Dead Space 3 Review
When I first played Dead Space, I was blown away by the graphics and gameplay. The story was awesome and the game felt like a true survival horror game. It filled the void left behind by Resident Evil, at least for me it did. I instantly became a fan. The sequel, though not as scary, still managed to catch me off guard quite a few times and I really enjoyed the game.
Fast forward to Dead Space 3, and it’s a totally different game. It is no longer feels like a survival horror game. Packed with tons of action sequences and QTE’s, Dead Space 3 is pure shooting action. Best enjoyed with a buddy on co-op, which I thought was one of the best features in the game. I love it when games make co-op campaigns. And Dead Space 3 did co-op the right way, there is no arguing over resources and ammo. Everything you pick up can also be picked up by your partner. Couple that with the ability to trade and gift weapons upgrades and this game stands out as one of the best co-op games available.
The game starts off with you taking the role of Private Kaufman of S.C.A.F. forces in search of a codex for a doctor Earl Serrano. This is basically their tutorial, and I like the approach they took. They give you a glimpse of what happened 200 years ago on a snow and ice covered planet, Tau Volantis, and teach you the basics while also laying down the games plot with some disturbing scenes. You then fast forward to Isaac Clarke, an engineer and the lead character in the story. Clarke, after helping destroy two markers now resides in an apartment on the moon where he is attacked and then convinced to help two guys, Captain Norton and Sgt. Carver, claiming Ellie sent them for his help. Of course, they don’t know where she is at exactly and need Clarke’s help to find her. Once you find her the story gets a little interesting, especially if you’ve played the previous installment in the series. The little feud that ensues is one of the most interesting parts of the story and plays a role in Captain Norton’s betrayal later on in the game.
Your mission is to recover lost secrets and information on Tau Volantis, where it believed that a past colony stopped a marker infestation dead on its tracks 200 years ago. Together with Ellie, a few of her surviving crew members and the two soldiers you begin to repair a derelict ship that is infested with necromorphs and happens to be your only way to travel after your previous ship was attacked and blown up. Tau Volantis, now thought to be the marker home world is where Clarke believes he can put an end to the marker infestation once and for all.
While I Played this game, it felt like I was playing through an action movie. The story is well written, but offers very few surprises compared to 1 & 2. And does not in any way feel like a survival horror. The game does offer some challenging survivor type gameplay if you play on the hardest modes. You then have to pretty much craft everything and won’t find much ammo anywhere. But you won’t find much in the horror department. It didn’t feel like the traditional Dead Space to me, the story seemed more focused on romance and betrayal.
The gameplay, I really don’t know where to start. I had very mixed feelings about this game. Especially in my first Play-through. I have to say that this is one of the most frustrating games I have played in a long time. I loved the first and second games because of its unique strategic dismemberment mechanics, where shooting limbs is the equivalent of a headshot. They give you an awesome plasma gun with a rotating cuff that can change the angle of the plasma blast/slice 90 degrees. This gives you the ability to strategically dismember arms and legs and slow your enemies down. I found that to be one of the best things about the first two installments. This mechanic is still there, but they stepped it up a few notches Dead Space 3. You can no longer dismember their legs so easily, now you have to go for specific areas which are usually the arms of very fast moving enemies running towards you while flailing their arms side to side and attacking you. They start you off with weak powered weapons, too weak in my opinion, and fill the areas with new and old necromorphs that move with speed unseen in previous installments. They made sure you have to use plenty of rounds if you want to hit those specific areas and shooting legs didn’t chop anything off. It made me frustrated and I rage quit many, many times throughout my first run of the game. I played on normal and found this game to be quite challenging, except not in a very good challenging way. It was more like a challenge to see if I could handle the next chapter without rage quitting. You’re limited to two stasis shots at a time and the enemies move so fast I missed quite a few times hitting the walls behind them. You can upgrade your suit later to hold more stasis rounds, but with weak weapons you still have to use a lot of rounds. Even if you’re hitting weak spots and chopping off their arms the enemies still manage to keep moving forward and attacking until you’ve chopped both arms and head.
