Dead Space 3 – Average Among Amazing

Dead Space 3 has a reputation as one of the premiere examples of the “We want the Call of Duty audience” era of video games. Franchises of the day were being rebooted into casual friendly and bombastic versions of themselves. I’ve heard it described as “Jumping the shark on purpose”.

While Dead Space 3; more specifically Electronic Arts, are guilty of trying to chase easy money. Dead Space 3 isn’t that much of a big change in the series. I’ve never heard much acknowledgement to the fact that Dead Space 2 had tons of action. The series had already departed from the pure horror genre in a pretty big way.

Dead Space 3 is Dead Space 2 but with more cheese.

The second iteration of the series was already more of an action game than the first ever was. Issac was given a remarkably cheerful personality so he can say one liners and banter with the lead heroine. The suits were less clunky so he could be more agile. He even had rocket boots so he could fly around and land like a superhero.

Granted, these tropes and story beats were turned up to 11 with the third entry. But I can’t help but feel like it was a natural progression to that point. The series was always building up to something big. The Necromorphs are too oppressive of an enemy and more importantly, too successful in the past to expect a premature defeat.

The interactions between the cast are pretty tense. They have almost no patience for each other and arguments break out regularly; its almost silly how angry this whole game is. This is because the group of characters that join Issac are stressed beyond belief. Norton, one of the more melodramatic characters, understands the situation they’re in. The stakes are way too high, and he just wants to get out of there like any normal person would.

Jacob Danik was also a fantastic villain. Voiced by Simon Templeman, you get a performance similar to Kain – twisted by a maniacal sense of humor and smarm. While he doesn’t leave the impact that Dr. Challus Mercer does, I would still pick Danik over Director Tiedemann.

The fights against human enemies are not that big of a deal.

I have no objective reason why the human enemies are ok; only that they fit right in given the context. At this point in the story, The Unitologists have nothing more to lose. Their beliefs have more or less been proven and they’re frothing at the mouth for convergence.

The ones that have to stay behind have the task to stop Issac from ruining the only thing that matters to them. And they want him as dead as possible. From a gameplay perspective they’re also pretty sparse. You still fight Necromorphs 99% of the time so I never felt like the human enemies were taking away from what I wanted out of the game. Having to go for headshots once in a while was refreshing.

The weapon crafting was mediocre/felt like mtx bait.

Not that it was a totally bad idea- just implemented poorly. It takes too long to get any interesting parts and creating these cheesy god guns felt lame. Slap a force gun alt fire on a plasma cutter and the game will play itself. No weapon switching time, way less ammo management and one reload animation. All this while shooting bullets that cause stasis with every hit. An entire aspect of the Dead Space series was thrown away for something that will keep you sitting in a menu for minutes at a time.

This system is where they sell you microtransactions. You could buy resources that were gatherable in game. This is one of the least intrusive types of an ingame shop, but it’s still a shame it has to be there.

(Most of) The Necromorphs didn’t have the visual flair they used to.

Necromorphs in Dead Space 3 aren’t the visceral abominations they used to be. They’re gray and dusty and there’s way too many solider necromorphs that show few signs of change at all. They only have yellow eyes – thats it. I don’t understand why these enemies exist at all, given the entire point of a Necromorph is to be an offense to nature itself.

The Tau Volantis necromorphs are a different story though. They’re a gruesome spin on the Brute from the previous games. Their place in the story offers some grim implications. Mainly that the necromorphs have been a plague on the universe for a very long time. Having to fight them in the desolate ruins of Tau Volantis recreates that original survival horror tone. Dead Space 3 is a definite shift towards a more action oriented game. But the alien necromorphs keep that spark of horror alive and well.

Dead Space 3 is worth a playthrough – Grab a friend for the best experience.

In conclusion, Dead Space 3 is a shaky departure from the franchise’s roots. It suffers from a particularly lame trend in video game history. While criticized for its shift towards action and inclusion of microtransactions, the game is a sensible step forward. The tension among the characters and the introduction of Jacob Danik give it an almost comical tone that wasn’t in the series before.

Despite the tedious weapon crafting system and the design of most necromorphs. The game maintains elements of horror and satisfying gameplay. Especially through encounters with the alien necromorphs on Tau Volantis. Dead Space 3, while flawed in execution, still manages to deliver a blend of action and horror that keeps the essence of the franchise alive.