Dead Space 3 is upon us. Yes, Isaac and co. are back! And by “co.” I guess I’m referring to the dozens upon dozens of former humans who now reside somewhere in the grooves of Mr. Clarke’s stompy shoes. But this time he’s brought a friend! A friend called John ManHeroSomething. And John has stompy shoes too. Spoiler alert: in the pantheon of the greatest shooters of all time Dead Space 3 will take its place somewhere between Half-Life 2 and Daikatana.
If you’ll recall a couple years back I wasn’t overly fond of Dead Space. It was a fine experience in many ways but I felt that, overall, it missed on its potential. It came out of the gate with a distinct advantage in that almost everyone loves the Trapped-On-A-Spaceship-And-Horror-Ensues genre of System Shock. The game itself had a very striking introduction and immersed players quite well with the no-HUD system. Despite that the game didn’t take long to turn derivative, repetitive and loaded with filler and cheap scares. Once finished with it I didn’t touch the game again and I skipped the sequel altogether.
But… second chances, right? So I’ve given the second sequel a shot. I watched a 5 minute summary of the series so far and it sounds like what I missed in the second game is this: Isaac goes to a space station to deal with more necromorph business, crazy people try to kill him, they fail, mostly, he meets a woman who, it appears, emotionally replaces his maybe-dead-but-who-knows girlfriend Nicole, they get scared and some stuff happens, they help each other and survive and leave the horrible space station. I hope there were no spoilers in there. Who am I kidding? I don’t care, neither should anyone, Dead Space’s story is total fluff.
So Dead Space 3 begins with Isaac “I took the same MIT courses as Gordon Freeman where they teach tech-y folks how to be utterly fearless and badass in case shit goes awry” Clarke and some honky named Shootington McChristmas crash landing on a planet called Your Life Must Be A Bummer If You’ve Crash Landed Here! When we meet Isaac in Dead Space we’re supposed to think oh, that’s neat; they’ve named him for two science-fiction luminaries, maybe this game will be diff– oh, monsters jumping out of closets…I see. So now they’ve introduced a guy named John Carver!? I can’t even muster up the necessary breath to push out a capitalized “lol.” It’s basically EA’s way of saying “yeah, we tried the whole horror thing, but we don’t care anymore, fuck it.” John Goddamned Carver. Okey dokey, then. It’s Gears of Space.
My first impressions don’t lie: after two minutes of walking around in an extreme blizzard some very pedestrian necromorphs just kind of walk on screen and say “Hey, remember us? Shoot the legs then stomp our heads.” I oblige. Just when I thought I was in for complete disappointment, quick time button pressing swoops in to get my adrenaline flowing! An original climb-out-of-the-falling-scrap-heap straight out of Uncharted 2’s intro. Back onto your feet, Isaac. The blizzard subsides and one thing is certain: with each passing year developers are creating prettier and prettier skyboxes to stare at. The weather effects (complete with forced slow-walk) look nice too, and I can already envision scenarios where they could really add to the horror element, but it didn’t work in this instance. Everything else looks the same as before, only the dark and claustrophobic corridors of Ishimura are replaced with the bright and snowy corridors of some planetary surface.
A couple of cut-scenes with no player input occur and a sneak preview of a mini-boss tango follows; it’s the same formula as in Dead Space: shoot glowing limbs, wait till the horror-beast is sufficiently irritated and decides to leave. I know the change in environment is supposed to be just that, a change, but there’s nothing yet remotely frightening, disturbing or even intimidating about any of these encounters. Maybe it’s not supposed to be? It’s building up to something? But even so, there’s no shred of suspense. Five minutes into Amnesia or a Penumbra game I’ve already wet myself; even the original Dead Space has a pants-wetting first level. This is advertised as horror, or at least action-horror, but it’s not succeeding; and I’m not an immune test subject, either. Rather one who is easily spooked: the faux-documentary style of The Blair Witch Project still paralyzes me today as it did many years ago, and I still feel something when watching the classic horror of Hitchcock, or even King’s Shining-era work, novel or film, despite knowing what’s coming. I feel nothing for Dead Space 3’s grotesque necromorphs.
