Review of Dead Space: Aftermath (2011) by Jonathan T — 24 Jan 2011

The use of 5 different animation teams on this (for the present day stuff and 4 seperately narrated flashbacks) is a really interesting move in the vein of Animatrix, and most of the animation is of the eye pleasing variety. Sadly the present day tale that bookends the whole thing is animated in a very clean, very rough CG style, looking like a late 90s kids show or a videogame that's having trouble streaming in the textures.

It really isn't a style that suits Dead Space, but elsewhere things look great. The story, concerning a mission by the USG O'Bannon (nice Alien nod there) trying to recover fragments of the marker post-DS1, is a little disappointing in that it doesn't really add anything new. There's the usual semi-crazed unitoligists and things go awry in exactly the same ways they went awry in DS, Downfall, Extraction and Ignition. For a sci-fi mythology as cool as DS there's surely a greater variety of stories to be told.

That all sounds pretty negative, but for fans it shouldn't. I love Dead Space, and I thoroughly enjoyed this, and when it's using a more traditional anime style it looks (and sounds) cool as hell. There are also some neat nods to tie it into the upcoming DS2, the narrative style is a nice idea and as far as spin-offs go it's far from another Ignition-esque stinker.