forces you to strategically shoot the limbs from your enemy, disabling them and leaving them open to gunfire, or an unapologetic, iron boot to the skull. Seeing this element of strategy in an action game is a welcome change, and it makes situations with multiple foes rushing toward you extremely unnerving and cerebral.

On the other hand, a disappointing aspect of these enemies is that many of them look strikingly similar. One breed may be gray, while another may be black and have amped up speed, but none of their designs deviate too much from each other. By the end of the game, it grows tiring seeing the same type of enemy over and over again. Even the bosses seem to be recycled, and it ruins the anticipation of a battle when you encounter a slightly different variation of a previous boss with only an extra tentacle or two.

Necromorph variety aside, Isaac does posses two other abilities that mix up the gameplay a bit. Stasis allows a player to slow certain objects and most enemies down to a crawl. You may have to decrease the speed of swinging electrical wires or freeze an enemy when you're low on ammo, allowing you to finish them off with melee attacks. Kinesis, your second ability, is unlimited in use and can manipulate items such as levers or chuck objects at your enemies. The areas where you're forced to use these abilities are always straightforward, but they also greatly assist in combat and can be crucial for conserving ammunition.

There are seven weapons in the game and each one carries with it a secondary attack. What's interesting about the guns in Dead Space is that they are not so much weapons as they are engineering tools. Isaac can wield a flamethrower, plasma cutter, force gun, and more - and all of which are tools that he'd conceivably use in his line of work. Each of them can be upgraded with nodes that are acquired throughout your mission, and can improve damage, capacity, duration, and reload times.

You'll most certainly want to upgrade your weapons too, as you'll be using them a lot. Dead Space is all action, all the time. On many occasions, the game will thrust you into a situation where waves of enemies will swarm the area, leaving you with no means of escape until enemy limbs coat the floors. At first these scenarios provide edge of your seat thrills, but toward the end of the game, you can predict where an ambush is coming and the repetition becomes increasingly tedious. The last level especially suffers from this, as you slowly advance your way to the boss by destroying wave after wave of enemies, and then continue to the next room to perform this task all over again.

Limb dismemberment is crucial to your survival aboard the Ishismura.

The atmosphere of Dead Space is, arguably, its biggest star. The sound work in the game is phenomenal. At almost every turn within the ship's broken corridors, you'll hear screams, scraping claws and something lurking deep within the walls. Especially notable are the sections where you're outside the ship and all you hear inside your helmet is your own breath accelerating as you try to evade enemies and obstacles. The visuals stand out considerably as well. The tattered halls of the Ishimura are lined with corpses and parasitic flesh. Clouds of oxygen fill the room whenever you exit an area that has been exposed to the vacuum of space, and the environments within the ship always have just enough variation to make exploring the next room feel like something new.

At the end of the day, Dead Space is an exciting new entry into the word of survival horror. While its recycled enemies and repeating mission objectives are obvious downfalls, they aren't enough to keep you from getting completely wrapped up in the universe. The innovative HUD display, enemy dismemberment system, and tool-like weapons are all elements that help add to the amazing atmosphere created within the game. Dead Space may not offer the definitive horror experience, but it is an intense and brutal sci-fi thrill ride that will please fans of both the survival horror and action genres.