cjesimpson
Bio
Self-professed PlayStation fanboy.
Self-professed PlayStation fanboy.
Badges
Elite Gamer
Played 500+ games
Gamer
Played 250+ games
N00b
Played 100+ games
Favorite Games
949
Total Games Played
011
Played in 2024
008
Games Backloggd
Recently Played See More
Recently Reviewed See More
2023 was a great year for survival horror. I heard a lot about (and played a lot of) the absolutely brilliant remake of Resident Evil 4 and untangled the mind-bending descent into madness that is Alan Wake II, but like seemingly so many others, the Dead Space remake passed me by.
Well, I'm a year late, but I'm happy to report that the Dead Space remake is not only great, but also a faithful adaptation of the 2008 survival horror classic.
Well, faithful enough.
Similar to Capcom's Resident Evil remakes, Motive didn't slavishly recreate the original game in every regard, but instead opted to capture the spirit of the original and create a game that's likely more similar to the rose-hued memory we have in our head. The cordoned-off, level-by-level progression is traded in for an Ishimura where you can backtrack and explore the entire ship at your leisure, the game includes more logs to further explore the occult religion of Unitology and the events that unfold before Isaac's arrival, and thankfully, most of the original game's more frustrating gameplay moments have been re-designed for the better.
Honestly, the only change for the worse was in making Isaac open his mouth. I don't want to get into it too much, but where Isaac was a silent protagonist in the original game, he comes off as quite a chatty, almost edgy character in the remake who often hurls expletives and threatens anyone who gets in his way. At best, it diffuses the tension Motive was so brilliantly building, and at worst, it makes you cringe and wish you were playing as a more well-adjusted engineer.
Outside of Isaac's chattiness, the only other downsides are that the final boss still sucks and that the game gets significantly less scary after the halfway mark. Partially because you're entering every enemy encounter with an expanded arsenal of weapons and upgrades, but also because by that point, you've likely caught on to how the game "works". How each encounter seems to spawn a necromorph directly behind you, or how a very specific-looking vent nine chances out of ten will throw an enemy your way, or how seemingly every time you interact with a mission-critical holographic panel it will fail its desired effect and kick off a large encounter, first. These shortcomings are nowhere near enough to ruin an otherwise great game, but are prevalent enough that I couldn't help but mention them.
And with all that said, the necromorph designs are still equally inventive as they are disgusting, the sound design is consistently unnerving, the plasma cutter is still one of the best-feeling and unique primary weapons in any game, and during the first six or so chapters I jumped numerous times.
I'm still one of the very few people who prefer Dead Space 2 to the original, but in this new package, I was very content with returning to the USG Ishimura.
8/10
Well, I'm a year late, but I'm happy to report that the Dead Space remake is not only great, but also a faithful adaptation of the 2008 survival horror classic.
Well, faithful enough.
Similar to Capcom's Resident Evil remakes, Motive didn't slavishly recreate the original game in every regard, but instead opted to capture the spirit of the original and create a game that's likely more similar to the rose-hued memory we have in our head. The cordoned-off, level-by-level progression is traded in for an Ishimura where you can backtrack and explore the entire ship at your leisure, the game includes more logs to further explore the occult religion of Unitology and the events that unfold before Isaac's arrival, and thankfully, most of the original game's more frustrating gameplay moments have been re-designed for the better.
Honestly, the only change for the worse was in making Isaac open his mouth. I don't want to get into it too much, but where Isaac was a silent protagonist in the original game, he comes off as quite a chatty, almost edgy character in the remake who often hurls expletives and threatens anyone who gets in his way. At best, it diffuses the tension Motive was so brilliantly building, and at worst, it makes you cringe and wish you were playing as a more well-adjusted engineer.
Outside of Isaac's chattiness, the only other downsides are that the final boss still sucks and that the game gets significantly less scary after the halfway mark. Partially because you're entering every enemy encounter with an expanded arsenal of weapons and upgrades, but also because by that point, you've likely caught on to how the game "works". How each encounter seems to spawn a necromorph directly behind you, or how a very specific-looking vent nine chances out of ten will throw an enemy your way, or how seemingly every time you interact with a mission-critical holographic panel it will fail its desired effect and kick off a large encounter, first. These shortcomings are nowhere near enough to ruin an otherwise great game, but are prevalent enough that I couldn't help but mention them.
And with all that said, the necromorph designs are still equally inventive as they are disgusting, the sound design is consistently unnerving, the plasma cutter is still one of the best-feeling and unique primary weapons in any game, and during the first six or so chapters I jumped numerous times.
I'm still one of the very few people who prefer Dead Space 2 to the original, but in this new package, I was very content with returning to the USG Ishimura.
8/10
Fun. Furry. Forgettable.
Okay, maybe that's a little harsh, but I've never been a huge Ratchet guy, and a lot of the rift technology that this game hangs its hat on was present in Insomniac's next game, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, that I just so happened to play the week before this one. It still has its moments, and was impressive at times to behold the sheer amount of enemies, bolts, and bullets on-screen, but this is a franchise that still feels somewhat disposable to me.
And, after this?
I'd just rather a Rivet game.
7/10
Okay, maybe that's a little harsh, but I've never been a huge Ratchet guy, and a lot of the rift technology that this game hangs its hat on was present in Insomniac's next game, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, that I just so happened to play the week before this one. It still has its moments, and was impressive at times to behold the sheer amount of enemies, bolts, and bullets on-screen, but this is a franchise that still feels somewhat disposable to me.
And, after this?
I'd just rather a Rivet game.
7/10
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is better than the first game, but still falls a little short of being "great". Mostly because the story takes a good ten hours to overcome its obvious story beats, the main missions rely far too heavily on gimmicky mission-specific gameplay mechanics and an abundance of action setpieces, and the boss design where every boss must have 3+ health bars doesn't make fights feel epic, but instead, drag them on to the point of tedium.
Buttttt, there is a middle section of this game where it really sings. The implementation of Peter's symbiote suit and all of the ways Insomniac makes you feel powerful through its power-ramping and visual flair is great, Kraven's depth as a villain and his ruthlessness in killing off a swathe of spidey villains grabbed me (even if he gets short-changed in the third act), and the game still really excels at making you feel like Spider-Man when you're swinging (or wing-suiting) around NYC. And despite disliking a lot of the narrative beats and revelations in the third act, I do like where the story ultimately winds up and what the post-credit sequences and end-game content set up for the future.
7.5/10
Buttttt, there is a middle section of this game where it really sings. The implementation of Peter's symbiote suit and all of the ways Insomniac makes you feel powerful through its power-ramping and visual flair is great, Kraven's depth as a villain and his ruthlessness in killing off a swathe of spidey villains grabbed me (even if he gets short-changed in the third act), and the game still really excels at making you feel like Spider-Man when you're swinging (or wing-suiting) around NYC. And despite disliking a lot of the narrative beats and revelations in the third act, I do like where the story ultimately winds up and what the post-credit sequences and end-game content set up for the future.
7.5/10