Dead Space 3

For the third installment in the Dead Space series, Visceral decided to shake things up a bit. Various changes here and there, but the biggest new thing is the co-op. Because that is what people wanted into their previously single-player horror game series, I guess. To play with someone else and make the experience not spooky at all...

I did not exactly find Dead Space 3 scary in single-player either. But a bigger problem was how much the game is designed around the co-op. Every now and then my immersion was broken by Carter (the other player character), the hacking mini-games, and the climbing parts having two rope-shooter-thingies. All of them were so obviously made for the co-op. One time when talking to Ellie on radio, Isaac even refers to Carter as if he was with him while he in fact was with her at that point. I guess the QA team missed that one.

And then there are the three or so side mission you cannot even enter unless you are playing in co-op. Judging by the other side quests, you probably do not miss anything amazing, but you really do not get the full experience if you play the game by yourself. Probably due to co-op, the save points are gone, too. If you want to continue from the same spot you left, you have to play until you see the game auto-saving. Otherwise only your inventory will get saved and you will find yourself at the last auto-save when loading up your save. Quite annoying.

In DS2, at one point I thought I was going to fight standard humans but then the necromorphs took care of the soldiers instead. Sadly in DS3, armed humans are quite a common enemy. Admittedly later on, the firefights get intercepted by monsters, but it just feels so unnecessary in a Dead Space game to have enemies using guns and requiring standard headshots. And I doubt many asked for features such as crouching behind waist-high cover and combat rolls (!). Isaac does not even seem to react to gunfire properly; the health bar often goes down without a flinch from the guy.

Another new thing in DS3 is crafting. From the various different materials found in the game -- which luckily do not take up inventory space -- you can make all the familiar weapons and consumables. But you can also make completely new types of guns and combinations of them. And you probably should; the trusty plasma cutter and line gun did not seem to offer enough firepower for me. I was constantly getting swarmed by the charging necromorphs. Maybe their numbers and speed are tuned for two players or something.

Then I read couple forum threads of people's favorite weapons, and discovered the galvanizer, which is a high damage burst-fire SMG. Combined with a shotgun lower tool, the weapon gives you an answer for pretty much every situation.

The weapon crafting interface is a bit clunky to use with a mouse. The cursor is invisible in the main screen; it is basically simulating an analog stick. And I think that the whole interface could have fit in one screen if they had designed it for PC where the user is usually sitting close to the screen and things can be smaller. But the console-driven development is hardly a surprise. Even the negative mouse acceleration still remains in the third game.

The crafting system also allowed Visceral/EA to include an additional way to cash in on the players. Via the weapon benches you can buy ultra ($2) and epic ($3) resource packs, which include a bunch of crafting materials and two to three high quality weapon parts. You can buy packs with an in-game currency as well, but the ration seals are not exactly common in the early game. Probably to encourage you to use real money.

And to ruin your experience, too, as you can easily make the whole resource gathering system pointless if you go overboard with your purchases. I had plenty of leftover materials by the end of the game without ever using real money for the packs. And I did survive the early game just fine, too. Including a way to buy power with real money (in a single-player game!) is simply stupid and greedy. I guess selling armor and weapon DLC was not enough.

There is also a story DLC, Awakened, that picks off right at the end of the game. The reviews did not seem too promising and at 10€, it seemed bit too risky of a purchase. I did buy it later, though, when it was 75% or so off, but even then it seemed like a waste of money and time (maybe two hours). You visit couple old areas that have been slightly retouched, fight a rehashed Nicole fight from DS2, and the ending of the DLC makes me wonder if it is even canon. I do not see how they can continue the story after that in the next Dead Space. If they are ever going to make one, that is.

Apart from the various problems, I did like Dead Space 3. The setting is simply great. Especially the part of the game on the planet's orbit was really cool. Although I did not like how they made the lurkers respawn endlessly there. Exploring the outsides of the ships' wreckages was somewhat irritating thanks to them. Once you get on the planet, Tau Volantis, stuff gets less interesting, though it does get better towards the end of the game.

The sense of strong direction that was present in the previous titles, is there no longer in Dead Space 3. I think that while trying to freshen up the series, they ended up adding too much stuff and blew up the strong package they had before. I guess co-op can be a nice addition but maybe it should not be tied up so tightly around the game to make the single-player experience so much weaker. But overall the game was alright, in my opinion.