Dead Space

You should do these two things before playing the game on PC with mouse and keyboard:
1) Don't use the game's vsync feature and use vsync via your graphics driver. The game's own vsync caps the fps to 30 and makes it very unpleasant.
2) Download the Dead Space mouse fix fan patch. The mouse aiming is normally dreadfully bad and this patch makes it perfect.
Those two easily fixable issues aside, this game is so fantastic. I'm not all that familiar with horror games, and I don't think this game is scary in the slightest, but every other aspect of it is top notch.
First, the gameplay. It's absolutely perfect. You have to shoot the Necromorphs' limbs to kill them, then stomp on them to make sure they are dead. The shooting is impactful, satisfying, requires precision and the gore is really good too. There's a lot of weapons that can be bought from the store, though I only used the Plasma Cutter and the Pulse Rifle, both of which were enough.
You have some tools like Stasis and Kinesis, though they are used more often for puzzles than combat. Stasis is used to slow down fast object/enemies, and Kinesis allows you to move objects and throw smaller ones at enemies. These tools make the puzzle sections fun, and though I didn't use them much in combat they were useful in that regard too.
There's a lot of Necromorph types with distinct behaviors. Slashers are the most common ones and are easy to kill, Swarmers constantly leap at you and can be annoying to deal with, Pregnants spawn more enemies if you shoot their belly, and the Exploders might be my favourite type of Necromorph. You can shoot down the explosive they carry to kill them and other enemies around them, and the explosion is glorious. Every now and then there's also the Brute, a miniboss that is very dangerous and makes you want to use Stasis on it to make it more easily manageable.
The presentation of the game is really good too. The graphics on a basic standpoint look good, and the ship has a lot of dark areas and areas filled with fleshy walls that are kinda gross. The most interesting part of the game is the HUD. Instead of it being a typical HUD, it's very different. The player's health and stasis are shown on the back of the suit, video screens are shown in front of Isaac and move with him as he moves etc. It's very innovative.
There's the Zero-Gravity areas which are creative, with you being able to jump from one distant location to another, and enemies like Leapers attack from every direction in those areas. I find them to be some of the most fun parts of the game.
Levels also have parts where you are outside the ship and need oxygen to survive, which gives a sense of tension. Enemies often appear and you want to kill them quickly so you can leave the areas before your oxygen becomes dangerously low. Isaac's exhausted breathing and a lot of things being quiet makes it quite tense.
Enemies and ammo crates give you resources you need, like ammo and weapons, and you can also buy said resources from the shop. There's items that have the sole purpose of giving you more money when you sell them, making you want to look for them. The most important things to buy in the shop are suit upgrades and power nodes. Suit upgrades allow you to carry much more resources, and you can use power nodes for things like increasing your health, making weapons deal more damage and take less time to reload etc. Power nodes also appear in many locations, so it's good to look for them.
The story is... alright. Isaac tries to find his girlfriend over the course of the game, and the other few survivors like Hammond help him. I didn't find any of the characters all that interesting, and Isaac has Gordon Freeman personality. The twist at the end of the game was cool though, and the ending... had something sudden happen out of nowhere.
Boss fights are fun, but they are on the easier side. All of the bosses require you to shoot at yellow parts of their bodies to kill dismember them, and they all can be killed without much trouble. I'd say the hardest boss was the Slug, and that was mainly due to the bad turret controls.
As I said, I find the game to be very lacking in the horror department. It's atmospheric, but not really scary. The game sometimes uses jumpscares that aren't even shocking, and I also didn't find the violent death scenes to be that disturbing.
Conclusion
Dead Space 1 might be one of the best games I have played in a long time. Lackluster horror and kinda bad story aside, the game is amazing in every aspect. Combat is great, graphics are great and level design is great. The game is outright a masterpiece in my eyes and I recommend it.
9.5/10

