There's a handy little robot in Dead Space 3. It's designed to collect resources for you in the new sci-fi horror game, released for Xbox 360 and PS3 today.
But as helpful as it is, it may be a little too helpful. Like, too helpful at getting you to open your wallet.
But my gut tells me that the cute little scavenger bot was built with a specific purpose outside of getting you resources. Sure, it's handy. I can send my bot out and go to the workbench to find a ton more tungsten or semiconductors that I can use to outfit my rig or craft new weapons with. But wouldn't it be easier to dock the price of resources on these upgrades? Or simply give me more loot to find around each map?
Several of the already-available downloadable content packages center on the tiny bot that Isaac (or co-op partner Carver) can equip to send out on scavenging-for-resources missions. It scurries around dead bodies to find you resources that you can use on weapon and rig upgrades while you're off killing Necromorphs and listening to audio logs.
You can access downloadable content through Dead Space 3's workbenches. You can see the content that's already available for purchase with real money or, in the case of certain packages, in-game resources.
Resources can be gathered off of corpses, loot boxes, and other storage containers, too. But sending out the bot gets you a ton more with nary a finger lifted. You can then turn those resources into items to craft bigger, badder weapons. And weapon-crafting happens to be one of the best things about Dead Space 3.
I don't have a problem with the existence of microstransactions so long as it doesn't interfere with my own game. If I'm not being held back in a significant way by not forking over real cash, I'm ok. I'm skeptical of the intentions behind DLC like this, but I also don't let my need for weaponry and achievements and random in-game swag get the better of me.
The scavenger bot is a conduit for paying for the privilege of more resources, faster harvest times and, sure, a personality modifier. The scavenger bot feeds into the most obsessive gamer's desires to collect everything, and collect it fast. Want that sweet HUN-E1 Badger shotgun? Want it now? Pay for some scavenger bot DLC and we'll expedite that right away! It's a neat trick.
Of course, fragmented game experiences chopped into DLC is nothing new. Paying for DLC-specific weapons is nothing new. Paying for privilege is nothing new. Heck, Dead Space itself has been there in the past. But the scavenger bot is the perfect excuse to make an extra buck out of the situation without making it seem too much like that's what its purpose is.
Yet when you think about it, doesn't it seem obvious?
Let's rewind a bit. In 2008 we were graced with EA's first Dead Space title. This was a claustrophobic horror game, filled with mystery and an obviously grander, more complex universe than we, as players during that first go, could comprehend. There was clearly more to this infestation of Necromorphs than Isaac could grasp. He only scratched at the surface of what was an increasingly interesting scandal of questionable research, an emerging religion, and a dark power that we had barely any information on. It's all very fascinating and scary. Dead Space introduced me to some of my favorite video game moments, too. Curb stomping corpses is something that is inexplicably pleasurable to me.
Jump to 2011 when Visceral and EA released Dead Space 2. The series made a transition that I thoroughly enjoyed. The level where we (Dead Space 2 spoilers) revisited Ishimura is one of my favorite video game levels ever. It was nostalgic, it was disconcerting to see the ship so changed and, heck, I still remember how gorgeous the textures on the hazard tarps draped all over the ship were. There were other memorable moments, too, like the haunting nursery level, flush with neon color and smeared blood in such a sick and complementary way. I remember the adrenaline rushes I used to get when being chased down by the regenerative Necromorphs, sacrificing random items I could've picked up along the way because I was pressed for time and life. New Necromorphs were a welcome addition to a game that maintained its franchise-staple creepiness, leading all the way up to that infamous (more spoilers) eye-drilling scene.
The excitement and intrigue of Dead Space 1 and the memorable moments of Dead Space 2 brings us to present day 2013 where the series has officially lost its momentum.
The story hangs flat. We're supposed to be reaching some sort of summation in this third chapter of the series, but it's not until the very latter half of the game that we finally get to experience anything remotely close to that. The Church of Unitology has the most meaningless presence until you get to that bridge, at which point you've already sunk in about 7 or so hours into the most formulaic Necromorph fights just to get there.
There are a handful of memorable moments in the game—moments where the game affords you some extra power and lets you tear through Necromorphs in a gleeful, satisfying battle where the predictable wave after wave of enemies is finally enjoyable—but they're unfortunately outshined by the monotonous, back-and-forth treks and rehashed maps that compose the rest of the game.
