So there are good news and bad news. The good news is that Dead Space is still Dead Space, looks good and runs fine nothing big crashing etc. Bad news is that EA sucks the big one when porting to the PC. There is NO customization in terms of controls. To do most useful things you have to hold down your RMB and then a combo of a bunch of other things. I fidn it very unnatural having to press Space to use my second fire, and many of the other functions which go trhough this "Aim Mode" as well. Thank god there is a toggle. In fact the only things which don't go through Aim mode are running, reloading primary, melee attack, health packs, and the interface buttons. Other than this the game is great. Runs smoothly on 1920x1200 too given the hardware. Haven't tested it out on my laptop yet.

Thanks for the comments--it does support the 360 pad, correct? Based on your summation of the controls, I might actually prefer that to MKB =/

Haven't tried it with a pad yet, but I'm pretty sure it does. Also there was a decent mouse lag, and I fixed it by taking off V-sync. I don't know if it was caused by that or not but at least now everything is instant.

I may have made it sound worse than I did when reading it over. There is button customization, but you can't chaneg the mechanic of having to go through Aim Mode to do a lot of things. That's what is annoying. You can change key bindings and all, but that feature is annoying. It doesn't ruin the game though, but the V-sync maouse lag definetly does so I suggest you drop it like it's hot.

It baffles me how devs can mess up something so easy to do as control customization on PC's. Hell, there's nothing stopping them from giving us the option to assign buttons on consoles either.

What's stopping them? Do they think people are too stupid and would get confused by too many options?

That's what I'm wondering. For instance you control your inventory and general interface with the arrow keys, enter, and use. I just don't see why I need to go through aim mode to do so many things. I also fail to see why they think people want permanent mouse accelaration without the ability to turn it off.

Alright so I'm through the beginning parts and here are my impressions. The game is very good. It's basically the child of Resident Evil 4 and DOOM3, which is a very good thing.

Graphics: Look good and since most of the game is in closed corridors or smallish rooms with some larger halls here and there (nothing huge and wide open from what I have seen so far) you can run the game comfortably. On Vista I am using up less that 1 gig of ram running this so thei is VERY good optimization. The only problem I have is that sometimes I will get a major slow down and I either pause and toggle one video setting or I just pause and alt-tab for half a minute or so and then it's back to being silky smooth. It could just be my computer though, it's been getting very random slowdowns in every game I play.

Audio: I like the audio it tells you what it needs to tell you with no extras except one. Any time there are monsters there's the encounter music playing and you know when the encounter ends when the music ends. This kinda ruins the "is there one more behind me" feeling of the game and while a minor point it's worth pointing out, I feel it's a crutch.

Controls: This part just screams console in your face. You have to use the arrow keys to navigate interface menus like the store and your inventory and a very limited customization doesn't help either. Set your Aim Mode toggle to middle mouse button and never bother using the temporary Aim Mode button, trust me on this. It makes going through the game much easier and faster, also more convenient for controls. Mouse acceleration seems to be on and it's very annoying for aiming, but that's because I'm not used to it at all and I couldn't find a way to turn it off, no .ini files or anything either. The problem is that if you move a little too much you basically do a complete 180 while fighting, even at lower sensitivities. I also noticed that sometimes the acceleration did turn off and I can't quite peg when it happens but it does. This is the weakest area of the game on the PC by far but it doesn't ruin it at all provided you are willing to adapt a tiny bit.

Gameplay: As I stated above this is the child of Resident Evil 4 and DOOM3. It plays very much like RE4 right down to the upgradeable items (though they have a cool system for it here) and the general feel. On the other hand it's got the atmosphere and the tension that DOOM3 had (you know.... before you got the super weapons). The whole dismemberment tactic is just a gimmick honestly, instead of shooting at their heads shoot their arms and legs, and honestly any part of the arm or leg seems to sever them at the same rate. So far on medium I have enough ammunition and health packs to last me the entire game it seems. The monsters drop more ammo than it takes for you to kill them and if you are good enough with aiming you won't get hit too often either. I find it kind of easy as of right now, but maybe that's just because I'm using a mouse (and i know how to use it). I did much worse at this point on my roommate's 360 version with the analog sticks. Zero G is pretty cool too if you are careful.

Random comments: So far on medium I have enough ammunition and health packs to last me the entire game it seems. The monsters drop more ammo than it takes for you to kill them and if you are good enough with aiming you won't get hit too often either. I find it kind of easy as of right now, but maybe that's just because I'm using a mouse (and i know how to use it). I did much worse at this point on my roommate's 360 version with the analog sticks.

Overall: If I had to pick I'd give it a solid 8 or 8.5 solely because of the console mechanics in the control scheme. But if you get used to it quickly and doesn't bother you the entire time then it's a definite 9 or 9.5 and that's where I am at. It's kinda scary (I honestly expected something to happen in the bathroom mirrors a la DOOM3), story is good, challenging enough, and most importantly fun.

Thanks for the detailed take!

Alright so I'm a little further in the game, going by chapter numberings I seem to be halfway and here are my current impressions:

Gameplay is the same deal as before, monsters jump out and you shoot at them or they make noises and it put you on your toes. It has its scary and tense moments and I'm loving it.

The ammo has ceased to be as abundant when I finally decided to buy another gun, kudos to EA for giving you ammo almost exclusively for the guns you own and not useless ammo. The ammo is not as abundant for any specific gun, but when al is said and done I still have enough ammo to just it in a corner and take on waves and waves of enemies if needed in between all my guns.

The story is just starting to kind of pick up past the "do this so we don't die" but not too much, some pieces of logs are finally coming together and I wanna see how it turns out, it keeps me play and that's the most important part.

More than even do I feel like the dismemberment is a gimmick, just places in there instead of headshots to spice things up, it's cool to see it in action and all but it's not an innovative game feature. I still like it especially with some of the new types of enemies.

The difficulty is the same as before, even with the new types of monsters and the boss was pretty easy-ish. Being able to use health packs also makes it easy, but then again it's a very good mechanic and I really can't think of a better one for this type of game. I'm also saying this and I have yet to use the slow monsters power yet which seems extremely OP.

I haven't dabbled with all the guns due to lack of money, but the ones I have used are a lot of fun in general and they all have some good uses. I also like how you acquire the guns, you get a schematic and take it to a shop, then you are able to buy it. Same with any item in the shop.

I ran into a bug where if the video does one of it's usual quick slowdowns I get a serious echo, the sounds literally play twice in a row, and I find it kind of annoying, but as with the video slowdowns just toggling an option seems to fix it.

Overall I'm liking this game more as I get into it, but I have not honestly received any BIG scare moments the way I have been scared by FEAR or DOOM3 in the past. Maybe it's because the enemies always make sounds and you are very rarely actually surprised by them when you turn around and see them. Unlike in RE4 you will very rarely randomly turn around just in time to catch a flail to the face.