I’m a big fan of the Dead Space games, going all the way back to when I first got a glimpse at E3. I cant remember exactly how long ago it was; whatever year it was when they tried to go professional and press only. Apparently that didn’t work out so well. Anyway, Keen was glued to the Warhammer Online section of EA’s room but I kept sneaking peeks over at the Dead Space guys. The game looked awesome and I really wanted to know more, but I got dragged out of the room before I got through half of their presentation.
Why am I telling you all this? My computer is borked and I have nothing better to do. Even if it means poking this post out on the Wii U gamepad, which is taking at least 5x longer than it normally would. It was this boredom that lead me to browse the LIVE marketplace where I found the Dead Space 3 demo had been put up.
Over time I’ve heard some news about DS3 that gave me pause. Co-op was being added, along with non-necromorph bad guys. Additionally video and screens surfaced showing snowy areas and some brighter areas. My first thoughts were of how much this looked like Lost Planet, at least aesthetically. I mean, creepy gangly alien monsters with glowing orange weak-spots and in a snowy setting? It’s not a stretch by any means.
Regardless of my misgivings I still was looking forward to the game and pounced on the demo as soon as I saw it. The first part I actually tried out was the weapon crafting. In past games you got specific weapons and could upgrade them with different nodules, however now you can assemble anything you want. Get a machine gun and slap on an electric secondary fire. Change the gun tips and now its a sniper rifle and the electric part shoots bouncing bolas. Want acid damage? Why the hell not. Or how about a rocket launcher with a shotgun attachment? This shit cant be legal.
I ended up spending quite a while just looking through all the different weapon combinations there were before I eventually got to the campaign demo. It was there that I learned that the co-op was more of a drop-in/drop-out kind of deal and that there are even dialogue differences depending on whether you play solo or with a bud. That’s actually pretty cool and offers some replayability for when I want to play through with Keen after going through alone to get that creepy, lone, isolation experience.
As far as I can tell the game plays exactly like past games with only a few exceptions. Now you can crouch, for whatever reason, and there is a kind of auto cover system for when you go up against humans that fire back, which isn’t as bad and out of place as I thought it would be.
The atmosphere wasn’t so creepy at first. The demo portion has you play through a snow section in the day time, though it reaches white-out conditions at some points. This rapidly gets more tense as necromorphs pop out of the snow or run up on you when visibility is at its worst. It’s still just as scary/tense as Dead Space 1&2, but just with a different presentation. Like instead of Event Horizon scary you get The Thing. I say that like I actually know what I’m talking about, but my Mom never let me watch scary movies back then so take that for all its worth.
So after experiencing the demo I have officially upped my status on Dead Space 3 from ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ straight to ‘Excited.’ I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the final product so I can share my impressions.
I’ve never really given this a shot. I need more game time. Sometimes you’re just in the mood for a game like this.
Dead space 1 was good and fresh, even if I did not complete it to the end.
Dead space 2 was great in the beginning, but became less fun the longer you played. During the middle of the campaign it was still kind of fun, but became a real drag at the end. Here I where thinking why cant the whole game be great like the begin??
Sure I’ll keep an eye on dead space 3.
Off topic: Do Keen and Graev own a PS3? I seen a review of Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. Seems like a very interesting RPG to me. Beautiful too.
I preordered it today as it comes out in the first of feb here in europe.
Yeah I do have a PS3, but it doesn’t get a lot of use. I tend to get multi-platform games on my 360 so I only get the occasional exclusive.
And as it so happens I just picked up NNK today and plan to dig into it tomorrow. I’ll post some initial impressions when I’m able.
I head that Dead Space 3 is gonna be a straight consol port for PC so its a no go for me
I liked the claustrophobia, and loneliness of the first game. The atmosphere was fantastic. The second one moved more towards straight up action and the third one seems to continue this trend.
It feels like the same thing that happened with the Resident Evil series where they stripped out most of the appeal of the original game to make it all twitch based which was disappointing to me.
Great post, playing demo now, loved DS1&2 but CANNOT figure out how to “crouch” on the ps3 controller? Does anyone know? The demo says “r3 but r3 is still the quest locator in this version. I’m assuming it’ll matter later in the game if these necromorphs are carrying weapons & throwing more blows. Thank you!