It’s obvious to me at this point that the game cannot be reviewed fairly as an attempt at horror, because I really can’t believe it’s trying to be that. This is more Gears of War than a corridor-crawl. EA has admitted as much by inserting a cooperative mode; interactive horror is ingrained as a solitary experience, which this is not no matter how you slice it. In truth, it may work better as a two-player story. Left on his own in the first Dead Space, I don’t know how much of what occurred actually happened as it was portrayed through Isaac’s eyes. With a partner at all times I have to assume there will be no — or at least fewer — opportunities for ridiculous mind-fucks like “Hey, remember when that woman you were with pushed that button that opened a door for you? Yeah, that was fake. Oh, who pushed the button? Erm…well it’s just a game…gotta go!” Dead Space was so often betrayed by its idiotic narrative, but part of me thinks there might be less nonsense with two minds to keep each other limber. Of course, the entire plot of the first two games revolves heavily around mind control so what’s to say in the final moments your partner doesn’t go *poof* and we get a Tyler Durden situation? I’ll just have to hope they’re better than that.
Pressing onward, back into the confines of actual corridor I am reunited with Dead Space’s crafting and suit-enhancing distractions. To me, this is one of the strangest aspects of the series. Ninety percent of the box stomping you’ll do throughout your travels is to acquire bits of junk that can be used to improve your suit and weapons. My question is: why? In the original I located a finite amount of upgrade components which meant I had to choose which aspects of my weapon to upgrade and which to ignore. That’s fine, I have no problems with weapon crafting, it’s central to many games, and it stands to reason that as foes become deadlier your weapons be allowed to improve. I’ve not gone far enough into the game to discover the full breadth of opportunities, but from what I gather it’s mostly the same as it has been. Minor pieces of junk can be accumulated to gradually improve the health, armor and stasis capabilities of Isaac’s suit, and likewise nuggets of treasure can be attached to weapons to alter their properties and improve them. Presumably there will again be a finite amount of particular components to force players into certain upgrade decisions while locking out others; or at least preventing maximum enhancement to all attributes being simultaneously achieved.
I think that’s a good system, and while I’d rather see it totally stripped down so only the smallest of improvements could be attained, in keeping with the horror spirit of being vulnerable at all times, I understand a lot of people like the variety that a deep crafting system provides. My complaint is that this system forces players to embark on an endless quest of smashing every last crate to bits to gather the junk within. I’ve spent probably 15% of my time with Dead Space 3 stomping on crates and even necromorphs to the appropriate point where candy pops out of them. Then I reach designated upgrade stations and if I have enough candy I win a prize. Is this just a cheap way to make the game several hours longer or do the developers actually believe breaking a crap ton of crates and then having to swing the camera around to see where the loot landed is enjoyable? Crafting materials could be obtained in ways far more elegant, or better yet, crafting materials could be done away with and let’s just say that for every upgrade station you find there is one upgrade to be had. I mean, come on, are we really saying that players who walk around every corner of the map to find and break boxes — something real human beings in horrifying situations would never do, unless they were starving and seeking food — have earned a badge of “completionism” while players who prefer to feel immersed and act normally should suffer?
While I don’t enjoy stomping on boxes I will admit that stomping on partially dismembered enemies to conserve ammunition remains inspired. However, a hyper-stomp feature is now in place where Isaac and Johnny-boy are no longer forced to stomp, regain balance and repeat. You can just stomp-stomp-stomp, and stomp-stomp-stomp you will, as the hordes of monstrosities are often in never-ending supply. A problem I found with this is that the screen shakes violently upon anything more than a single ground pound of the foot. I have vision problems with distances, but playing games several feet away from my TV I very rarely encounter situations which irritate my vision, but this in particular really rattled my eyes and I had to take a second to refocus. Since I suspect there is a lot more stomping to be had, this does not bode well for me.
I’m giving Dead Space 3 a short leash: I’ve abandoned faith in its ability to stir up any horror, but the cooperative mode has enough potential in the right circumstances that I won’t write it off completely. Whether I will carry on remains to be seen; having come in with modest expectations after the original game left me a bit cold, they have already been lowered substantially by the game’s opening level. You could say I have nothing to lose. That too remains to be seen.
