Set in the far future, Earth’s appetite for natural resources has become a major motivator for deep space exploration. Immense, privately-owned and operated mining ships called “planetcrackers” orbit planets and use sophisticated equipment to carve out entire city-sized chunks of rock, reducing them to component elements and raw ore. When communications go dead onboard the USG Ishimura, a famous planetcracker, systems engineer Isaac Clarke is sent in to fix the problem.

You're not a warrior. You're not a soldier. You are, however, the last line of defense between the remaining living crew and deadly reanimated corpses. The undead have become Necromorphs; horrific zombie-alien hybrids that won't succumb to traditional means. Fortunately, your offense is equally unique, as the high-powered mining tools at your disposal provide the means to fight against the threat.

Once onboard the vessel, Isaac discovers that the crew has unearthed an ancient and malevolent alien presence far beneath the planet’s surface and brought it onboard. Alone and terrified, this lone engineer is burdened with much more than simple survival – he must seal the alien horror back into the dark rock.

EA Origin has Dead Space (PC Digital Download) for Free.

You can play  Dead Space right now for free with Origin On the House. Just log in to Origin, head to the On the House page, and download Dead Space to your “My Games” library. You’ll be able to play it whenever you want.

Note, game will require an Origin account to activate/play.

Key Features:

• Messy monster slaying. The Necromorphs are unlike any enemies you've seen before. Headshots do about as much damage to them as flicking rubber bands. To survive, you'll need to dismember their insect-like limbs, one at a time.
• Improvised weapons. There aren't many traditional firearms aboard the Ishimura, but there's plenty of stopping power in Isaac's toolkit. Send horizontal or vertical blasts of energy at enemies with the Plasma Cutter, remotely control a high-speed sawblade with the Disc Ripper, and fill hallways with wide swaths of destruction with the Line Gun. Switch things up with alternate fire modes, and purchase upgrades to increase ammo, power, and reload speed.
• Real-time attacks. Whatever you do, don’t drop your guard. Everything takes place in real-time. That means any action you take, whether it be reloading or digging through your inventory, gives the Necromorphs a perfect opportunity to attack. This nightmare has just begun and it’s up to get to the bottom of what happened here.

Dead Space will be in stores in North America and Europe for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, on Halloween, Oct. 31, 2008.