I couldn’t help but have a good time with Dead Space 3. I understood the criticism that people had towards the game’s greater focus on third person shooting, undercutting atmosphere of dread present in the previous games. However, once I got to the Terra Nova and I was allowed to go outside and explore nearby different shipwrecks and fight off monsters that lurked within them. It felt like a Dead Space game despite its problems. I was having fun.
Then I got to the second half of the game. When I landed on Tau Volantis and my enjoyment turned into frustration. While it was nice to have a drastic change of setting, it felt that I was exploring the same two environments (ice planet and dank warehouse) over and over. The story’s pace really slows to a crawl as support characters will squawk in your ear about finding the source of a signal(?), but you’ll go from one combat arena to the next with barely any progress made to the plot.
Speaking of the story, I had no idea what was really going on in the plot. We start the game with Isaac Clarke being on the run/hiding because while he’s being hunted by the villain because…it’s never really made clear. It felt that I came into the story already half way through. The love triangle between Isaac, Ellie, and Norton was out of place and uninteresting. Death of support characters had little impact because you don’t spend much time with them. It feels that the story was simply there to serve the overblown action set pieces so that Isaac can be thrown around like a ragdoll, as if he were a space-Nathan Drake.
Also, it turns out that moon was the big bad guy of the game? I’m sorry but flippin’ WHAT?!
Combat is frustrating. Gone are the moments of tension as you navigate tightly spaced environments, as you try to anticipate where the next enemy attack will come from. Instead, Dead Space 3 has obviously telegraphed ambush points where the necromorphs will burst out from and rush you in swarms. It’s not fun.
Dead Space 3 is not a bad game but it’s certainly an unremarkable one. The elements that made the previous Dead Space games stand-out are not here. It’s obvious that EA took cues from other popular third person action games, like Gears of War and Uncharted, to make it as broad appealing as possible. Ironically, this has made the game difficult to recommend without a heavy discount applied. If the game was shorter, I may have bumped up the rather to another half star.
Then I got to the second half of the game. When I landed on Tau Volantis and my enjoyment turned into frustration. While it was nice to have a drastic change of setting, it felt that I was exploring the same two environments (ice planet and dank warehouse) over and over. The story’s pace really slows to a crawl as support characters will squawk in your ear about finding the source of a signal(?), but you’ll go from one combat arena to the next with barely any progress made to the plot.
Speaking of the story, I had no idea what was really going on in the plot. We start the game with Isaac Clarke being on the run/hiding because while he’s being hunted by the villain because…it’s never really made clear. It felt that I came into the story already half way through. The love triangle between Isaac, Ellie, and Norton was out of place and uninteresting. Death of support characters had little impact because you don’t spend much time with them. It feels that the story was simply there to serve the overblown action set pieces so that Isaac can be thrown around like a ragdoll, as if he were a space-Nathan Drake.
Also, it turns out that moon was the big bad guy of the game? I’m sorry but flippin’ WHAT?!
Combat is frustrating. Gone are the moments of tension as you navigate tightly spaced environments, as you try to anticipate where the next enemy attack will come from. Instead, Dead Space 3 has obviously telegraphed ambush points where the necromorphs will burst out from and rush you in swarms. It’s not fun.
Dead Space 3 is not a bad game but it’s certainly an unremarkable one. The elements that made the previous Dead Space games stand-out are not here. It’s obvious that EA took cues from other popular third person action games, like Gears of War and Uncharted, to make it as broad appealing as possible. Ironically, this has made the game difficult to recommend without a heavy discount applied. If the game was shorter, I may have bumped up the rather to another half star.