Send an email to the author of this post at xtal@tap-repeatedly.com.
I’m one who enjoyed the first game – but truly fell in love with the second. From all I have heard – haven gotten the third yet – the second Dead Space remains the best in the series, with an amazing narrative. You owe it to yourself to give it a go. And it’s not an attack on you here – different strokes for different folks an all… But I find it unfortunate that you malign the series with out having experienced the best it has to offer. The brief summary of the last game as you have described it, does very little justice to a grand personal tale of inner turmoil.
Maybe try it out… you might still hate it – no worries. But you never know.
Arctic Black, your criticism is entirely warranted, as I am painting the second game– which I have not played a second of– with a broad brush when I half-jokingly imply that it is probably inessential. I’m not concerned with story, as I’ve clearly spoiled parts of it for myself, so I may yet play the middle game if I get enough out of the third. As someone who enjoyed only parts of the first game and skipped the second I hope you take my perspective with a grain of salt. I write this obviously not as a buyer’s guide for a big fan of the series, but, to the contrary, as someone who views it rather skeptically.
Thanks for your comment.
I never got far into the first two Dead Spaces. Played the original on the 360 for a while and returned it to GameFly; both somehow wound up on my Steam list (some sale or another, I assume), and I did put a couple of hours into Dead Space 2. They both felt overly complex, controls-wise, to me – not because they were overly complex, but because from the very beginning I sensed I wouldn’t be returning to them, so I didn’t bother to learn the moves I needed to know. Certainly the series’ attempts at horror pale in comparison to some games. I’m far too much of a wimp to try Amnesia, and The Blair Witch Project has the same effect on me as it does on Xtal.
That said, someone is a grumpy bunny today! Where’s the effervescent, cheery xtal we know? 😉
Help – I can’t stop laughing at “Shootington McChristmas.”
I don’t think Dead Space 3 was really supposed to be super-scary, though. The market has spoken and “scary” doesn’t sell the numbers they need to make this one float.
AJ, you’re right of course. Proper, actual horror is a niche; and that’s fine. I didn’t expect it here, but I at least hoped for it. Not so.
Steerpike, my apologies; cheery, effervescent Xtal has gone on vacation. He is temporarily replaced with Grumpy McFrownerson. Tomorrow: my impressions of poking my eyeballs with a fork and spoon. You’ll be surprised to learn which was more unpleasant!
Just for the record, I wasn’t really criticizing Xtal at all. I thought the article was great, I just figured that one of his key arguments regarding lackluster story was unfairly painted over Dead Space 2 by association. I do hope I’m not the only one here who thinks Dead Space 2’s story was rather good, especially when compared to the first…
Sounds like another one to miss!
I’ve picked up the first Dead Space on Steam but, despite SF and horror being so far up my street they’ve moved in next door, I’ve yet to spend more than 20 minutes with it.
I’ve not touched the second but AR’s Dylan did and reading this piece of yours, xtal, I’m struck by how many of the same gameplay beats and narrative incongruities you both touch upon.
@ShaunCG – if you’ll forgive the blatant site self-promotion, as a fan of horror you’ll probably enjoy an old classic editorial by one of our former staffers… What Not to Fear. I think Dobry sums things up well in that, including a discussion of the flaws in Dead Space’s horror ambitions.
@Steerpike – well, I can hardly complain about a link into your own archives after I show up and link to an article on my site. 😉
I’ll have a read shortly – thanks.
(Oh my word, it’s a million miles long. Well, I’ll start reading it shortly, then…)
Grumpy Bunny Xtal is pretty funny. Stomp-stomp-stomp immediately made me think of Dora the Explorer (yes, I have kids). Now that’s some hard-core horror right there.
Oooh, Botch, at what age are your kids allowed to watch Twice Upon a Time? =P (I’ve only been able to download a version of TERRIBLE quality – surely the rarest movie there ever was (and almost wasn’t, from what I’ve read!)).
