Better horror 15 years ago

I’m excitedly waiting for my PlayStation 5 to start up so I can go somewhere I’ve never been, the USG Ishimura, splattered with fresh blood by Motive Studio Empty room Remake, released January 27th. The mineship has always been the gray backbone to trigger-happy horror Empty roomoriginally published in 2008 and manufactured by the since-Shuttered Visceral Games, and I found out as a newbie (I was 10 in 2008) that it’s one of the best horror games ever. But after seeing the ship — and the atrocities that populate it, denoted by graffiti (“Fuck that ship, it’s a shitty capitalist organization,” says an on-nose scrawl) and corridors lined with organic Goo are sticky – I wonder if that’s still the case.

The USG Ishimura at least in itself corresponds to my expectations. As an engineer, Isaac Clarke, a formerly non-speaking character, is now steeped dead space 2 and 3 With actor Gunner Wright’s cool voice, I land on it along with my bickering crew members, including Chief Security Officer Hammond and Computer Specialist Kendra Daniels. I’m immediately struck by the ship’s engulfing shadows, the only added dimension to the lightless spine I spend about 16 hours running over and around.

It’s glued together by a fast tram system that was sliced ​​up by loading screens in the original game, but in this one Empty room, travels smoothly without interruption. Although I often press my controller’s right stick to display a glowing blue line that guides me to my next location, the tram system makes Ishimura’s smallness obvious and more stifling. That feeling doubles when I step into an area I’ve been to recently and don’t think about the bodies I’ve already wasted until I realize they’re therestill accumulated.

Isaac Clarke looks down on a torn body in Dead Space.

Screw that ship, it’s a fucking capitalist organization.
screenshot: Motif Studio / Kotaku

These bodies, with their taut, twisted skin and lumpy guts that pierce through – like sticking your thumb in an orange to pry it open – are among Isaac’s main antagonists, the necromorphs.

The remake adds rooms that you can access with an additional security clearance system (you’ll naturally gain level 1, 2, and 3 clearance as you progress through the game), which keeps exploration going even as Ishimura’s halls become known, and optional side quests for additional context and background on characters. But otherwise, Empty room 2023 does not build Empty room The unconvincing 2008 story of insane Unitologist cult members infecting people with their red mark in their quest for ascension, and so Necromorphs keep howling, sour victims of the Marker and you must chop off their limbs.

There are options on how you want to achieve this. Maybe you prefer the plasma cutter, Pulse Rifle, or the Ripper that shoots saw blades. I got used to the Force Gun, a dead space 2 acquisition, the uses the game’s gravity manipulation module, Kinesisto blast away necromorphs until they become piles of rattling bones.

I do this often. I shoot babies with tendrils unfolding from their backs as they spit some green acid at my Isaac, who lets out a low moan or gritty yelp in response. I can hear his pulse racing when he’s quiet.

I blast away necromorphs that look like oversized bats and necromorphs that look like praying mantises while a “boss” necromorph comes at me like an intimidating headless bear. i pause it with stasisanother gravity manipulation you can charge up to put enemies in slow motion – it’s disappointingly easy to do with a few hits on the yellow pustules around her joints.

I’m starting to associate my disappointment with those liquid-filled pears. I’m confused what the Empty room remake decides to keep and what it changes.

Its light and its graphics get an objective improvement, the kind that 15 years allow.

And that’s not a change, but it’s also worth noting Empty roomGameplay on PS5 is clean – apart from a minor irritation where launching the game after saving at a checkpoint immobilized Issac, requiring me to close and restart the game a couple of times – which feels annoying a rarity for new releases.

I’m glad a game works the way it’s supposed to. but Empty roomThe visual improvement of is not that noticeable as demons souls in 2020, and whether or not you like the tweaks and additions depends on your preferences.

I might have preferred it if Isaac had never spoken. It used to be an empty shell for players to place their own fears, their fears – mine only grew stronger the longer I spent listening to muffled moans echoing throughout Ishimura.

In the remake, Isaac speaks, but he never gives me anything to identify with or root for. He follows orders and wants to go home. Great, same goes for almost everyone else on Ishimura, and I mindlessly chopped them to bits. Why should I care if Isaac in particular lives or dies? When he takes off his mask, I don’t even feel like I recognize him.

Isaac looks into the distance.

Hello Isaac, who are you?
screenshot: Motif Studio / Kotaku

The game’s boss fights, as I mentioned earlier, retain the tedious, methodical process of the original. Hit the yellow boils until they burst. Move left when a vine will hit you. Then right.

When I fight a boss in one of the games “Weightlessness” environments I use my jetpack (on loan from dead space 2) to help me execute a similar strategy, zooming away from vines and floating versions of those exploding yellow sacks while I clumsily attempt to guide an Asteroid Defense System cannon into a weak spot. I win. Yay. What am I fighting for again?

For love maybe. Isaac wants to reunite with his girlfriend Nicole, a medical officer aboard the Ishimura who hardly exists unless you’re pursuing her optional side quest. But no, just like 2008 Empty room, the first letters of the game’s chapter titles spell NICOLEISDEAD, and love was never an option. In game, it’s a token, something developers put in just so you’ll be scared when you realize it’s not really there.

However, it is effective. I’m afraid to play Empty roomalthough that feeling alternates with the slack feeling that I’m missing something, most likely the magic of 2008. I’m missing a PC to run those sooty, grainy graphics in someone’s dark dorm room.

15 years later we have more compelling protagonists to choose from and even more interesting space zombies like the ones in Empty room Creator Glen Schofields The Callisto Protocol, which is also riddled with repeating bosses, but at the very least it looks and sounds incredible. the Empty room remake does what it sets out to do, making an old game compatible for modern consoles. But that’s all it does. The 2008 Blitz stays in its bottle.

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