Before I start talking about ineffective the horror is I do have to at least admit that the idea of making limbs the primary target for weapons rather than standard headshots is a least somewhat interesting. In most games, carefully placing shots to the noggin is part of the core skill set required for success but in Dead Space it asks you to instead aim for the flailing limbs of the monsters instead. Luckily, with the protagonist Isaac being an engineer, a lot of his weapons come in the form of tools for cutting stuff with, so in this regard it's a nice melding of story and gameplay.
But that's about the only nice thing I have to say about Dead Space. While it is a competently made third person over the shoulder horror shooter which every bloody action-horror game has been since RE4, it is probably one of the least frightening horror titles in recent memory.
The most striking problem with the horror in Dead Space is the enemies. The first time you see a Necromorph wildly running for you it can be a little intense while you try and line up your shots to its shoulders and thighs to blast its appendages off but throughout the entire game there's maybe like, 6 flavors of Necromorph and they are ENDLESSLY repeated through the entire game. So the first encounter with each type might get you but by the end of the game they become an annoyance more than anything else. Another stupid "thing" you have to clean up before you can carry on following your little blue line.
This then leads into the second issue of the horribly designed areas that you must wade through as you embark on your adventure through the Ishimura. Sure it all looks very nice and it's trying very hard to be atmospheric and oppressive but the overall design of the place is so obvious that it sucks any potential impact out of a potential scare. A long corridor with a vent or a dead body at the end? Yep, that's an ambush. A large room with a big door leading to your objective on the other side? Ambush or boss encounter for sure. It's trying very hard to surprise you but the level design is so uninspired and lacking that there may as well be big neon signs flashing bright red with "THIS WAY TO NEXT COMBAT ENCOUNTER". There's one point where a big tentacle grabs you and tries to pull you in a hole and the first time, unless your paying extra special attention, which you probably aren't, this is actually fairly effective. But they do it again later on and it's so obviously signposted that you end up rolling your eyes as you get your Plasma Cutter out and prepare to wrestle with the shitty aiming.
But the worst thing, the thing that sucks all tension out of the game entirely is ammo and health management. Resident Evil 1 for example is another game that I don't find particularly scary either because who the fuck in 2021 find slow shambly zombies scary after the complete over saturation of THAT genre? But the game still holds a good place in the survival horror genre because while artistically it's not particularly scary, mechanically (at least your first time in) Resident Evil is intense as fuck. Sure, you're playing as a highly trained S.T.A.R.S member and sure there's plenty of weapons lying around but ammo for those weapons is scarce. It's all well and good having a grenade launcher that shoots acid but it's not much use to you against a hunter if you don't have any acid rounds for it. Even the simple act of saving in that game could generate some intense emotions because "oh fuck what if I don't find any more ink ribbon soon" and this is an effective form of horror that's basically exclusive to this medium. Dead Space however fucks all this up by tailoring drops and containers to whatever you are holding or whatever state you are in. The game will only give you ammo for whatever guns you are currently holding with very little exception so if you are only carrying the plasma cutter, you can guarantee you'll be swimming in plasma cutter ammo for basically the entire game. When the game does give you random ammo on the rare occasion? just go to the store, sell it for credits and buy MORE plasma cutter ammo. In fact, despite Dead Space having like 6 guns to choose from, you may as well never use anything BUT the plasma cutter. It's strong, fast, has cheap ammo and is effective against all flavors of necromorph. The game also does this with health so as long as you don't get one shot by a big machine you basically cannot die from normal combat.
Yet despite all these massive glaring failures in both artistry and game design, the game still got 9/10s from critics across the board and millions of people signing it's praises about how they were shitting their pants real hard. Maybe you should see a doctor about those weak bowels hm?
But that's not to say it's a bad game, it's a fun game and nothing quite beats Isaac's legendarily strong stompin' legs but to this day I have no idea how anyone find this franchise scary. Granted I haven't played much of the sequels but it seemed to lean more into the action focus than the horror focus and to be honest, that's fine, it was way better at being an action game anyway.
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