Good question. Maybe the original version, without the (albeit funny) colorful language, although they wouldn’t get any of the jokes anyway. You can find the whole thing on Youtube. The only copy I have is VHS. It does have an interesting history, and will probably never make it to DVD 🙁
This was a great write-up for a few reasons:
1) “Shootington McChristmas” and “Your Life Must Be A Bummer If You’ve Crash Landed Here” made me laugh out loud.
2) “the faux-documentary style of The Blair Witch Project still paralyzes me today” (you and me both, The Shining, too, still gives me the willies).
3) “Hey, remember when that woman you were with pushed that button that opened a door for you? Yeah, that was fake. Oh, who pushed the button? Erm…well it’s just a game…gotta go!” YES. That was exactly my reaction when they pulled the ‘It’s all in your head Isaac’ card.
4) “My complaint is that this system forces players to embark on an endless quest of smashing every last crate to bits to gather the junk within” I can really get behind this and as a veteran player of the Souls games — which, to my knowledge, don’t reward players at all for smashing barrels and crates — this would be a stark contrast to the last 500+ hours or so you’ve spent Getting On With Things.
5)”… a badge of “completionism” while players who prefer to feel immersed and act normally should suffer?” This is when I think games should start being a bit crueller to stop pack rats doing their thang and to usher in a bit of much needed realism or player urgency. In System Shock 2 hanging around areas for too long opened you up to extra enemy encounters because there was a very carefully considered slow enemy respawn system in place which always kept you on your toes. It kind of offset the urge to explore and poke about too much. Deus Ex: Human Revolution, at least in one of the early missions, punished the player for dilly-dallying when circumstances were grave which set an uneasy precedent.
I enjoyed Dead Space overall but it could have been half the size for me because beyond the exemplary audio design, satisfying sci-fi style and atmosphere, and the mass-butchering of Thing-inspired beasties, it got duller and duller as the chapters drew on and it ran out of tricks. I own Dead Space 2 which I intend to play at some point because I’ve heard great things about it as a balls-to-the wall action-horror. Tom Chick wrote about Dead Space 3 recently and (obviously) had quite a different take on the campaign. I’ll be honest, I think it looks pretty pants but as a co-op shooter I can see it being good fun.
Edit: I played the original Dead Space on the hardest setting and that certainly ramped up the horror at the beginning when you’re struggling for supplies, conserving ammo but terrified of going hand-to-hand. Eventually you reach a point where you’ve got plenty again, and from there on it’s relatively plain sailing, but for a short spell it was a really, really tense experience. In this regard I can see why Tom sees the higher difficulties as the ‘meat’ of the game.
Oh hey, it looks like Dylan over at Arcadian Rhythms said the same regarding the difficulty as well. It seems like it really brings the nuances out in the combat model.
Horror is so interesting. In general, I think it’s comparatively easy to do good horror in games, because of the interactive nature of the experience. With good sound design and an understanding of what makes shit scary, it seems like it’d be a hard thing to botch (sorry Botch).
That’s not to disparage the best examples of horror out there, or imply that they did something “easy.” It’s just that if you set out to do it, you can. With Dead Space 3, it looks like they tried to make a horror action game, which is fundamentally flawed. High speed and horror don’t usually work well together, whereas slowly building dread a la Amnesia is the secret sauce.
I’m currently playing Alan Wake on the PC and it does a great job with a very different kind of horror – the reality-questioning psychological fear and inability to determine what’s reality and what’s not. It’s more unnerving than terrifying, and quite different from the “I have soiled myself” of Amnesia, but good all the same.
Blair Witch Project. I have a funny story about that. I’ll tell it some time.
Good comments, Gregg. I finished the Dead Space 3 campaign this weekend– the first 14 chapters in co-op, the last 5 on my own because people in co-op were driving me insane– and like the original Dead Space I have mixed feelings about the game overall. The difference though is that I see a lot more replay value in Dead Space 3 because, while my Impressions here showed some skepticism, I have to concede that the weapon crafting element of DS3 is very satisfying.
When I heard about a crazy weapon crafting system what came to mind was Borderlands. I don’t really like the way Borderlands does it because it feels like…too much. It reminds me of playing hundreds of hours of Diablo 2 just to try to get an item drop with the exact stats you want on it. It feels too random, like you can never be in control of your arsenal.
