♪ How the others must see the faker ♪ ♪ I'm much too fast to take that test ♪ ♪ Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes ♪ ♪ Turn and face the strange ♪ ♪ Ch-ch-changes ♪ ♪ Don't want to be a richer one ♪ “Dead Space 3” is the last game of the trilogy, and maybe the last in the series. In previous videos, I’ve touched on the marketing before even touching the game itself. The fact they used a cover for a Phil Collins song is pretty funny, but it’s all really generic. It was never as good as the “Twinkle” trailer, but it was never as bad as “Your Mom hates Dead Space 2” stuff. I guess, at this point it didn’t really matter, because I already decided not to buy the game. “You don’t have to fumble around with the controls. You just do what you normally do. So…” “Oh, hey, give me ammo!” “Give partner ammo!” “Swee-et!” “Hah-hah, I love this!” “Reload your weapon by saying:” “Reload weapon!” This was an early 2013, and during this time, EA had been on a spree of mangling its own games. “Dead Space 3” didn’t look any different. The reveal showed co-op being a big focus, which is an odd way to end a horror trilogy. They showed off human enemies with guns and some kind of cover system. Even the necromorphs are packing heat this time around. It was gonna be even more of an action game than “2”, because “2” was still too scary for some people. They talked about optional loot dungeons (whatever that meant). Oh yeah, and they were shoving microtransactions in it. Yeah, a full-priced game, but they want you to buy resources in it, like it’s some kind of phone game. On top of all of that, it was going to be Origin-exclusive on PC. Yeah, Origin… That really cool program that people were debating whether or not was spyware, because it could look at other files. I’m not buying that trash… I love the first two games. I even watched the bad animations and I read a book, but… Not buying it. Sorry. These changes were made to attract a larger audience, because EA needed to sell 5 MILLION copies of “Dead Space 3” for the series to continue. That’s more than the first two games’ launch sales on all platforms combined. You probably know how that all turned out, but we’ll come back to that at the end of the video. I bought the game in a Humble Bundle. At least then it went to charity. So, let’s start from the beginning of the game. “Dead Space 3” starts off… 200 years before the first game. Wait… The helmets unfolded back then, too? Yeah, there is gonna be some retconning this time around… Why does a 200 year old building use the same “Zebra Industries” lock that the Sprawl space station did? If you’re a person who likes consistency in little details, then a lot of these will add up. But this also extends into the main plot. So, some information from the first games can get twisted around, and kind of unnecessarily so. The opening is different than the other two games. I like that, but the change in direction becomes really clear, really fast. [startled scream] In every other game, “Dead Space” tells you to cut off the limbs, but look at this: the enemies are running at you, your rifle has a very narrow aim, and the enemies are just guys holding axes. So, what if I don’t aim? [rapid gunfire] [rapid gunfire] That was a little easier, huh? The prologue feels more like “Uncharted” than a horror game. “Dead Space 2” also had an intense opening, but this feels a lot more like an adventure game. Ultimately, the prologue shows a centuries-old necromorph outbreak, and talks about something called The Codex that could stop it all. And that’s it. Now we can pick up from “Dead Space 2”. Our story kicks off 3 years after “Dead Space 2”, on the Moon. The colony seems pretty bustling. Between the games, Isaac started and ended a relationship with Ellie. She wanted to continue to fight, whereas Isaac just kind of gave up on the whole thing. I can’t really blame the guy. I wouldn’t want to go on the adventures that Isaac goes on. In about 20 seconds after seeing him, he gets shanghaied by the government. They need to break more Markers, and they need his help to do it. This threw me off. I thought the government was MAKING the Markers? It turns out, that almost all human colonies have a Marker test lab on them, and unitologists have been blowing them up. You’d think that after “Dead Space 2” they’d be a lot more careful with these things. I guess, you can have all the Markers in the world and still not be very sharp. To sum it up: they need Isaac’s help to find Ellie. She disappeared near a planet called Tau Volantis, and she claimed she found a way to stop the necromorphs. This takes Isaac to a ship graveyard and the planet itself, where he discovers the truth about the Markers. It’s best to leave it at that for now. Let’s talk graphics. The game still looks great, but honestly, I can’t see much