Here's the not-so-secret formula to Dead Space 3:
Find the thing the members of your group want you to find. (Which involves entering an area, fighting off a wave of Necromorphs, wait no there were a few more jump-scary Necromorphs left, ok now continue into the area and either solve a really simple puzzle or retrieve an item or something.)
Meet up with your group.
Five seconds later something collapses right under you and you're stranded from your group.
Find your group again. But, hey, might as well fetch another thingy for them first.
Meet up with your group.
Get separated from them again.
You see where this is going?
It becomes almost laughable after the first few "NOOOO ISAAAACC COME FIND USSSS" whines from your group members when at this point you are just placing bets as to how long it'll take for the script to cut you off from the group this time. Isaac does so much falling in Dead Space 3 you'd think he'd start using the opportunities to practice diving moves for the next Olympics.
Discussions leading up to Dead Space 3's launch did not come without skepticism from its fans. They feared too much action in favor of real horror. Too many jump-scares in place of twisted hallucinations and psychotic events.
I held onto hope. I was confident in Visceral's ability to make an enjoyable game. And they are still great game makers. But the direction that Dead Space 3 took felt confused. Like it didn't know what it was anymore. It became this Frankenstein creation of every bullet point needed to make a blockbuster hit, with some half-assed creepiness that ended up only serving as a depressing reminder of the husk that the series has become with this third title.
WHY: Because this isn't how Dead Space should be remembered. Play 1 or 2 instead, and savor the happy (creepy) memories.
Dead Space 3 (Solo)
Developer: Visceral Games Platforms: PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360 (reviewed) Released: February 5th (NA)
Type of game: Third-person shooter, survival horror
What I played: Roughly 20 hours of the entire campaign, some parts co-op most parts singleplayer, including a handful of the side missions.
My Two Favorite Things
Uncovering the events that lead up to the present through text and audio logs.
Levels where you get to sit on a turret and blast through dozens of Necromorphs.
My Two Least-Favorite Things
That it's barely a Dead Space game.
Boring, repetitive levels. Doing the exact same thing over and over again.
Made-to-Order-Back-of-Box-Quotes
"Hey guys, there you are! No wait ahhhhh I fell again." —Tina Amini, Kotaku.com
"Seriously, how many more tentacles could you possibly have left?" —Tina Amini Kotaku.com
Again. I can't believe I'm saying all of this.
Maybe fan expectations are to blame. We've been unraveling so many details about the Markers and the origin of the Necromorphs. We've been seeing more of the religious group studying under the Church of Unitology. We've seen what the combination of these things do to people. Where the research has gotten us. Where it hasn't gotten us. It's all very, very fascinating to me. There are so many unanswered questions that Dead Space 3 would answer, I'd tell myself.
And Dead Space 3 definitely did reveal information that tied the three stories together, but it was told in the weakest way possible. Playing solo, I experienced maybe two, three hallucinations, something that once gave the series its strength but now only highlights where the game is lacking. The Church of Unitology, though a looming idea throughout the entire game, barely shows up until closer to the latter half of the game. I was impressed by how many lengthy side quests there were, and they added more context to the story overall, but the missions were almost identical and so completely repetitive. It felt like a long chore just to hear a few audio logs. You never feel like you're progressing, just wasting time.
That leads me to my favorite thing about Dead Space 3: the text files. The audio logs, too. Reading up on what the engineers and scientists discovered about the Markers, their use, their origins, their connection to the universe and, through all that, the horrors they experienced while discovering all this—that was my favorite part about the game. But the fact that mere text files were the height of my solo Dead Space 3 experience should give you an appropriate frame of reference for how mediocre the entire thing is.
Like I said before: this game bored me. There's nothing fun about running back and forth in the same areas, always on a fetch quest. At most on a rescue mission. There's nothing fun about facing the same boss three times over, fighting mostly the same choreographed fight each time, just to have the big, tentacle-y thing crawl its way out of there. Yet again.
I don't want to be too harsh on Dead Space 3. It has a redeeming quality. A quality that most dedicated fans hated it for before even getting their hands on it: co-op. Everything that is boring and trite in single player feels pretty enjoyable in co-op.