With DeadSpaceMouseFix, this remains the better version compared to 2023's remake. Playing the remake made me install this, and I've officially put more hours into this version now than the remake.
It's the little thing that add up:
1. This game's mood soaks in. It fills me with dread. The remake relies too much on jump scares. Example of the vibe of this game: there's a lady at the start of Chapter 2, Intensive Care, with a blindfold talking about the convergence and cradling a rotting corpse. She's completely missing in the remake and replaced with boxes.
2. Isaac talks too much in the remake. I realize he talks in the sequels, but he's essentially a blank slate here, and that's how I like it.
3. This game has a more claustrophobic vibe, but can still see everything. The remake is just dark, and not spooky dark, more like "do I need to go back to the gamma slider?" dark.
4. Zero G controls are better in this game. You don't need to reorient yourself a dozen times and play a floaty platformer like in the remake.
5. The guns, and more specifically the secondary fire, are still better here than the remake's. Example: The Pulse Rifle's secondary is great here, handy for clearing a room when you're beset on all sides. In the remake, the rifle's secondary is a grenade launcher. Cue fart sound.
6. This game's RIG, Store, and workbench navigation are snappy and satisfying. You can navigate in and out of menus in a jiffy. The HUD in the remake is laggy, and they added confirmation boxes that slow down the speed to a crawl.
Pound-for-pound this game is overall a better than the remake and I'm willing to die on that hill.

Still holds up extremely well 16 years later. Really great sound design reminded me of Thief 1/2, there is a lot that horror games today could learn about the atmosphere good sound design can build

almost as good as resident evil 4 (2005) in fact its even better in some areas.
brilliant combat, great visuals and atmosphere, some of the best sound design in any game.
Fantastic.
8.6/10

For the best experience, use the Dead Space MouseFix. If you get stuck somewhere due to a bug, try turning V-Sync on or off and playing at the correct Hz setting, as some events are tied to the framerate. Besides that, and despite being released in 2008, Dead Space is still fantastic. It may have a few rough spots, but it offers everything you could want: an amazing atmosphere, a great story, unique mechanics, thrilling moments, enjoyable shooting, and a variety of weapons that offer replayability. It's truly a timeless classic and a must-play in my opinion.

A fantastic game that still holds up.

The Remake is also great but the 2008 original still looks and plays amazing in 2024.

You do NEED to fix it a bit though: Go and follow PCGamingWiki recommendations for Vulkan, WindowedFullscreen (Fixes brightness, framerate engine errors, mouse and controller sensibility, etc.). You may also want to run NVIDIA DRS (supersampling) as the antialiasing alternatives are quite poor. You can run the game at like, 6k and it will get rid of the jaggies.

Great gameplay loop, great audio and voices. Amazing game.

PLEASE READ BEFORE BUYING!
This game is old, it came out nearly 20 years ago. Yes it has some problems, that's an unfortunate reality with most games this old and definitely older. But, there are really simple fixes, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do!
Download this patch to fix the horrible mouse issues --->
Just follow the instructions, you can't really screw this up!
Then, the game glitches HARD when playing at high frame rates. Bodies will be flying, doors might not open, it's a mess. DO NOT TURN ON IN GAME V-SYNC!
Turning v-sync on through game will fix the weird physics issues, but it will also lock you at 30 fps. Instead, use your control panel to force v-sync on and lock it at 60 fps. Now the game works and you won't have a headache looking at it. You COULD try your luck with a higher frame rate, but don't try pushing it to 120 or higher. 60 is the safe spot.
And that's it! the game is now perfectly playable, and any issues you have with the game after this should be purely game play related! Because again, this game is nearly 20 years old. If you don't like a lot of the jank in controls with older games, what are you doing here? They released a remake of this game that's pretty good too, go buy that if you want a MODERN experience.
I just feel sorry for all the people leaving bad reviews of this game giving up before they even really start because I love old games, and the thing about old games is that there is almost always a way to fix them. Some old games just need a one download patch that everyone knows about, some you need to track down sources from a forum made years ago. But if you put in the time with these older games, you might be surprised by how well they hold up.
How good is the game? Don't ask me, now that you can actually play the damn thing, go play it and see for yourself!