cjesimpson
2023
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
Ever since the release of Episode IX, to say that I've been over Star Wars would be quite the understatement. I haven't kept up with the tv series', am dreading the upcoming movies, and despite Star Wars Jedi's previous entry being perfectly "good", it still took me over two years of picking away at it to find the motivation to beat it. So, for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor to come along and not only have me sink 40 hours into 100%-ing it in a little over a week, but also greatly anticipating the next entry in Cal's story, is a testament to its quality.
Everything here is a huge step up from the first game. From some of the best third-person traversal mechanics to the manageably-sized open-world chocked full of discovery, to the combat that lifts just enough from Souls games to feel familiar, and yet, unafraid to iterate with a bevy of lightsaber stances and force abilities to accommodate almost any playstyle. But, the biggest area of improvement is in the storytelling and its characters.
It's not that the cast from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order were bad, quite the opposite, but in the time that passed since the last game, each of the characters has taken meaningful steps forward in their lives that change Cal's (and our own) relationship with them and in doing so, enter Survivor as far more complicated, and interesting, characters. Your combat companions, Merrin and Bode, would perhaps be the best examples of this, but Greez is no slouch, either. After some gentle prodding, Greez does rejoin your crew and pilot the Mantis once again, but in Survivor Greez's interests are split and he makes it abundantly clear that he cannot wait to return to his new life of owning and operating "Pyloon's Saloon", a cantina named in his late grandmother's honour. Pyloon's in and of itself is a character, starting out as a dingy watering hole with no more than two to three patrons who begrudgingly hold a conversation with you to, throughout the course of your adventure, the liveliest business on Koboh chocked-full of all sorts of savoury and unsavoury folk from all corners of this galaxy far far away. In a lesser game, these patrons would be disposable, little more than set-dressing, and in a few cases, they still are, but the vast majority have their own stories to tell that continue to unfold every time you check in. I relished the opportunity to hear Skooba's tall tales of his time on the open seas, or peel back the curtain on the mysterious bounty hunter, Cait. These characters, and their development, showcase how the narrative scope has deftly expanded from previously focusing on just Cal's crew, to now, incorporating a couple dozen denizens, and somehow, all without diminishing Cal's personal story whatsoever.
Cal in Survivor feels like a far more complicated and fleshed-out character than in the first game, and in a suitably Star Wars-esque turn of events, is finding himself racked by uncertainty—questioning his decisions, his relationships, his choices, and how life's complications make it difficult to always walk the path of the Jedi. It's not a unique story, but one executed with such precision that I found myself in some of the game's most climatic moments deliberating over, and purposefully disobeying, the on-screen button prompts in hopes that from me abstaining to press them, that we'd arrive at a different conclusion. Sadly, we didn't.
Suffice it to say, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a huge step up from its predecessor, and the only thing holding me back from wholeheartedly saying that it's "amazing" is a few too many technical issues to simply overlook. Hopefully, on the next entry, Respawn will iron out these technical hiccups and leave us with nothing but a masterful ending to Cal's story.
After such a strong middle chapter, he's no doubt earned it.
8.5/10
Everything here is a huge step up from the first game. From some of the best third-person traversal mechanics to the manageably-sized open-world chocked full of discovery, to the combat that lifts just enough from Souls games to feel familiar, and yet, unafraid to iterate with a bevy of lightsaber stances and force abilities to accommodate almost any playstyle. But, the biggest area of improvement is in the storytelling and its characters.
It's not that the cast from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order were bad, quite the opposite, but in the time that passed since the last game, each of the characters has taken meaningful steps forward in their lives that change Cal's (and our own) relationship with them and in doing so, enter Survivor as far more complicated, and interesting, characters. Your combat companions, Merrin and Bode, would perhaps be the best examples of this, but Greez is no slouch, either. After some gentle prodding, Greez does rejoin your crew and pilot the Mantis once again, but in Survivor Greez's interests are split and he makes it abundantly clear that he cannot wait to return to his new life of owning and operating "Pyloon's Saloon", a cantina named in his late grandmother's honour. Pyloon's in and of itself is a character, starting out as a dingy watering hole with no more than two to three patrons who begrudgingly hold a conversation with you to, throughout the course of your adventure, the liveliest business on Koboh chocked-full of all sorts of savoury and unsavoury folk from all corners of this galaxy far far away. In a lesser game, these patrons would be disposable, little more than set-dressing, and in a few cases, they still are, but the vast majority have their own stories to tell that continue to unfold every time you check in. I relished the opportunity to hear Skooba's tall tales of his time on the open seas, or peel back the curtain on the mysterious bounty hunter, Cait. These characters, and their development, showcase how the narrative scope has deftly expanded from previously focusing on just Cal's crew, to now, incorporating a couple dozen denizens, and somehow, all without diminishing Cal's personal story whatsoever.
Cal in Survivor feels like a far more complicated and fleshed-out character than in the first game, and in a suitably Star Wars-esque turn of events, is finding himself racked by uncertainty—questioning his decisions, his relationships, his choices, and how life's complications make it difficult to always walk the path of the Jedi. It's not a unique story, but one executed with such precision that I found myself in some of the game's most climatic moments deliberating over, and purposefully disobeying, the on-screen button prompts in hopes that from me abstaining to press them, that we'd arrive at a different conclusion. Sadly, we didn't.
Suffice it to say, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a huge step up from its predecessor, and the only thing holding me back from wholeheartedly saying that it's "amazing" is a few too many technical issues to simply overlook. Hopefully, on the next entry, Respawn will iron out these technical hiccups and leave us with nothing but a masterful ending to Cal's story.
After such a strong middle chapter, he's no doubt earned it.
8.5/10