Having a companion lets me excuse the game's faults because I get to enjoy playing a third-person shooter with a friend. I don't think of it as a Dead Space game. This is simply a third-person shooter with enemies that are fairly unique when lined up next to the soldiers of the shooter genre's various worlds. With decent surround sound audio for added atmosphere, adding a heightened sense of panic to the game, because it's so difficult to gauge where the Necromorph gurgles are even coming from. It's a shooter with lots of different guns that you can construct. So when you're playing co-op with a friend your buddy can marvel at how your particular version of the plasma cutter sets your enemies on fire. You can show off your creations. Maybe your friend will introduce you to the power of a cryogenic-blasting shotgun while you let them in on the secret of crowd-controlling saw blades (a personal favorite). The weapon construction in this game is impressively robust.
WHY: Because there aren't that many games with decent co-op campaigns, and it's fun to play with a friend.
Dead Space 3 (Co-Op)
Developer: Visceral Games Platforms: PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360 (reviewed) Released: February 5th (NA)
Type of game: Third-person shooter, survival horror
What I played: Roughly 7 hours of the campaign, completing all the co-op specific missions.
Two Things I Loved
Comparing weapon creations. Yours freezes? Mine saws you in half and lights you on fire.
Actual hallucinations and creepy moments (if you play as Carver).
My Two Things I Hated
Some funny glitches that appear more frequently in co-op.
Getting the short end of the creepy stick if you play as Isaac (since he never gets to experience Carver's hallucinations).
Made-to-Order-Back-of-Box-Quotes
"Dude. Look at my weapon. Look what I can do. I just sawed his arms off and then lit him on fire." —Tina Amini, Kotaku.com
"Did you die? *blood appears on screen as you also die* FUCK yes you did." —Tina Amini, Kotaku.com
And the guns truly are great. The workbench might be a little cumbersome for newcomers, but it's exciting to see what weapons you can craft, and how you can completely morph and change them. A weapon can start out with a freezing ability but you can swap it for flames. You can have two totally different versions of one weapon, and it's fun to play show and tell with a friend.
Dead Space 3 is a better game when you ignore that this is meant to be the third installment of a horror series. It's a better game when you ignore that it's a Dead Space title and just play for the co-op experience.
There aren't many games with decent co-op campaigns. There are more games with multiplayer than there are games that allow for co-op campaigning. And for that, I think it's worthwhile to play Dead Space 3 if you're looking for just that kind of experience. While playing with friends, I got the impression that the game was built with the intention of focusing on cooperative play. Besides simple things like a workbench being built for two and the loot system fairly offering the same loot to both parties, the combat itself also felt great to play. It's certainly not as tense with a companion nearby, but it still feels fluid. You can coordinate with your buddy, shouting out enemy positions while you both concentrate on your corner of the room the Necromorphs are invading. Everything that sucked in single player sucked a little less with a friend to share the burden. Puzzles were more interesting to play cooperatively, and even that obnoxious boss was made all the better with a friend flanking from the opposite end.
The absolute best reason to play cooperatively over solo Dead Space 3 play, though, is the co-op-specific missions. These missions reveal more about John Carver, your companion. He has a dark history and his place in the game is to come to terms with that. It reveals an interesting character—perhaps the only interesting character in this particular Dead Space title, sorry Isaac—and an interesting relationship between him and Isaac. The game finally feels like Dead Space again when it's taking you down horrific memories long buried, but now unearthing in a violent, cryptic, and beautifully twisted way. Finally, Dead Space is trippy again.
Even in co-op, though, the game is still marred by the same issues I had when playing solo. Though the game is immense, it often feels like you're spending a lot of time going nowhere what with all the backtracking you'll do. Wasn't I just here? Didn't I just fight the same exact sequence a mere 30 minutes ago? Yeah, you did. It might've been a reused, slightly reskinned level or just literal walks back and forth. Either way, it's not fun, no. But it's at least less bothersome when you're hanging out killing Necromorphs with a friend.
The co-op experience itself is not without its own flaws either. The lack of a jump-in/jump-out feature and a sometimes unreliable checkpoint system that's exacerbated by the fact that if your friend dies, you die, makes the experience a somewhat fidgety one. And I found lots of interesting bugs when playing with a friend, like getting trapped in the ceiling when I just nearly missed the elevator ride because my co-op buddy was too impatient to wait for me to get both feet on the platform (you know who you are).
