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Dead Space 3
Scan_Man
post Feb 9 2013, 07:59 PM
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Just finished this and wanted to make a topic about it because of how much I and others here loved the second one.

Just to note I played through on hard.

So yeah this game is everything you want from a Dead Space sequel in terms of combat, atmosphere, and environment at the start. Then about half way through it takes a giant shit. It become repetitive going through rooms of similar design and back tracking. Fighting enemies becomes tiresome because it is totally predictable. The game falls into a sequence of Bench room, elevator, Big room with waves of enemies. There is no tension or surprises, it feels like Gears of War, Uncharted, and Lost Planet. They will throw a very simple puzzle in there, but it's just to pad out the game I think. Some cases you can't finish the puzzle until you have cleared waves of enemies.

I think the most annoying part of this game is the wave of enemies in the later half. It gets so tiring with the Monster Closet crap. I thought it was established this was not good game design? The enemies are very fast and aggressive compared to the last two games. They like to Monster Closet spawn swarming enemies behind you and to your sides. This is not fun due to how your focus is in front of you and the camera is so close. Not to mention turning around is slow, and turning to do deal with enemies behind means you you still have the enemies that were in front of you (I highly recommend crafting a weapon that can knock back everything around you).

Isaac is prone to being stun locked. It's most annoying being stun locked during reload animation, which means you can't do anything because the reload animation will keep resetting.

The problem here is the game gives you so much ammo and health packs I think the designers felt the only way to balance the game was to through waves and waves of enemies at you. Then there is no longer save stations but saves at checkpoints. This means there is really no consequences for expending ammo or and health packs to get through a room. If you die you just reload at the start of the room you died at.

The game lacks any kind of tension. In Dead Space 2 I remember thinking "Holy Shit I wasted lots of ammo and health packs to survive that enemy, I have to somehow do the next 4 rooms with only one health pack, 2 clips for shotgun, and one clip for Line Gun." Here there is universal ammo, so with how much ammo drops there is no point in conserving ammo. Also it seems limbs have Hit Points, or targeting limbs seems not to matter. Often I just pump lots of rounds into an enemy and they will just fall apart. Or I will go for limbs and it will take multiple shots to break. Don't remember the previous games like this at all. Again must be a balance thing because they give you so much ammo.

It just waves of enemies with the same type of encounters and enemy combinations you already been through multiple times.


The checkpoint save system is terrible. If want to stop playing by "Save and Quit" better make sure it's at the start of a new Chapter or you caught the "Saving Progress" at the top right-hand side of the screen. I made that mistake, and had to redo 40 minutes of gameplay. Stupid! Oh and don't accidentally hit "Start from last story point." That started me three chapters back and overwrote my Checkpoint and I had to go into chapter select and to start a chapter over again for the most part (luckily there was an optional mention checkpoint I could select which had some of the objectives completed). The problem here the game gives you no indication that you need to watch for the "Saving Progress" thing in the corner of the screen to know you are safe to quit.

But yeah by the end of this thing was just so exhausted with the repetitiveness of being thrown in the same cycling situations. The samey environments that lack atmosphere, tiring. The atmosphere is just non-existent for the last half of the game. What happened?

There is a boss that is the worst boss ever, you have to fight three times. God, what were they thinking?

There are human enemies that turns the game into a half-assed cover shooter. Really adds nothing to the game. Other than they thought it would appeal to more action gamers? Climbing parts are annoying too. I just want survival horror you know. But it's been kind of stripped from the game.

You can roll. Which actually does nothing. There are enemies/boss attacks that deceptively seem you should roll there. Nope you still get hit and strafing is all you had to do. Very frustrating until you realize the roll is useless. You know I got excited when I discovered the roll, thinking we going to get some new exciting enemy attacks that require some quick reflexes to dodge. Nope!


Story and dialogue is awful. Nuff said.

Chapter 14 is probably the worst it terms of bullshit thrown at you. One part with Monster Closet spawning enemies that Monster Closet spawn more enemies as you kill them. They swarm you from all sides, can stun lock you, and grab you, even as you get up after a button mash grab escape. . . . Then lots of puzzles I did not care for. Backtracking too. I was pretty sour on the game from then on. Even taking a day break to come back to it. It keeps doing stuff like this all the way to the end, though not to this extreme of a degree. Again more into the repetitive thing I keep mentioning.



So it sounds like I am hating on this game. Want to say it's not bad at all. Just aggravating and tiresome. I felt if they removed some of the enemies waves, scaled it back so it's more rare and surprising. Gave you more strategic smaller encounters that you were not expecting, the game would of been better. It's decent with a very good first half, that loses a lot of steam at the half way point, then becomes repetitive at the last third. A lot of things I appreciated about Dead Space 2 are not present for most of the game. It was there for a few moments then fizzles out.


The best part of the game is the Weapon Crafting system. Top notch. Really feel like you can make a unique gun to your tastes. There is a ton of stuff you can do here if you gather enough resources through multiple playthroughs or farming. You can do all kinds of crazy things like add fire damage or even stasis to your shots. You do get to this point though where you stop experimenting and find something you think is really effective. Since the encounters become repetitive you can make something that will handle everything thrown at you. My main gun was one that was a high capacity rifle with ALT. fire that knocks all enemies around me back. My other weapon was the Bola Gun which is very good for humans and bigger enemies. The ALT. fire lays traps on the ground, which is useful if you need to run away so you can reload your main gun (enemies are so fast that most of the time you can't run from them normally without getting hit).


Overall I would say this game is worth a rental or purchase when the price comes down. Though if you have someone for co-op and want to do the optional missions it might be worth the full $60. There are a ton of other modes too which may lead to interesting 2nd playthroughs. Like a Retro mode that makes the graphics look like those old Sega CD games, you know Sewer Shark. I will be doing a co-op playthrough at some point because I hear the those missions are better than most of the main game.


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Crushinator
post Feb 14 2013, 10:08 AM
Post #2


Holding these random memories
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Sounds like what I feared was the case. Shame because I am a huge fan of DS1 and 2, and the whole universe in general.

Thanks for the impressions.


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