As a middle of the road co-op shooter, I would say it deserves a 6.5, as a Dead Space game, it deserves a 2.5 - they got rid of so much that made the originals brilliant. The derelict ship textures & feel were alright, but I think the amount of rot on the ship themselves was overdone considering the ships were depressurized for so long. As for the stuff on the planet... bad, over bad, over bad.
-----------------------Spoilers for all Dead Space games after this point--------------------
To call thew new "necromorphs" necromorphs in this game is an insult to all that has come previously... They have the most boring & bog standard zombie esq enemies coming at you for so much of the game, instead of the brilliant and classic necromorphs from the previous game. Even Dead Space 2's zombie children were clearly touched by the Markers, where as so much of DS 3 had glowy eyed zombies.. that broke in half & then walked backwards with testicles flailing at you in the most un-interesting way possible.
The story had it's fair share of good points, the "Turn it off" and the whole confusion around what that actually meant. The restoration of Rosetta was also pretty interesting, if painfully cheesy at times. The sad thing is though, for every positive, there are countless negatives. The betrayal, as every Dead Space game has, was done not for a religious reason, not out of dedication, buy because someone was a stupid twat. . .
Heck the main villain even felt week in comparison to the previous villains, DS 1 saw Mercer & the one lass who betrays you. One a scientist, the other just a Unitologist. Both dedicated to bringing eternal life to the rest of the galaxy. In Dead Space 2 you have the las who tries to trick you into making more Markers, but instead of for the government, for the Unitologists, and director Tideman, who actually believed he was doing the right thing for humanity, and mainly his station by doing Marker research. DS3, you just have a man who claims to be a man of science, and most of his dialog is actually fairly good, except he doesn't sound like a man of religion at all! Where is the mindless dedication that the previous "villains" had to the Marker.
Speaking of villains, let us not forget the standard human enemies. In Dead Space 2, as I approached the Government sector, I fretted the idea of having to fight other humans, that has never been what Dead Space has been about, never. I was so pleased when I got there to find out that the devs found a way around such a boring conflict. A little sad to see how easily the government sector was overrun, but still glad I didn't have to shoot any of them. Come to Dead Space 3, and luckily we are not fighting Earth Gov... but we are fighting these rubbish Unitologists - who no matter where they are fighting, always appear to be in cold weather gear... how strange *eye roll* . Which I guess would be fine, considering where you spend most of the game fighting them... but what isn't fine, is the suicide bombers.
Remember Dead Space 2? Under the church? What was there? Oh right... it was an assortment of "cryopods" or at least some sort of cold storage pods. To keep their corpses from expiring, from degrading, to insure that in the end, they can be reborn, and live forever in unity. . . If a religion has such a dedication to rebirth, and so much of that involving the body being saved.... Then why in Altman's name would a Unitologist purposefully blow their body into tinny, useless chunks! It's an insult to all of the beautiful ground work that Dead Space 2 did!
Speaking of groundwork lost, let us not forget one of the most classic & iconic things in Dead Space. No, I'm not talking about the necromorphs, I already talked slightly how they insulted their original design by making bog standard "zombies" above. No... I am talking about the weapons, particularly the Plasma Cutter, & the Pulse Rifle. Remember them? The plasma cutter,with it's fairly specific look, and the pulse rifle, with it's awesome 3 barrels. What is that you say? They still have them in Dead Space 3? Why, that's great news, I will have to ... oh, no... now I remember, they live on in name alone. The Plasma Cutter may still have most of it's function, but with every pointless weapon in DS3, you can take it apart and rework it... Something if you look at the original wonderful design of the Plasma Cutter you could never do... As for the "new" Pulse Rifle... Someone slap whoever decided to call a standard, fairly boring weapon the same thing as something that was so beautiful, & accurate in DS 1 & 2.
Oh... and don't forget ammo, thank Heaven's you mentioned it in the above video. I remember when DS 3 was in the works, the game appeared to come out of no where, I didn't think it too odd, I was happy to have a third game... but as I looked into it, I began to despair. At the time though, I still had hope, as the devs said "don't worry, the universal ammo system won't hurt anything" I waited, I figured I would judge when the game came out... What a wonderful mistake that was. If only we had all payed attention to what was being shown, the trailers with rock music in the background, the high action, nonsense being shown. The appalling human combat.... Maybe the fan outcry could have stopped the game from being released, and cause an entire re-work. Unfortunitly that didn't happen... no one managed to save it....
Right, and speaking of saving something... How about your progress good sir? Would you like to save your progress in the game? Good just kindly watch the corner of your screen at all times to see if you have saved. What is that? You want to find a save station & stop playing because this insult to the Dead Space franchise has made you feel ill? Well, if it has made you feel ill, maybe once you finally decide to come back & play some more tomorrow to find out what happens in the story, being set back 10-20 minutes because you were not sure when your last save was, will make you enjoy the game more! If you are going to remove the somewhat ancient, but enjoyable save system from 1 & 2, for the love of God, allow the player to save anywhere.
On the subject of anywhere, don't you love being able to go anywhere in a predominantly single player experience? What?! You can't! You have to play in co-op to be able to experience all of the story!? Oh, they made co-op only sections because it is story that pertains to the second character, well.... that's fine.... I didn't really find the character particularly interesting anyway.... You know... it's not like he still speaks to you, or randomly shows up in a fair few cut-scenes even when you are in single player making you want some back story.