It's still a glaring fault that the third Dead Space title doesn't feel like it has the variety of enemies the first two games had. You face what feels like the same waves of enemies over and over again. This kind of transparency is one of the biggest hindrances to enjoying Dead Space 3 the solitary way. But Necromorph battles aren't the only area of the game that's completely see-through.
Even with Carver's addition to the storyline, the entire plot outside of that is simply weak. And who are the rest of the characters you're grouped with? You might remember Ellie from the previous Dead Space title. Even if not, the game makes it clear that there's history there. Now she's shacking up with some other dude, and he seems kind of like a dick. Ok, so there's some personality, some story here. But who are these people really? Why should I care about them? All they do is group together for safety while they send me out to risk my life for some bitch mission. They may as well force me to sit in the tiny middle seat in the back of the space shuttle like a goddamn infant.
The things that seemed exciting in Dead Space 1 and 2—the things that made their debuts in those games—are either missing or stale in Dead Space 3. The same old meaningless jump-scares of Necromorphs bursting out of ventilation shafts and appearing behind you make the game feel predictable. The lack of excitement behind the story makes the game feel sad, and the essence of Dead Space forgotten. The attempt at making you care an ounce about any of the characters you associate with and the poor execution of the storyline makes the game feel eye-rollingly transparent.
If you can forget for a moment that you're playing a Dead Space title, you just might enjoy playing what feels like a decent cooperative experience, even if the redundancies are still an issue. Oh, and, I suggest you play on Impossible mode, since the game seems to scale to the easier side from my experience.
This probably isn't the Dead Space game you were hoping for. It sure as hell wasn't what I was hoping for. But once I got over my frustrations with the direction the series has taken, and once I grabbed a friend to suffer the long ride of repetitive battles with me, I was able to focus on fighting interesting creatures with amazingly fun weapons. And maybe that's enough.
Broken menus, wonky mouse controls, single figure framerates - this is the familiar story of PC gaming prowess held back by consoles. We understand why it happens: console-land was where the majority of sales were, and thus the focus of development. But that reasoning has never seemed, well, reasonable: a trashy console port can knock a chunk off your Metacritic rating, sour a huge potential audience against you forever and lose you loads of sales on a platform that can be extremely lucrative if only you know how to approach it.
It's really not that hard or expensive. After all, a pair of talented modders managed to make Dark Souls' PC version immeasurably better within the space of an evening, and while devs might not want to spend resources making hi-res assets just for PC, there's plenty of really basic stuff that can be done to not totally fuck up a game. Which, given the amount of time, love and money spent on these creations, is surely something that would please the developers and publishers as much as their beleaguered PC audience.
We've thrown together a list of tips, common foibles and fixes - add your own in the comments!
On release, Binary Domain defaulted to gamepad inputs which could only be changed by running a separate settings program. Gnnngggn.
Accessible settings PC configurations are as many and varied as the gamers that own them. A PC game has to account for this with its range of settings. Have these options accessible in-game, and don't require the player to drop back to the main menu to change them. Definitely don't put them in a separate trainer which forces you to restart the entire damn game. (Hi there, Binary Domain.)
Resolution For the love of Baal, let us change the resolution. And definitely let us change the resolution before embarking on a lengthy unskippable opening cinematic in enforced default shatto-vision. (I’m looking at you, Max Payne 3 - or trying to, anyway.) Better still, autodetect the native resolution!
Key-bindings Let us at them. Particularly if, for whatever reason, you've decided to give charge of your keyboard inputs to someone who has never actually seen or used a keyboard before. How do you reach the main menu in Binary Domain? Oh, that’s right, it’s Enter. Of course. Then, when in the menus, you press space to select and F to go back. Obviously, in-game, F is the interact key - except when interact is space. Argh. Incidentally, Enter is not the PC's equivalent of the gamepad's A button - it's the furthest you can get from both hands in normal FPS control mode. So don't make it the compulsory key to dismiss pop-up messages.
Gamepads Some games are designed for and best suit a gamepad. That's cool. But for games which might easily be controlled by either a gamepad or a traditional PC set-up, please autodetect which system is currently under use. Most games seem pretty good at this now, but there are still some stragglers.
