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Dead Space: Ignition Review: It’s No Case Zero
Dead Space: Ignition is out and it would very much like to get you hyped and excited for the upcoming Dead Space 2. Ignition is an interactive comic that offers four unique endings depending on the decisions you make along the way, and once you complete it you’re rewarded with content Isaac can use in the upcoming sequel.
This is all about the story as its goal is to bridge the gaps between the first and second game, but sadly, that’s where it falls short. Instead of giving us an interesting story with good looking drawings and animating Ignition offers a less than entertaining cast of characters, awful visuals, and a story that won’t capture the attention of even the most hardcore of Dead Space fans. The Baby Factor: If three fairly amusing mini-games got together with a poorly done digital comic, Dead Space: Ignition would be their boring, repetitive offspring.
I should also mention that outside of watching characters float and bob as if they were animated by an intern and sporadically choosing whether you should go right or left, the things that will be filling your time are three puzzles that get progressively difficult: the Hardware Crack, Trace Route and System Override.
The Hardware Crack has you using mirrors to direct various beams of colored light to their hub. It starts off simple enough; get the green light to its green hub and the red beam to its hub. Later on you’re given different abilities and obstacles to overcome including mirrors that move and beam splitters.
The Trace Route is arguably the most interesting puzzle of the three as it’s essentially a side scrolling racing game that has you trying to make it to the finish line before the other tracers dropping obstacles in their way while you dodge traps, walls and aggressive tracers that want to end you.
The biggest draw here are the visuals. You’ll be watching a comic play out so it has to look good, right? Apparently it does not, because outside of some good color work the drawings and animations (specifically the latter) are, for lack of a better word, ugly.
And the decisions you have to make throughout the story usually aren’t the type of ones that take much time to decide between. My first decision was between fixing the power in an area of the Sprawl station or negotiating a hostage rescue so it was essentially between saving possibly hundreds of people or some a few people that were captured by a crazy guy. Not exactly the life-changing decision making I was hoping for, but then again, everything here feels poorly executed.
Dead Space wanted to have the same incredible success that Dead Rising 2’s Case Zero did. They’re both midquel content that are supposed to get us in the mood for the sequel they’re promoting by bridging gaps and filling plot holes and upon completing them we’re rewarded with content (or progress) that can be used in the game. But where Case Zero was a slice of the full game that really gave us a taste of what we should expect in Dead Rising 2, Ignition is a horribly animated comic with dull voice acting and an even less spectacular story.
The Final Word: While this shouldn’t make you any less excited for Dead Space 2, Ignition is a failed attempt at getting us amped up for what will almost definitely be a great game.
This review is based on the Xbox 360 version of Dead Space: Ignition.
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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