You know what's a bad idea? Playing a terrifyingly scary video game at night in the dark with the sound on full blast... after drinking a lot of Dew.
Before my teens, my parents let me play games like Resident Evil and watch movies like Species. Granted, they probably didn't know I did these things, but needless to say, I somehow got my hands on these sort of kid-friendly gems.
Oddly enough, nowadays I can't even watch a scary movie without putting it on mute first. I think I used up all of my courage by the time I was 16. It's strictly PG for me from now on.
Which brings me to this blog. Mr. Big 'n I decided to finally buy the PS3 video game, Dead Space. I felt bad for never finishing Resident Evil 4 on the Wii with him, so I decided to throw him a bone (though RE4 was actually pretty tight).
Dead Space... Yeah, everything you've heard about it is true. It's the most scary game you'll ever play by yourself with the lights turned off. And if you're like me, it'll probably take about 5 years off your life due to stress. (WARNING: The following preview is for mature audiences only)
The premise of Dead Space is that you're on a repair mission gone terribly wrong. Set some time in the future when space travel is as common as owning a cell phone, you play as Isaac, the futuristic repair guy. You're on a flight, traveling to an astroid-mining ship called the Ishimura. The Ishimura has sent out a distress call and you're the lucky folks answering it. After a botch landing on the ship, you and your crew are stuck to explore the Ishimura - but suddenly your crew is attacked by a rather wicked creature that's not quite human. Rather then stick together as a group to figure out what to do next, your two superiors decide to send you out into the unknown to fix the ship.
As most people would assume, there's some kind of alien that took over the ship, infecting the crew. Think Resident Evil meets 28 Days Later meets... some kind of Freddy Kruger movie. There's no traces of the former inhabitants of the Ishimura, but there's an abundant supply of alien-human-thingies. While you run past the bodies of former humans, you know you'll be seeing them as reanimated necromorphs in the future.
The game packs a lot of punch... I mean, a LOT. It never fully lets you feel safe - there's always something around the corner, or better yet, in the ceiling. The sound effects are enough to get under your skin, but the actual look of the aliens will definitely keep you up at night.
The graphics are stunning. While I've never been on a futuristic mining ship infested with aliens and necromorphs, I'm pretty sure this is what it'd be like: uncomfortably frightening... and probably smelling of damp old cheese.
While I didn't actually play the game, I unhappily watched from underneath the bed covers as Mr. Big plasma-blasted his way through tons of alien carnage. After what would make most people go to a corner and curl up in a ball, Mr. Big calmly stated, "Okay...it's starting to get deeper and darker..." Apparently his threshold is much higher than mine.
When I was younger, I remember being amped up on candy and soda, easily breezing through video games such as these. But these days, I don't have the energy to constantly be on edge for the next monster to jump out... which is why I'm writing this blog while Mr. Big is still playing. I'll occasionally glance up just in time to see an alien attack, then quickly cover my eyes...somebody hold me...