Framerate Let those framerates soar free into the vast open skies of PC gaming wonderment. Also, let us fiddle with things like V-sync - with the vast array of PC hardware set-ups possible it is unlikely you will have guessed how to best optimise your game's performance for any one PC. Why wreck your hard work with dropped or torn frames when you could just trust players to tweak the game to perfection.
FOV sliders, particularly in singleplayer games, should be a given.
Field of View PC gamers typically sit closer to their screens than console gamers and this changes the effect of a limited FOV. Unless you are setting out specifically to discomfit and sicken the player, offering the ability to adjust FOV will only make people like you. You do want to be liked, right?
Alt-tab If your game cannot do this, you are probably going to Hell, where you'll be forced to troubleshoot for irascible Windows ME users for the rest of eternity. Sorry about that.
Menus PCs typically come equipped with a mouse - the perfect device with which to gaily skip through menus. Please make use of it. Do not make us scroll through a gazillion options when a single click would do. Relatedly, make your menus pay attention to where the cursor actually IS. Console ports, like many carnivorous predators, seem to only sense movement. So you often see the wrong menu option highlighted and have to wiggle the cursor a bit to make it notice where you're actually pointing.
Mouse support Mice are not thumbsticks. This should be quickly apparent from their different shape. Do not duplicate the analogue stick deadzone with your mouse acceleration. (Got that, Dead Space?) Also do not impose momentum on mouse movements. My world stops spinning when my mouse stops, not a few seconds later, Syndicate. And don't use autotargeting systems based on the assumption that there are 8 degrees in a circle.
Sleeping Dogs was a port done right. It also featured a man urinating into a toilet full of sick. A rare game indeed.
Social media integration No.
Games for Windows Live Don’t do it. You may think that we PC gamers object to GfwL because we are a prickly bunch who resent having to install yet another wedge of corporate molestation replete with its own superfluous achievements system, fragmentary friends-lists, cross-promotional guff, easily lost log-in details and so on - particularly when we are already so well served by Steam. All that might be true of Origin or uPlay, but it doesn’t come close to describing the genuine horror of GfwL, which remains one of the most ill-conceived and poorly executed pieces of software it is possible to install on your PC. It’s hideously designed, hugely unergonomic, painfully slow, intrusive and prone to complete failure in every single aspect of its operation. It’s just unbelievably terrible.
DRM Piracy sucks. We know. However, the solution should never be to periodically lose players' saves, punt them to desktop mid-game or prevent them from playing the game altogether.
Hi-res textures Now, we’re not asking you to create an entirely new assets pipeline for the PC alone, but in many instances textures are created first at high resolution then scaled down to fit onto the itty-bitty consoles. You can make use of those on PC, you know.
Post-release patches We salute your ongoing commitment to PC gamers by releasing fixes after launch. But don't leave it until then to make your game playable. Don't leave it until launch day, even. There are good business reasons for this: reviewers will be playing your undercooked code; you'll burn your earliest purchasers and most loyal customers; you'll lose momentum building a community among players (particularly key if your game has an online component); people will be more likely to pirate your game if they think it's not worth the risk of an actual purchase.
Isaac Clark, as you might imagine, wants nothing to do with necromorphs—the horrific reanimated corpses of the dead and much of what you shoot in the Dead Space franchise. So why does he find himself fighting them yet again in Dead Space 3? In a word, Ellie—but let this new story trailer for the game show you what I mean.
Here you also catch a glimpse of the charming, silver-tongued villain that I mentioned in our last preview. He sounds off the rails, right? Like an eco-terrorist or something, actually.
A damsel in distress, an unwelcoming ice planet and a terrorist on top of the necromorphs? Dang, Isaac. I don't envy your situation!
There are songs that work in video game trailers because they're great. There are others that work because they're ironic. This is neither. It's a hilarious disaster.
Many Dead Space fans were disappointed this week after hearing that Dead Space 3 would feature microtransactions—or, the ability to buy in-game goods for real money. Today in an interview with CVG,Dead Space 3 producer John Calhoun stated that microtransactions exist because they intend to court mobile gamers.
There's a lot of players out there, especially players coming from mobile games, who are accustomed to micro-transactions. They're like "I need this now, I want this now". They need instant gratification. So we included that option in order to attract those players, so that if they're 5000 Tungsten short of this upgrade, they can have it.