Hrm, yes, back story, what a strange thing, that is so lack luster on how so many people managed to get into this derelict space ship near the beginning of the game.... and why NONE of them have a EVA suit on... Hold on a second, so your telling me you have been hiding in this small room, for... how long... waiting for rescue without EVA suits on.... You know this ship/station doesn't have any real power right.... There are necromorphs outside, they could have tried to break those large windows behind you, and.. wait... how did you get into this station in the first place if you don't have any EVA equipment!
Also, how did he get hurt again.. right, ok, that sucks... Good thing he survived the landing, and then you abandoned him in a building, a mere 40 feet from a heated checkpoint house with a bed! You... If you don't know what I'm talking about here, I'm talking about the nice old engineer bloke, who for the first half of the game is wounded, and after crashing on the planet, is left to freeze to death in a building, within throwing distance of a small, heated room where he could have stayed alive till they found him a proper EVA suit... Oh right, EVA suit, those things they should have already had, I forgot.
Oh wait no, it wasn't an EVA suit was it, it was a cold weather suit at this point, because your space EVA suit doesn't work. Unless you put it back on again after you unlock the cold weather suit... then it works, because the machine fixed it I guess.... Still doesn't change the fact that everyone else should have already had an EVA suit on if they had some how managed to get from Ship A (Their original exploration ship) to Ship/Station B (Where you find them hiding in an apparent observation room.)
Ah, observation. The thing that the convergence spheres were best at. The thing I loved them doing. I always adored how the Markers were in many ways, a silent enemy. They never spoke to you, they never moved. They always used your memories, or your own mind to do so.... So when you play through the DS3 DLC.... & suddenly the eternal forces (Convergence Spheres) start directly talking to you well.... I can't say I was too happy. I was glad to have some of the original Dead Space back, actually I was very happy. To see things twisting around you, and strange things happen again.... But... well when the spheres are directly talking to you, not using a proxy... it sorta takes away their magic, and suddenly they just seem as uninteresting. You might say, well, how were they supposed to talk to Issac... I don't know, how about his countless "friends" who died in this game already!? Why not have them whisper to him..
Then let us not forget, the very end of the DLC... Where the Convergence Spheres have suddenly drifted all the way to Earth..... and are floating around it like Jelly fish.... Really impressive... yeah... they look just like Gods now.... Brilliant.
DS 3 does have some good stuff, but the amount of bad is just impossible to ignore. If you have ever considered getting a Dead Space game, but 1 & 2, they are both brilliant & beautiful games, but never, under any circumstances buy Dead Space 3.
On the subject of anywhere, don't you love being able to go anywhere in a predominantly single player experience? What?! You can't! You have to play in co-op to be able to experience all of the story!? Oh, they made co-op only sections because it is story that pertains to the second character, well.... that's fine.... I didn't really find the character particularly interesting anyway.... You know... it's not like he still speaks to you, or randomly shows up in a fair few cut-scenes even when you are in single player making you want some back story.
Hrm, yes, back story, what a strange thing, that is so lack luster on how so many people managed to get into this derelict space ship near the beginning of the game.... and why NONE of them have a EVA suit on... Hold on a second, so your telling me you have been hiding in this small room, for... how long... waiting for rescue without EVA suits on.... You know this ship/station doesn't have any real power right.... There are necromorphs outside, they could have tried to break those large windows behind you, and.. wait... how did you get into this station in the first place if you don't have any EVA equipment!
Also, how did he get hurt again.. right, ok, that sucks... Good thing he survived the landing, and then you abandoned him in a building, a mere 40 feet from a heated checkpoint house with a bed! You... If you don't know what I'm talking about here, I'm talking about the nice old engineer bloke, who for the first half of the game is wounded, and after crashing on the planet, is left to freeze to death in a building, within throwing distance of a small, heated room where he could have stayed alive till they found him a proper EVA suit... Oh right, EVA suit, those things they should have already had, I forgot.
Oh wait no, it wasn't an EVA suit was it, it was a cold weather suit at this point, because your space EVA suit doesn't work. Unless you put it back on again after you unlock the cold weather suit... then it works, because the machine fixed it I guess.... Still doesn't change the fact that everyone else should have already had an EVA suit on if they had some how managed to get from Ship A (Their original exploration ship) to Ship/Station B (Where you find them hiding in an apparent observation room.)
Ah, observation. The thing that the convergence spheres were best at. The thing I loved them doing. I always adored how the Markers were in many ways, a silent enemy. They never spoke to you, they never moved. They always used your memories, or your own mind to do so.... So when you play through the DS3 DLC.... & suddenly the eternal forces (Convergence Spheres) start directly talking to you well.... I can't say I was too happy. I was glad to have some of the original Dead Space back, actually I was very happy. To see things twisting around you, and strange things happen again.... But... well when the spheres are directly talking to you, not using a proxy... it sorta takes away their magic, and suddenly they just seem as uninteresting. You might say, well, how were they supposed to talk to Issac... I don't know, how about his countless "friends" who died in this game already!? Why not have them whisper to him..
Then let us not forget, the very end of the DLC... Where the Convergence Spheres have suddenly drifted all the way to Earth..... and are floating around it like Jelly fish.... Really impressive... yeah... they look just like Gods now.... Brilliant.
DS 3 does have some good stuff, but the amount of bad is just impossible to ignore. If you have ever considered getting a Dead Space game, but 1 & 2, they are both brilliant & beautiful games, but never, under any circumstances buy Dead Space 3.
