This’ll be a short rant, more or less, as I have a pretty direct point to address. I’ve been staying hot on the Dead Space coverage, and ever since that first teaser hit I’ve been waiting, excitedly, for the game to hit the public. Overall I’d say I’ve watched a good 80% of the developer/producer interviews and what not, Not once have I heard a single person on their team allude to the fact that the story is, essentially, a carbon copy of ALIEN. Not one single time. I could understand if they’d replicated the scenarios and ideas from an obscure, Thai character-study, but they’ve duplicated the premise of a landmark piece of cinema; a film that revolutonized the very genre the game belongs to. I get increasingly more uncomfortable that every interview I do see, there isn’t at least one person who describes the story and says at least something to pay the source some dues. “We used ALIEN as a template as the concept is so culturally relevant,” say anything! But don’t keep quiet.
The art director behind the game even talks about the design of the ship like he had this insightful, metaphorical idea of making the ship almost akin to the human forn. Again, this idea is lifted straight from ALIEN. When I was studying the film at college, the most important topic was the set design - how the Alien ship was very organic, alive almost; similar in design to the human form.
This probably bothers me way more than it does anyone else because I’m a film school kid, and when I witness things like this it riles me up, but principally credit should be paid where it’s due. We don’t belong to an age where you can ignore the elephant in the room, especially when it’s as big as this one.
Dead Space is one of my most anticipated games of this year end. Even more so than the likes of Gears 2 or Fallout 3, so don’t pin me as a guy who just plain has it in for the game. I just needed to get this off my chest.
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