Dead Space: Ignition – Puzzle Engineer [Review]

In space, nobody can hear you puzzle! Just recently, I bought this little spin-off called Dead Space: Ignition on the Microsoft game store for the Xbox 360. Yes, original hardware this time around. It was pretty cheap, around four euros for me, so not too much of an investment regardless of how it now turns out. The main reason for my purchase is that I am a Dead Space lore junkie, loving most of the franchise thanks to its cool dystopian sci-fi setting, and of course: horrifying monsters ready to slice off your skin with precision.

Considering what it’s part of, you might expect limb-cutting and body-horror coming out the ears, but nope. This is surprisingly enough a puzzler, best described as a game with typical mini-games at the forefront with an animated comic attached.

Computer engineer to the rescue
In Dead Space: Ignition, we get to follow the computer engineer Franco Delille, and his girlfriend Sarah Andarsyn during the outbreak of Necromorphs on the space station the Sprawl. What makes this interesting, beyond following the events as they happen, is that this is a prequel that ties in directly into the mainline game Dead Space 2.

This should theoretically provide a lot of cool background lore, seeing as you play as the guy (Franco) that releases Isaac Clarke from his restraints just in the nick of time—before getting torn into small fleshy pieces, himself. The rescue is shown in Dead Space 2, which has some serious potential for Ignition, as I always wondered who that guy was, and why he was so hellbent on freeing Isaac, sacrificing his life to do so.

And sure, we do get to know him and his girlfriend a bit, and the story gives some insight into the life of the Sprawl, and the initial outbreak. But at large, Dead Space: Ignition, narratively, is a major-missed opportunity. For being a prequel, with a promising story premise, we don’t get much at all. It’s nothing more than an hour of puzzles, and following the couple making their way around the space station, without any deeper dive into the story. We don’t even get to know why Franco wants to save Isaac, or who contacted him with the orders. 

Essentially, this little spin-off title gives us nothing, beside humanizing the random dude that saved Isaac in the beginning of Dead Space 2. No real mystery reveals, no deeper lore implication or anything like that. Like Hercules would say: disappointed!

The hacking
The gameplay in Ignition is actually fine, and is well-integrated into the story, seeing as you play as a computer engineer, which leads to situations where “hacking” is needed. Like opening doors, repairing systems and re-calibrating computers. The hacking consists of three mini-games, which I would call:

• The racer: where you have to reach the goal first, before the security nodes that are also in the race. Fairly challenging, especially when the camera switches perspective. When that happened, it threw my sense of control off every time. You also get abilities to slow down your pursuers, but they are very limited in the beginning of the game. 
• The reverse tower defense: where you must reach the other side of a digital battlefield, to destroy the security lock of whatever item you are hacking. A very spam-induced game mode compared to the other two. Winning seems to work best by just choosing a suitable direction and then sending out your digital minions, as often as you can. Just remember to send “shield” units first, and then you can basically break through anything. Not challenging, only a time-sink. 
• The color matching puzzle: where you must match laser beams to their corresponding color nodes—red to red, and green to green, with yellow being made when combining two colors. My favorite mini-game, and the most challenging, as it’s not always easy to figure out how the beams will interact with the tools you have. Like the tower defense one, this one is also under time pressure, which increases the difficulty. However, far from being impossible, if I can figure them out! 

In the narrative, you don’t get to make any choices exactly, except choosing a path, which leads you to different places around the space station before reaching your goal. It does not add much, but I guess it adds some replayability to the game. 

What is funny, though. When you complete Dead Space: Ignition, the game asks you if you want to unlock the comic strips you didn’t see during your playthrough. It just comes off as a lack of confidence in the product—that nobody would think it being fun enough to warrant a second go at it. I should also add that completing this little spin-off title grants you a special hacking suit for the main game, Dead Space 2. A small incentive, perhaps? Pretty cool, nonetheless.

The comic
The comic style is pretty good, and reminds me of some other comics already released for the franchise, like Dead Space and Dead Space: Extraction. It’s not the greatest I have ever seen, but it works and is very moody, fitting the world of Dead Space. The comic is also animated and voiced. While the animations are minor to just add some flair, the voice acting truly enhances the experience. It’s just a shame it wasn’t a more robust product, as overall, it seems like a waste sadly.

Conclusion
While more Dead Space is always fun, Dead Space: Ignition sadly falls short, even for the most lore addicted Necromorph out there. There is just so little meat to gnaw on, and the strips of flesh we get are so meager that it’s probably not even worth the four bucks it costs. It’s nice to see the lead-up to Dead Space 2, but it’s so short that nothing substantial is ever shown. The only real incentive for playing it, instead of just watching it on YouTube, is that you are rewarded with a suit, which admittedly is cool. 

In the end, it was just a minor tie-in tool for the main game, but I still feel it could have been better, instead of this surface level stuff—if we consider the lore. Oh, well, I guess puzzle skills are important in space too!

Thanks for reading!

– Thomas