With Silent Hill
franchise down the toilet & the Resident
Evil series following close behind, the only modern survival horror
franchise that seems worthy of the genre is Visceral Games Dead Space series and with the third and possibly final installment
being released last month, does it stand up as the best entry in the series or
does the edition of co-op & a more action orientated gameplay style leave
the game in pieces?
Dead Space 3 sees players reprise the role
of the space engineer, Isaac Clarke, as he stomps, fixes and cuts his way to the
ice planet of Tau Volantis in search of his ex-girlfriend, Ellie, as well as
the source of the infamous markers, the structures that caused the necromorph
out break years ago. But this time, Isaac is very much NOT alone on his
journey, he is joined by the new co-op character, John Carver, who disappears
when playing single player to keep the solo experience & atmosphere apposed
to spending it with a mindless AI companion, along with some other minor
characters that slowly but surely get brutally killed off as the player
progresses through the story. This time, the extremists of the Unitology cult
are hell-bent on harnessing the power of the markers to ‘make us whole again’.
This means that occasionally, the player will encounter human enemies at points
throughout the campaign. But these moments are staggered throughout the
experience so as to not become a third person space marine shooter… in space.
Missions in Dead Space
3 involve Isaac venturing from one end of a necromorph-infested area to the
other to retrieve a part used in a machine that needs to be started in order to
progress or fix something that will inevitably break as soon as it’s needed.
This is one of the main problems with Dead
Space 3; there isn’t a great deal of variety in its missions and this is
partly responsible to the lack luster & somewhat confusing story. Previous
entries in the series, especially the original Dead Space, that used the claustrophobic setting of the Ishimura
& other derelict locations, forced players to constantly be on their toes,
where danger could be around every corner. Those sorts of setting lent themselves
well to the story & pacing of the game. Dead
Space 3, on the other hand, is a little more action orientated. Being set
on Tau Volantis, an ice planet believed to be where the markers originated,
you’d imagine it would all be harsh outdoor environments that would allow
nothing but third person cover based shooting (yes there IS a cover system
introduced but it’s not really worth talking about because it’s not really
worth using).
For the most part though, players surgically slice &
dice their enemies inside the quiet research stations scattered around the planets
surface and occasionally pop their heads outside for some epic set piece or
beautiful vistas. The upside is the monstrous variety of weapons that can be
used to dismember enemies, most of which will be constructed by the player themselves.
That’s the most interesting feature to hit the Dead Space formula. Weapon crafting sees players place small
scavenger robots in set loot points around the levels to gather resources like
scrap metal along with other bits & pieces to then take to a work bench
which they can use to either augment their current weapon or make a completely
new one from scratch. Crafting allows players to choose from a compact
(pistol/plasma cutter size) or a standard (two-handed/assault rifle size) frame.
From there, it’s the choice of which upper tool & lower tool that suits
your play style. I, personally, preferred a compact frame with a plasma cutter
upper tool for mid to long range combat & a ripper blade lower tool incase
the beasties got a little too close for comfort.
On top of that, upgrades & modifications can used to
further improve the effectiveness of your weapons of choice. Circuits act as
upgrades to the upper & lower tools; an example of an upgrade circuit could
be anything from ‘+1 damage’ to ‘+3 reload speed & +3 clip size’. With each
tool holding a number of these at once & players able to hold two crafted
weapons at a time, it’s easy to say that players will become brick powerhouses
towards the end of the game. Hours can be spent at a bench looking through
different weapon combinations that suit your play style and these combinations
can be tested in a separate ‘testing mode’, where the player is able to test
their weapons on necromorphs. In this mode the player doesn’t take any sort of
damage from enemies, it’s purely available to test out weapon combinations.
Ok so now it’s time to bring forward the ‘elephant in the
room’. Dead Space 2 introduced direct
PvP in the form of engineer’s vs. necromorphs though it wasn’t very well received;
Visceral Games realized this & scrapped it entirely. In its place is a
fully co-operative campaign that subtracts some of the games well-known tension
& atmosphere but adds some optional co-op specific missions that reveal
more of John Carver’s back-story. These missions are delightfully creepy in the
sense that the players will experience two completely different points of view.
One of the most memorable moments in these optional missions
was a section where Carver would become crippled by visions & transported
to a dream state in which player 2 progresses through while at the same time
player 1 is fending of necromorphs in reality. Each mission builds towards the
resolution of Carver’s story, which ends up being a little anti-climactic for
the player who is experiencing it as Isaac because other than dialogue between
Carver & Isaac, there isn’t really much feedback for what happens to player
2. Other than that, the game scales difficulty depending on chosen difficulty
& whether there are two players or not by adding or subtracting enemies to
parts of the game.
When most gamers think ‘survival horror’, elements that may
come to mind are limited supplies, tough enemies & a scary atmosphere. Dead Space 3 throws these to the side
& replaces them with other features that mix up the formula and paves the
way for the next generation of survival horror games. Unfortunately, one of the
features that was put to the side was the story, arguably one of the most
important parts of survival horror next to the scares but it’s just so much fun
to play. I wouldn’t go as far to say that the story ruins the game but if a
little more time & effort were spent on it, then this game would have gone
from being a great game to an amazing game.
Dead Space 3 refines the elements of its
predecessors & introduces some fresh ones that make the experience even
more enjoyable.
Dead Space 3 gets 8.5 ‘Muted
Microphones’/10
Remember, if you enjoyed reading my review, follow me on
Twitter @DylanPerrett or on My IGN under ‘bobert9497’.
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