of a difference between it and “Dead Space 2”. With the exception of the suits, the jump from “1” to “2” was huge. I’m sure there are some subtle improvements, but nothing really dramatic. I will say that the snow effects looked awesome. Rise of the Tomb Raider” and “Horizon: Zero Dawn” have it pretty beat now, but back then I was pretty impressed by it. This is a harsh winter, and it makes for some great atmosphere. The wind affecting your suit, the smoke and fog particles – it all looks great. I’m sure, John Carpenter would be proud. [unsettling music rising over the wind] Unfortunately, the art direction is all over the place. The suit designs got more streamlined between “1” and “2”, but they always had angular armor, with visored helmets. The helmets alone became an icon of the series. You could take them out of context, and people could say: “Yeah, that’s Dead Space”. So it boggles my mind why they added so much to look more like generic Sci-Fi. They’re not horrible, they just felt more like something I’d seen before. It’s like they were trying to tone down their own visual style in favor of things that most people would find more familiar. I’m not against tweaking your formula to make something look different, but if I’m being reminded of Sam Fisher, you might have gone a bit too far. The environments have a greater variety than the first two games, but some are clearly more inspired than others. The series did so much to bring spaceships and space stations to life... Sure, the first game especially had a lot of hallways, but it would open up from time to time. Even when the hall design stayed narrow, they would change around the color tones, the architecture and other little details to make all the areas feel different. “2” opened up areas even more, and had some downright inspired ones. The ship graveyard in “Dead Space 3” is the worst of all of these. It’s mostly just similar looking hallways. I understand that they’re trying to make them like old battleships or submarines, with cranked doors and really narrow areas, but ultimately it’s not very appealing. Here’s a hallway on one ship, now here’s a totally different ship. They turned a few lights on and the wall paneling is a bit different on the left. Some of these areas are just straight copy-pastes of other environments. Some areas might be blockaded off, or new doors will be unlocked, but it’s the exact same room. If “Dead Space 1” did this, it was never so blatant that I noticed it. It feels really cheap. The planet also has reused areas. Most are optional missions. That’s still bad, but it doesn’t feel as terrible as the ships. It’s drab, dark and rusted, and there are very few times that this changes. The necromorphs on these ships are mummified, so they have the same green-grey colors that the ships do. They almost blend into the background. On the other side, the planet has a ton of different areas. They have a nice mix of colors, space and tone that the ship part severely lacked. I think one of the most interesting-looking levels in the series is down here. Even though I just played it a few times, I can’t remember much of the ship, but the planet has some things that stick with me. Being outside of the ships is neat, just nothing inside them. That being said, “3” had some pretty significant gameplay changes. The shift to action focus is pretty clear right from the beginning. Yeah, they’ve added a cover system. And rolling. And universal ammo. This sounds like the “Crysis 2” theme… They’re really trying to sell this as an action game. Possibly, to make it like other shooters, they’ve added human enemies with guns. I don’t think it’s the worst idea. After all, guns can be scary. But there was always a kind of reverence around guns. I always got the feeling that they would rip right through your armor. The beginning completely throws that away, because you can eat bullets in your street threads. It doesn’t help that their aim isn’t very good, and this is on the hardest difficulty! They could have added loud, near insta-kill guns that would have added tension, but that wasn’t the goal. This is a slap-fight at range that most cover shooters do. It’s been implemented horribly, and I’ll tell you why: they didn’t do enough. In other cover-based shooters, you can bounce between cover or roll to it. You can vault over objects, you can blind-fire. You can also take standing cover behind walls. Well, “Dead Space 3” does none of this. You can’t go into cover behind a wall – only certain chest-high objects. You’ll only know by going up to it and aiming. You can kind of roll into cover from the front, if you time it right, but it’s all manual – you can’t roll between cover. No vaulting either. Why? Because if you don’t want to frustrate people, you would have prompts on the screen. But this series has always been