We need to make sure we're expanding our audience as well. There are action game fans, and survival horror game fans, who are 19 and 20, and they've only played games on their smartphones, and micro-transactions are to them a standard part of gaming. It's a different generation. So if we're going to bring those people into our world, let's speak their language, but let's not alienate our fans at the same time.
Would a typical mobile gamer be playing Dead Space 3? I don't think so, but maybe some. I think it's more likely that the people taking advantage of microtransactions in Dead Space 3 will just be impatient Dead Space players.
Patience is not platform-exclusive, after all. Mobile just happened to capitalize on it early; it hasn't weaned players to suddenly expect to be able to pay for things in a game. Having that luxury is just plain attractive (to some.) No conditioning necessary.
Regardless, everyone is free to abstain from purchasing anything if they want, instead opting to earn things the good ol' fashioned way.
On February 7 at the Dernier Bar Avant la Fin du Monde in Paris, France, EA and Geek-Art will be putting on a show to promote Dead Space 3. Because when I think co-op space shooting in the dark, I think of Paris, and paintings.
For those of us nowhere near the city of love, you'll be able to buy prints from Geek-Art's online store. One of the pieces up for viewing (and sale) is Caroline, by Aussie artist Benjamin Guy, who you may recognise from his other large paintings featuring small children wearing giant pop culture helmets.
It's hard to get good at a video game. It can require a ton of practice and effort. You'll have to hone your skills over time, training your eyes and fingers to react with split-second precision and speed.
Or you could just use your credit card.
Dead Space 3, an upcoming sci-fi horror game from Electronic Arts that will be out for 360 and PS3 on February 5, will allow you to pay money for weapons, according to a new Eurogamer report. Real money for fake weapons.
"You can buy resources with real money, but scavenger bots can also give you the currency that you can use on the marketplace," associate producer Yara Khoury told Eurogamer. "So you don't have to spend [real world] dollars."
So, yes. It's hard to get too mad at the idea of optional micro-transactions—in many ways this is just like the cheat-enabling Game Genie that you could buy for many Nintendo systems back in the day—but it's also hard not to envision a future where some unscrupulous publishers force their developers to make unbalanced games in which you pretty much have to buy optional weapons to proceed.
The answering machine goes off. It's Ellie, trying to get a hold of Isaac Clarke. He doesn't answer. He's standing in a disheveled apartment located on a lunar colony, but it's not your typical bachelor pad type mess. It's dark, it's grimy, it's gross—it looks as if this is a cave, a personal hell which he has retreated to perhaps. As you muse over this, sergeant John Carver—the character your co-op buddies will play—bursts into your apartment, demanding to know if in fact you are the famous Isaac Clarke.
Carver and his acquaintance Robert Norton need your help in Dead Space 3. Guess what, the predicament involves a damsel in distress (Ellie, from the previous games) and it involves Markers—which is to say, it probably involves the horrific, reanimated corpses of the dead (otherwise known as necromorphs.) Great!
Isaac wants nothing to do with Markers after the events of the first two games, but this involves Ellie, so he begrudgingly agrees to help. Naturally things have to get even crazier at this point, so this is where the overzealous Unitologists—the people who have formed a religion around the Markers—come in.
Guns blazing, the Unitologists set out to look for you. The Unitologists are out to kill you, wouldn't you know it.
This is how the game sets up one of the initial levels in Dead Space 3, which I experienced earlier this month. It's also where I discovered rolling and taking cover. Like most well-implemented rolling mechanics, it's a joy to move across levels entirely through rolling, but I can't say I ever used cover again outside this initial chapter in the ~3 hours that I played Dead Space 3.
My first time going through, I didn't feel there was much that was notable Chapter 1 beyond the lunar colony having a similar look and feel to that of Mass Effect's cities. You'll also come face to face with the man that I assume is the leader of the Unitologists, a silver-tongued charismatic fellow that tells you all about his sinister plot with the Markers. He intends this information to be the last thing you experience before death.
He doesn't manage to actually kill you, of course; you narrowly get away.
Ellie? Eh, I didn't really care. But she's there, if that interests you!
But this continues the larger narrative in Dead Space, which addresses the role of the Markers and necromorphs in society—and, admittedly, was much of the reason that I kept going forward in the preview. Ellie? Eh, I didn't really care. But she's there, if that interests you!
