Not Dead Last But...

A friend of mine who just completed his first play-through of Dead Space on the X-Box 360 very recently was asking me how I feel about the game as well as my excitement level when it comes to its sequel that will be released at the end of the month. I gave him an honest answer of course: I didn't finish the game because it was too darn scary. As what I stated in my preview article, Dead Space is the scariest game that I have ever played, topping even the extreme fear-fest that is Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly on the previous generation consoles. I only mustered up the courage to play the game all the way up to Chapter 4 if I am not mistaken and after that, I just couldn't handle it anymore.

Do I dare put the unholy game disc back into my console?

My friend found my honesty refreshing since he said he had a lot of other people telling him that they didn't finish the game because they "didn't like it". He then explained to me that he felt the same level of fear and desperation while playing the game but he forced himself to play through it because he want to be able to play the sequel soon. Not that playing chronologically is much of a necessity but I understand what he meant. He said that he reduced the sound volume of the game tremendously to get around the tension. I used to do that a long time ago myself while I was playing Resident Evil 3 for the PlayStation but soon after I started doing that, I felt that I was in a way "cheating" the game because sound is an important element of the entire video gaming experience so I never do that anymore. Maybe I should have because I was practically scared to death by the spooky aural presentation of Fatal Frame II. So what was the reasoning behind this entry? Surely, I don't have to further explain myself that I am now very sensitive to horror games. I was actually encouraged to try and play Dead Space again in the near future and complete the game once and for all. No, this is not a crazy race to prepare myself to play the upcoming sequel - I just thought that if my friend who admitted that he was psychologically tormented by the game can survive the game's horror, so could I. We both also agreed upon one other thing - this game would have benefited from a co-op feature so that those who are immersed in its violent, horrific world could at least scream on top of their lungs like little girls together while playing it.