This is not the case in DS3, however. There are a set amount of weapon frames (the base of your gun), upper and lower tools (the core property of the weapon, i.e. a military engine, plasma core, Tesla core, etc.), tool tips (these change the output of your weapon, i.e. turn it into a sub-machine gun, shotgun, grenade launcher, etc.) and attachments (these add slight perks, like healing your co-op partner when you heal, or protecting you from your own splash damage). Throw in circuits – modifiers that can enhance your damage, rate of fire, reload speed and clip size – and there’s a lot you can play with.
What I love about this system is that almost any combination of upper and lower tool is possible and with 2 guns allowed to be held you basically have the potential for whatever 4 weapons you foresee needing (you can always swap out for different ones when you find work benches) throughout the game. My combination: a carbine rifle on the top with a powerful shotgun on the bottom, modified with acid coating. My second weapon was a suspended, electrified chainsaw (the Ripper, as it’s called, which suspends a saw blade in front of you to easily dismember things) with a rocket launcher on the bottom. Needless to say…that was fun.
For all the good I have to say about that aspect, there is all the blah. As I suspected, sentient being/box smashing is all too necessary to gather the parts you require. They put in these things called scavenger bots which you can deploy to collect resources while you go about your business but you have to find particular “resource hot spots” to deploy them or the yield will be minimal. I didn’t figure out how to properly deploy these bots to said areas until almost the end of the game – looking back, the system isn’t hard to figure out, but it isn’t at all intuitive either.
Regarding difficulty being the meat of the game…I’m not so sure I’d agree with that. I played the game on 3 different difficulties (not on purpose – long story) and hard was a bit too much. I don’t know if the difficulty is increased with a co-op partner (probably?) but there was a spell somewhere in the middle of the game where, between a terrible section of grappling up an ice wall and avoiding falling shit and then fighting a giant snow beast monstrosity, I (and about the 3 co-op partners I burned through – this was when I was on Hard difficulty) died probably a dozen times. Each co-op partner I heard over Xbox Live swearing under the breath before leaving the game exasperated (another thing I FUCKING HATE about DS3: if your co-op partner randomly leaves the game YOU, THE HOST, lose all progress going back to your previous checkpoint, and let me tell you, the checkpoint system is a fucking failure). I said screw it, and this was the point I carried on solo for the rest of the game. My first try alone at this section and I breezed through it without a problem. Hmm, so was I really the problem, were my co-op partners just idiots taking their anger out on me, or did the difficulty just drop a notch when they left? Who’s to say? Not the game, because it certainly doesn’t inform you.
But here’s the difficulty problem. DS1’s harder difficulties were appropriate: they lent to the isolation and horror, and most of your encounters were with a handful of monsters in close quarters. This was why, I presume, they designed the way Isaac moves. He’s slow and clumsy but able to pack a punch. It was reminiscent of Resident Evil. In DS3 Isaac moves exactly as he did in the original (save for a new roll move) but now half the time he’s fighting hordes of seemingly never-ending enemies in wide open spaces, and all you have still is that awkward shoulder button run followed by turning around once you’ve put enough distance between you and your target and hoping they’re not in your face when you do.
In my opinion it doesn’t work. I’m going to keep playing the game because I’d like to try some more co-op with non-12 year-olds as well as have a gander at the Pure Survivalist mode (no smashing boxes for goodies, you’ve gotta craft it all yourself!) before I come to a final judgement on the game. For now, it’s looking like it’s roughly in the same middling boat as DS1, with the advantage of better replay value due to the in depth weapon crafting.
I’ll have to check out those reviews by AR and QT3.
Those scavenger bots sound like a great idea and I can see why the handling of the co-op rage-quitters would cause the host to rage. That sounds just plain dumb. Having said this, I wouldn’t quit you dude.
In DS1 I used the… ‘blast cannon’ shotgun type gun that had a short range but a wide conal effect to propel enemies back that got too close. It was my panic button gun: ‘EEE GAD!’ *press* THWUMP. So I think I’d have to have a weapon similar to that again.
The Pure Survivalist mode sounds rad, and I bet that is a lot of fun co-op.
Hmmm, I’m feeling the urge to install DS2…