It is fair to say that Dead Space 3 has had its share of negative reaction from fans during its development. After some controversial decisions along the way – decided to include co-op which takes the game away from the stranded feel that resonated so well with the fans was a big one. Also the decision to seemingly create a more action packed game rather than the survival horror game the series has built itself up being. And to top it all off it was revealed that the game would ship with 13 launch day DLC, a fully fledged microtransaction system in place and story DLC to be released a month after release. Gaming sites were taken by storm by disgruntled fans. Knowing all of this, I was apprehensive when I got my hands on Dead Space 3, because being a Dead Space game, it also received a lot of marketing and hype in the run up to release, and I really didn’t know what to expect.
I gave the second Dead Space game a miss (nothing intentional, was just playing other things at the time), but the first was a game that genuinely made me jump out of my skin at times. Something that I wasn’t used to when playing games (I got into the horror thing a bit late), and I was really enjoying myself, not knowing what was coming next was a thrill.
Dead Space 3, is again a third person game, following Isaac Clarke, this time on the Marker home world of Tau Volantis. If you aren’t familiar with the story line there is a ‘previously on Dead Space’ style video that gives a brief overview of what has happened so far. That’s not to say that you still won’t think that everything is a bit of a mind f**k, and with characters that may or may not have come from previous games, there isn’t an in depth catchup on who everyone is. There are plenty of creepy necromorphs (human corpses reanimated by an alien device known as a Marker) to jump out and try to kill you again. The grim gory killing is back with a bang with limbs being shot and stamped off and plenty of horrific death animations for Isaac too.
The new character for the series is John Carver. While he makes appearances during the single player play through with Isaac, he won’t be fighting at your side like in co-op. Unfortunately I was unable to get on the co-op to get a view of what it is like. What is disappointing is that you can’t play through the game as John in single player, so there is no way of people without a friend with the game to experience the whole Dead Space 3 story. An easy fix would have been the inclusion of local co-op play, which is all too regularly cut out of games these days. And with the online pass sneering up from the box, there is no chance of a cheap copy a few months down the line without needing to shell out again.
The game controls as you would expect from a Dead Space game. Slow movement with the option to sprint. And the shooting parts become a lot more tactical with the inclusion of stasis, deciding which enemies to take out first, and aiming for the critical limb shot to slow their aggressive pursuits, followed by the obligatory stamp on the corpse of the beautiful sound of crunching squelching necromorph corpse under your boot.
One of the biggest new additions along with co-op is the scavenging and weapon crafting system. The scale of the crafting is impressive. Each weapon can be broken down into multiple parts, and a varying amount of upgrade slots for each. Little changes to the craft of the weapon can make a big change to how the weapon works. Changing the tip of the gun will make it fire in a completely different way for example, but may slow down the rate of fire. The scavenging for parts reminds me of loot friendly games such as Borderlands and Diablo. But it didn’t give me the draw the aforementioned did. In those I was always excited by what could be dropped by enemies, crates etc. Dead Space 3 was missing that feeling. There is also a scavenger bot that you can send out to collect components for your next great craft. It does allow you to add your personal touch to your weapons and armour, which is nice.
On a visual front, you’re probably seeing one of the best looking games to come out of this generation of consoles. There are some stunning environments, from windswept snow planets, eery dark interiors with great use of little lighting, to flying around in the dead of space between wrecked ships and space junk. There weren’t really any signs of graphical hiccups during my play time either. There are plenty of different looks of guns and how they shoot as well as the variations on the animations on the nercromorphs.
I have been struggling to decide what I think of this game. And the word fitting the most for me is ‘meh’. I can’t praise it, I can’t bash it. It falls right on the middle ground. It seems it’s fighting itself on what sort of game it wants to be. There are elements of trying to stick to its survival horror roots, aswell as the introduction of the more action oriented aspect of the series. And it doesn’t excel at either. There is loads of content to keep you busy, with a play through taking around 15 hours, and with co-op thrown in, aswell as new game+ and long list of difficulty levels. The scanvenging and crafting system alone would probably keep the loot happy people out there busy as they build the best load out they possibly can. But for me, I wouldn’t be overly bothered whether I did or didn’t play the game again. It’s one that I can pick up and play for half hour to an hour and then I’d need to go and play something else. I would have no doubt enjoyed the game a lot more if it was full on action or complete survival horror. But an awkward combo of the two doesn’t work for me.
