Playing through Dead Space 2, I had a running joke that the protagonist Issac Clarke had his choice of two love interests. His living brunette beloved and his undead ex girlfriend that I call “Trainface.” Then I wrote three blogs about it and these three blogs were complete parodies of the reality that was happening in game. Now that I’m playing through Dead Space 3, my joke has become the game’s reality. Issac Clarke is pulling himself through a horrifying experience all for his new ex girlfriend, his living love.
The game is trying to add a real human element to it and not just an over the top Uncharted 2 style action. Issac is in love and taking it poorly. His brunette beauty is now with a militarist jocks because real men aren’t engineers. There is now a human antagonist which helps any series instead of an undead ex girlfriend harassing him. Issac has moved on from her since she had so many kids in the second game.
I’m not sure if that top of hers is a way of game developers saying that the player wants to save low cut tops. She really didn’t need that and it just looks awkward with how bright the lighting is. I’m sure people in the science fiction future can dress any way they want, but it seems so out of place.
Its more than just them, there’s another hinted at couple. Not in our group of heroic misfits trying to survive, but in the sixth chapter there is an audio log of a couple. Even just a hint is enough to get things interesting and I think that’s all that a video game needs. After all, not even a hint sent me off on three blogs worth of laughter.
Dead Space 3 plays the same, but feels so foreign. Its as if the same characters are in a completely different game. Maybe this sort of thing happens most in the movies when a new director takes hold of it. The graphics feel a lot cleaner and have lost that grittiness they once had. The enemies have been recreated with far more detail. The game performs far better than it ever did. Even in a space suit, Issac can swiftly run. Not just indoors, but out in zero gravity he can sprint. In a way its better, but in a way its still alien to a game known for forcing you to fight, because you’re too slow to run.
I’ve heard complaints over micro transactions, but even 4 hours into the game, I have yet to see the micro transactions. There is plenty of piece by piece DLC similar to how Just Cause 2 and Saints Row: The Third sell them. They seem subtle in the crafting section of the game. This crafting system by the way seems overly complex if not useless compared to the previous games that just let you sell and buy. Its just that easy boom, back to playing. Now I need to comprehend things.
Most areas don’t feel as beautiful, nor is there good use of atmospheric lighting. Some times in game it felt far too bright to see every detail. There is plenty more detail in this game and not just the new enemies. Peeling paint on the space ship walls. Its all interesting to see, even if I wonder why a metal space ship would be peeling. Every once in a while I still come across something interesting worth taking a screenshot of.
In the first four hours I ran into a needlessly difficult puzzle where you rotate two pieces of cargo and make the match together. Its an easy puzzle with easy controls made cheaply difficult with timing and sensitivity. I banged two pieces of cargo together, knowing they’d fit together, yet didn’t. Then after the fourth or fifth time clenching them together, poof, like magic it suddenly worked. I wasn’t doing anything different, just holding the triggers to put them together, making me feel like it was a sensitivity issue that I had to come in gently. That wasn’t a solution however. I had to resort to just mashing the other pieces together.
While the game feels much easier than the previous two games, there were still tense moments like being boxed into a room flooded with enemies and being chased by a regenerating reaper. It also seems that small tick like insects can now control corpses when it was always some sort of necro rapist that would reanimate the dead to turn them into necromorphas. Speaking of necromorphs, those aren’t the only enemies, there are suicide bombers and some of the necromorphs are simple glowing eyed zombies. It all feels like its taking a leap away from Dead Space 3.
The real nuisance in the game are the glitches. The first time I played the game would halt, before it would speed up to catch up to where I was. That happened every few minutes. Maybe it was my computer or Origin, but it didn’t happen the second time that I played. The other issue is what I call the tornado glitch. A corpse will throw itself around the entire room, flying in a circle and distorting. I couldn’t get a screen shot of it, because its such a chore to take a screen shot in Origin. I’ve spent a few hours trying to streamline screen shots, but in the end, I just need to do it the old fashioned way.
Games That I Play 