The upgrading has been totally revamped and is no longer as simple as upgrading in Dead Space 1 & 2. Upgrading your suit now requires you to search for different types of loot such as tungsten, semiconductors and scrap metal which can be put together to make the upgrade. The same goes for weapons and weapon upgrades. Everything has to be crafted with several different types of loot that can be found throughout the game. Some may enjoy that kind of thing, for me it ruined the experience a little more. Not only did they start me off with weak weapons, they also made it challenging to upgrade and make new weapons.
I mostly used the plasma gun through the game, I used the galvanizer and a shotgun attachment on the bottom as my secondary. But didn’t often use them, as I used all my loot for upgrading the plasma gun, it didn’t leave much room for improvement on the galvanizer. At least not until I got towards the end of the game. By then I found that my plasma gun was better for the job anyway and didn’t use the galvanizer much. I crafted one or two other weapons and was not impressed with the results. I didn’t like most of the weapons offered with the blueprints either. I often felt I wasted resources on useless and weak weapons that often offered me no advantage and as a result I stuck with the plasma gun.
I really disliked the game in the beginning. I felt it strayed far away from the formula that made this franchise so popular. It’s like they went out of their way to make almost everything challenging, from crafting to upgrading and lightning fast enemies all while keeping the pace at which you move the only thing that stood true to the series- Isaac Clarke still moves slow and stiff like he has a broomstick stuck where the sun doesn’t shine. Once you upgrade your weapons and suit, the game becomes a bit more fair and challenging in a good way. Towards the end of the game I made a complete 180 about my thoughts of the game and found it to be quite enjoyable. I decided to play through the game a second time, and fell in love with everything that I hated so much at the start of this game. And through the second play through I did all the random and secondary missions I didn’t want to bother with the first time around. Under all the new layers of gameplay they added to the game, I found that it still had some solid Dead Space goodness in its core gameplay. New game+ allows you to replay with all your upgrades and ammo and now the playing field was a little even sided, I found I like the challenge that this game presents. It might be a bit tough at first, but once you used to all fast moving enemies and have a fully upgraded arsenal this game becomes very enjoyable. In fact the challenge gives this game great replay value. Coupled with the ability to play through the game in co-op and share weapons and upgrades, it made up for the frustrations with a very fun co-op experience.
The graphics of this game are stunning. The godfather engine has been updated and the improvements show. This game has some of the best video game snow I’ve seen in recent years. The lighting and textures as well as all character models looked really good. The voice acting was also done very well. Everything plays very smooth with no lag or screen tear at all. I found this game to have very few bugs also. I think there is only one major bug in this game that I found to be the most irritating thing about this game. It will not save your progress if you decide to save and quit in the middle of a mission. It WILL save a portion of your success, like all the ammo and health you found will still be in your inventory. And playing through the chapter again means there will be more health and ammo to add to it. But that sword is double edged and can backfire on you. If you played through a difficult part and used most of your health and ammo, and then decide to save and quit. You will not be happy at all when you find out you have to play through that chapter or area again with even less resources than before. I almost completely gave up on this game because of it.
The most upsetting part of this game to me was that there was no moment in the game that really wowed you. One and two managed to surprise me in many ways with the story and graphic scenes. Dead Space three feels and plays like an action movie. Bringing you tense moments with enemies swarming you moving around quickly and striking from behind if you’re not paying attention. But like I mentioned before, the horror is gone from the game. I was expecting a really good survival horror game, but what I got was well written action/shooting game with a little bit of survival in the mix.
Still, Dead Space 3 is a pretty awesome game and overall I enjoyed it. It has great replay value and offers a truly remarkable experience once you see past its flaws.
Story- 7
Gameplay- 7
Graphics- 9
Genre- 6
Average score- 7.1