I was new to Dead Space, you see—there wasn't much about the previous games that captured my interest. I'd initially avoided Dead Space because I'm not much for scary or tense games. When it was clear that I was going to preview Dead Space 3 I tried looking up the science of the jump scare—which I heard Dead Space was full of—to try to soften the blow. If fear stems from the unknown, then knowledge helps, right?
Haha, yeah okay, like Wikipedia pages were about to lessen the terror of WELL TIMED LOUD SOUNDS and NECROMORPH BURSTING INTO THE FRAME UNEXPECTEDLY.
Making things 'worse,' Dead Space 3 likes to put you in tight spaces without too much room to maneuver. Even if you see the necromorphs ahead of time, it's likely you'll often find yourself nervously backpedaling while trying to reload, necromorph viciously trying to swipe at you. Hopefully you don't get backed into a corner! This is where rolling comes in handy.
Personally, I found myself frustrated at the difficulty on normal, especially later in the preview when juggling one of the game's 'puzzles' (if you would even call them that) with necromorph waves. I died more than I felt I should have.
But with a buddy? Things felt much smoother, much more fun—though admittedly I felt jealous that Carver had the cooler black and red suit. Grr. Ah well, it's probably appropriate. It seems that you and Carver will have a complicated relationship thanks to how harsh Carver is. When you apologize for something, he angrily tells you to try harder next time for instance.
Anyway, there is a bit less tension when you know a friend will have your back with a pesky necromorph, and it wasn't uncommon to double-team enemies. One person suspends the necromorph, and the other rips it apart sort of deal. Co-op presents a wonderful opportunity for more nuanced tactics, and Dead Space 3 isn't any less engaging when you cut some of the anxiety out. The game remains just as chunky and visceral as it has in the past.
It was through co-op that I also learned how much Dead Space 3 rewards exploration. My buddy liked to go off and meticulously search through the levels for artifacts. Sometimes, this will mean taking a closer look at a seemingly empty room that's right along the way. Sometimes, it'll mean going deep into space while navigating outside of a ship. Sometimes, it'll mean shooting down something in the background that doesn't seem as if it holds anything—like maybe a deer head. I was impressed.
Not all the things you'll find are artifacts. Some of it will be materials for crafting. New to Dead Space 3 are moddable weapons, allowing you to have tools with more than one function. You have the ability to modify a weapon's upper tool, lower tool, frame, tip and attachments, allowing for variances in damage, reload, clip size, shooting speed, as well as bullet effect (exploding rounds, for instance.)
Isaac is an engineer, right? He's smart and uses his intellect to solve problems, yes? Crafting is justifiable by the story, then. While I didn't find too much to tinker with, my co-op buddy seemed to find all sorts of materials and his weapon looked intimidating, beastly and effective.
Isaac is an engineer, right? He's smart and uses his intellect to solve problems, yes?
Also included are side-missions and optional objectives. Toward the end of my preview, for instance, I had a choice between two locations depending on which mission I wanted to take up. Unfortunately the demo ended right there, but it's obvious that Dead Space 3 is incorporating modern design elements that all games have to have nowadays like Choice and Customization and Social Play.
I swear that I find it difficult to tell if these things actually improve an experience rather than giving us stuff to cross off a universal games checklist. However, I can concretely say that Dead Space 3 felt much better with a friend than it did playing alone, though I was sad to see little of Carver's supposed compelling storyline. Alas!
Dead Space 3 releases on February 5th in North America, and February 8th in Europe.
The Dead Space sci-fi horror games have nothing to do with the Mass Effect sci-fi shooter/adventure games, other than that they're published by the same giant corporation, EA. But now they're ever-so-slightly crossing over.
EA is letting people who have a Mass Effect 3 save file unlock special Mass Effect N7 armor in next month's Dead Space 3. We're checking with EA about whether the unlock works across platforms, if, say, you played ME3 on PC and will play DS3 on PS3.
UPDATE: An EA rep confirms that this is platform-specific. You'd have to be playing Dead Space 3 on the same console (Xbox 360 or PS3) as you played Mass Effect 3.
Mass Effect armor is also unlockable in Final Fantasy XIII-2. Everybody's wearing it!
Many Dead Space fans were disappointed this week after hearing that Dead Space 3 would 
