Dead Space 3

Available on: Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Played it on: Xbox 360
Approximate Playtime: 16 hours.

RATING: 6.5/10

This'll be a long review... brace yourselves.

And thus, the Dead Space series meets its doom. Not literally, I'm sure EA realizes that it can be a huge cash cow for them, but as far as the heart and soul of Dead Space, that's dead. Really dead. If any readers here played and loved Dead Space 1, don't play this game unless you're ready to be disappointed.

Here's the problem: Dead Space mixes psychological horror and third person shooter genres. The first game managed to do this magnificently because Visceral was trying something new and different. Isaac was alone in every sense of the word. He always gets separated from his friends as he's climbing through the bowels of the Ishimura, the rest of the Ishimura's crew is dead or mutated, and nobody is coming to help because he can't communicate with anything outside the ship. The sense of isolation permeates everything and instills a good amount of fear all on its own, but this is compounded by the fact that necromorphs could be literally anywhere at any time, which puts the player on edge. And there's more! Limited ammunition, low money for supplies, low amounts of health, strange noises on the Ishimura, a beautifully eerie soundtrack, and all of the broken parts, blood, and poor lighting on the journey basically remove all traces of the third person shooter aspect, and make the experience seamless and terrifying.

But Dead Space 3 has exactly none of this. Great lighting takes away a lot of the effect, first of all, and the soundtrack is more action filled right off the bat, which just isn't good. And after only a few minutes of the game, a bunch of baddies open fire on Isaac, and this, above all else, ruins the game. As soon as human adversaries were introduced, there was no horror, only the sense that this was like any other generic third person shooter, and could easily be replaced by Gears of War with no noticeable difference.

Even if it were possible to move past this glaring flaw in the game (which it's not), the actual campaign takes place in two different sprawling locations, the first being a derelict fleet of old S.C.A.F. military vessels orbiting the planet Tau Volantis, and the second being on the planet's surface. And neither location is even remotely good for horror.

The first one should be, though, right? I mean, the Ishimura was also a derelict vessel in space, right?! Well, yes, in theory the S.C.A.F. fleet should be a great place for Dead Space to shine, but it never takes the opportunity to do so. There was always the sense on the Ishimura that Isaac really was just in a giant space can, and that can could pop open and kill him at any time. The S.C.A.F. fleet, however, feels overwhelmingly safe in comparison. The lighting is great, even though the fleet is ancient and uncared for, there's rarely any place where there's depressurization other than when Isaac is changing between vessels, and Isaac is never actually alone.

And that's another thing that ruins Dead Space 3's potential: co-op. Did Visceral Games not get the memo that it's impossible to make a co-op horror game? This next bit is going to be in italics because of how important it is. Being alone is the only way to really let horror sink in. Granted, the player has the option of co-op or single player, but even in single player Isaac isn't ever alone. There's always someone talking to him or doing something near him, and it removes all sense of that loneliness from Dead Space 1. Seriously, could Visceral do any more to ruin the series?

Why yes, they can! All those points from earlier, the low health, low ammunition, scarce money, none of those matter. Isaac can build any kind of gun he wants at any time, so instead of making different kinds of ammo, all ammo is now generic "ammo clips," meaning everything from a plasma cutter to a grenade launcher takes the same clip. Because of this, there's no strategic purchases of ammunition, the player can just fill two thirds of his or her inventory with ammo clips and the other third with health kits, and they're invincible. It's easy to have well over 3,000 rounds for one gun later in the game, which is just ridiculous. It doesn't encourage players to experiment with weaponry, it just encourages lazy playing and copy-paste gameplay.

This is extended even more by the suits. Suits are now just for looks, they don't have any kind of special boost or boons like in Dead Space 2, nor do they upgrade successively like Dead Space 1. Because "resources" have replaced in-game currency, the player can just save up resources and fully upgrade the health part of the RIG right away, which, coupled with having 10-15 medium med kits at all times, means Isaac can't die. Ever.

And what happened to Dead Space's writing? This section will have a few spoilers because they can't be avoided. The characters are lifeless and flat, not because of the voice acting, but because of the script. Isaac seems incredibly torn up when one crew member dies, but is fine about five minutes later. When Ellie's jerk of a new boyfriend is shot and killed by Isaac after he pulls a gun on the crew and turns them in to the villain, Ellie is furious with Isaac and can't forgive him. Well, not for about ten minutes anyway, she and Isaac get right back to being lovey-dovey after that. And when the player thinks Ellie burns alive in a sealed room, Isaac is so lost, enraged, and vengeful that all the player wants to do is kill the villain for it and get justice, but Isaac is calm and back to complete normal after about twenty minutes. Honestly, if human beings actually acted like that, there would be no point to life.

Yet another easily visible problem with the game is that the main villain, Danik, who is extremely annoying, predictable, and like any other generic villain, could have been shot and killed by Isaac quite easily at least 20-30 times during the course of the story, especially at the end. *SLIGHT SPOILER* There's a good ten seconds where Isaac or Carver could shoot Danik and turn the Marker destroying machine back on after Danik turns it off, completely avoiding the entire overblown ending sequence, but they just sort of awkwardly stare at him until he's crushed by a boulder and the planet begins to explode. Useless!

And to round out this symphony of failure, necromorphs are pointless now. Extraordinarily cookie-cutter enemy placement makes every spawn predictable and boring. The only parts of the game that are actually difficult are when the game just throws a boatload of necromorphs at Isaac at once. And even then, a more accurate way of describing it is that its not even difficult, it's just infuriatingly annoying. Brutes are replaced by mutated versions of the planet's former denizens, but while one of the most difficult parts of Dead Space was fighting off two brutes at once, Dead Space 3 feels the need to throw ten of the aliens at Isaac at once to make for a hard fight. Yes, the replacement for the Brute is so simple to eliminate, the game uses ten, not two, to make a fight hard. Snore.

But the reason it gets a 6, not a 3 or 4, and why the game was bearable, unlike Brink or RAGE, is that there's a few additions to the game that actually work. The game added a roll system, which is great for avoiding a necromorph's slash, and is just about the only way to avoid dying when Isaac has to fight off three regenerating necros at the same time (again, terrible enemy design). And the weapon crafting system is actually pretty nice to have, even though its only real purpose is to add a pseudo-RPG element that means nothing. And even though it's nothing like an actual Dead Space game, it does an ok job at being an action-filled third person shooter. The co-op aspect is also pretty decent despite itself, as Carver gets the hallucinations that Isaac used to, and playing with a friend actually makes you forget you're playing a Dead Space game with a horrendous plot, and lets you just sit back and enjoy a reasonable, generic, third person shooter with a friend.

In conclusion, Dead Space 3 is a generic, action-packed experience that's nothing like a Dead Space game should be. Poor enemy placement, terrible attempts at pseudo-RPG elements, ammo clips, bright lighting, a fast-paced soundtrack, co-op, horrible script and villain design, enemies that shoot back (which also means a cover system... gag), annoying necromorph battles, abundant resources, and essentially invincibility remove any trace of horror from this game whatsoever. Furthermore, the game itself is annoying and lifeless due to, again, the writing, and the replayability of the campaign is virtually nonexistent because of all the factors listed above. A game worth ten or fifteen bucks at the most, but not worth the price of a full triple A title.