As admitted by the developers, Dead Space attempts to be both System Shock 3 and Resident Evil 4. Sadly, it never commits to either idea, and ends up coming up short of both of it's inspirations. The game is at it's best when it's retrained, allowing the players fearful imagination to run wild. The lighting, environments and sound design are brilliant but wasted on repetitive enemy encounters and dozens of instances of "watch something spooky happen through a glass pane".