I'm playing a third-person shooter called Dead Space. The demo begins and I see my character, a space engineer named Isaac, from the "over the shoulder" view similar to Resident Evil 4 slowly walked down a dark hallway in what appears to be a space ship. There is blood, slime and what looks like organic, mutated flesh attached to the walls. It's a gruesome, unsettling environment. As I creep toward the end of the hallway, suddenly a tentacle erupts from one of the pockets of flesh on the wall in front of me, and it takes my character's head clean off. I recoil in my seat as Isaac's body is hurled across the screen, twitching and gushing with arterial blood spray.

That was my first experience with Dead Space, EA's new science fiction-themed survival horror title. When I walked up to the Electronic Arts meeting room at E3 last week, I noticed a small section tucked away in the rear corner of the room with one Xbox 360 running the game's demo. Because the game had such an unassuming and low-key spot in the room (compared to Spore's enormous spread), I began to wonder if it was because EA didn't have much faith in the title or perhaps it just wasn't that good. But I worked my way over to the Dead Space demo and was quickly blown away. In fact, Dead Space was probably the best demo I played at this year's show.

After getting decapitated, I thankfully was able to load up the demo again. I also benefited from Chuck Beaver, producer of Dead Space, to walk me through the demo and explain some of the game's eye-popping features. First, Dead Space has no cut scenes as all. Beaver explained the EA Redwood Shores development team wanted to keep gamers in the experience of playing Dead Space to enhance the fear and suspense. And from what I played in the demo, I'd say the decision was a smart one.

Another keen element to Dead Space is its heads-up display (HUD), which is presented as a holographic interface that pops up during gameplay. Thus, players cannot pause the game and switch weapons, use items or check a map. Everything you do in Dead Space is done in real time. The holographic screens are beautifully designed - they're big enough to read from a distance, but not so large that they obstruct your view of the game - and offer a nice touch to the game's visuals. And perhaps most importantly, the holographic HUD was easy to use, even on the fly during intense battles.

The game is, of course, set in outer space. The playable character Isaac Clarke receives a distress call from the USG ship Ishimura and sets his mining ship off on a rescue mission. Isaac and his team find out that the Ishimura has been taken over by a strange alien race called "the Necromorphs," which are bizarre creatures that are able to mutate and regenerate quickly (there's much more to the story, but I won't spoil it). The trick with the Necromorphs is that players must use a variety of weapons to target the aliens' weak spots and blow off the creatures' limbs and tentacles in order to stop them.

One of the buzz terms EA used to describe this gameplay element is "strategic dismemberment," and it's extremely accurate. Isaac can use a variety of weapons to take out Necromorphs. For example, I encountered another tentacle-bearing monstrosity attached a wall and used a three-pronged laser weapon to shoot the creature - except shooting it directly did nothing to stop it. I had to use the laser to blast off each of the Necromorphs tentacles before they slowly regenerated and attacked me again. I discovered I could alter the laser blast from a flatter horizontal spread to a longer vertical strike by hitting one of the bumper buttons on the Xbox 360 controller. That made it much easier to blast off the tentacles and kill the enemy.

The demo showed off some other fascinating weapons, including a flame thrower and a larger shotgun-like contraption. Each of these weapons is customizable - again, using the holographic pop-up HUD - so players will be able to use Isaac's engineering skills to upgrade and modify the weapons. Players will also have two built-in weapons as well; the first is a stasis device that Isaac shoots from his left hand and renders enemies paralyzed in a kind of suspended animation. Isaac also has telekinetic abilities and can hurl items like barrels, crates and yes, body parts to defend himself.

It's a good thing Isaac has these abilities, because ammunition is incredibly scarce in Dead Space, which adds to the fright factor. Players will have to conserve their ammo and target enemies carefully or else they'll be stuck using telekinesis and melee attacks like stomping to keep the Necromorphs away. As one point, an enormous tentacle exploded down a dark hallway and grabbed on to my leg and began pulling me down the hallway. I was forced to hit the tendril with my flame thrower at specific weak points on the creature before it dragged me into some sinister entity at the end of the hall. Normally, a sequence this elaborate and well done would be a cinematic cut scene. But this is Dead Space: there are no cut scenes. The result was a brief but exhilarating sequence that was a sing of things to come.

Along the way, I learned that sometimes enemies will have obvious weak points that are colored differently, but other times those supposed weak spots will turn out to be red herrings designed to confuse the player. And if you take too long to figure things out, you're dead - the strategic dismemberment works both ways, unfortunately. Necromorphs will literally tear your limb from limb (just look at the box art of the game, and you'll get the point). Dead Space is without a doubt one of the bloodiest, goriest games I've seen in a while, and the eviscerating death scenes are something to behold.

After taking a larger, powerful Necromorph with a stasis-shotgun combination, I ventured into a square room that offered something different: zero gravity. Using Isaac's gravity boots, I could jump onto the walls or ceiling to get a better shot at the swarming Necromorphs. It was a tough battle that required lots of dodging and careful aiming. Unfortunately, I ran out of ammo and after hitting a few crawling Necromorphs with a stasis blast and stomping on them, I finally succumbed to the aliens, which blew off a couple of my limbs and sent them swirling through zero gravity.

Later in the demo, I witness an inspired boss battle that pitted Isaac against a gigantic Necromorph that completely covered the end of a spinning, circular tunnel (combine the rotating spaceship from "2001" and the crazy closet monster from the end of "Poltergeist" and you have a good idea of what it was like). Again, you have to take advantage of the gravity boots to move all around the environment and dodge the boss's deadly tentacles, which keep spawning like a mutant hydra. The battle was an intense, nightmarish scene that felt like it had jumped right out of hell.

There are some games that are so good-looking that even pre-release screenshots - hardly the best indicator of what the final release will be - don't do the title justice; you have to see these games in action on screen to appreciate their beauty. Dead Space is one of those games. If it looks this good on an Xbox 360 demo, then I can't wait to see what Dead Space will look like on the PC.

The Necromorph animation is outstanding, and the Ishimura's environments are also brilliant, combining the right mix of futuristic designs, balanced lighting, and gory imagery such as dead bodies and Necromorph remnants. Isaac's space suit has a steam punk feel to it, resembling a Big Daddy suit from BioShock. Dead Space has a lot of similarities to BioShock, Resident Evil 4 and even System Shock II way back when. The game also bears a resemblance to the science fiction-horror film "Event Horizon." But Dead Space didn't feel like a knock off or just another "humans vs. aliens shooter." In fact, the immersive third-person experience delivered the most memorable demo experience of the show, thanks to its intoxicating gore, beautiful design and genuinely frightening moments.

Dead Space is scheduled for release on Oct. 20. In the meantime, gamers can get a head start on the title's story with the "Dead Space" prequel comic book series on Image Comics. An animated movie produced by EA and Starz is also in the works and is scheduled to debut in October as well. Stay tuned for more Dead Space news on Tom's Games.

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