about keeping all the UI stuff on the body. Sure, they could have little arrows pop out of his suit, but that would look pretty silly. So the design became “pick none, you can crouch behind some boxes”. This is frustrating! Look at this! I feel like I should be able to take cover behind these, but I can’t. This is also why their weapons are so weak. If an area is filled with gun enemies, you can’t move through it from cover to cover. So, to compensate for the fact that you’re probably gonna get shot they just made their weapons not hurt as much. Most of the time it is easier to forget about cover and just fight them out in the open. At least it’s more maneuverable. Plus, it stops me from instinctually running up to big blocks that look like cover, that actually don’t do anything. There’s one necromorph type that uses guns, and I think that would have been fine. Forget the half-baked cover system and the human enemies, and just have these. It would be a good enemy to use stasis on, between their shots. They even have a cool attack, where if you get too close, they throw their head at you. [angered rattle and Isaac choking] See, I like this idea a lot more than this one… There aren’t a lot of gunfights in the game to begin with. To the point where I almost wonder why they bothered. Well, actually, I do know why… If you want to move 5 million units, make your game look like the other ones. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a lot of the promotional screenshots focused on enemies with guns. Or maybe it is, and I’m just crazy. The biggest change comes to the weapon upgrade and crafting system. There’s no longer any store – just the bench. So, instead of finding money, you sometimes find different resources. You’ll also find a scavenger bot early on, which can find resources for you in the background. You can put it down anywhere, or you can use a built-in radar to find a hotspot. It will come back with a lot more stuff if you do this. You always need to be on a hunt for a hotspot. It’s like having an old Nokia phone. Once it’s down it gets stuff, but I think it talks to a server first. The game will keep going, but the character will just freeze in place when putting it down. This would happen completely randomly. After a period of time, they come back to the bench and drop off all their stuff. So why do I think this needs a server? Well, you have an option to upgrade your robots. You can double the amount of stuff they carry, or make them come back to the bench in half the time. And each of these is only $4.99 USD! They can even get a voice pack for another 5$! I don’t know about that though, because resources are pretty important. If you want to craft new weapon parts – resources. Wanna make ammunition or medkits? Resources. Wanna upgrade stasis or upgrade your suit? You bet it’s resources… At the very least, there are some upgrades and parts that can only be found, and you can’t craft. You can buy a weapon and resource pack to fix that problem. Yeah, see? Check it out: “Each pack is guaranteed to contain one Mk5 supercharged weapon pack, with a 50% chance of a second bonus…” Wait, this is a lootbox, isn’t it?! These are hot right now... This was before EA and a bunch of other companies have mastered the science of making a flashy box to open. You know, you pay for the big fun event: there’s lights and smoke and there’s a lot of flashing, and you see all the stuff you get. But ultimately, it’s still this. Companies have come a long way in bleeding their customers since. The good news is that, unlike other games today, you don’t NEED these. There’s no cliff or progression stops. If anything, it’s overall the easiest “Dead Space” game. This is a pretty clear case of publisher meddling. I never needed this. I don’t think I ever ran out of ammo. The game uses universal ammo, so all your weapons will always work. I you wanna nickel and dime people bad at games, this is the worst one to do it in! So, before I go any further, I need to bring up the “Alien” comparison. In my “Dead Space 2” video I compared the first game to “Alien” and the second game to “Aliens”. I also mentioned that the third installments of each were disappointing. It’s a comparison a lot of people make, but I think they make it like this: This is just the general idea, because I don’t think “Dead Space 1” is a horror masterpiece. What I want to focus on is what makes “3” the “bad one”. If anything, “Alien 3” is more like the first movie: there’s only one alien, no one has guns, and it’s focusing more on horror than action. “Dead Space 3”, on the other hand, has almost completely thrown the horror element away for the action. Their approach to the third installment is completely opposite. But there’s one thing that ties both of them together: a meddling studio and a meddling publisher. Director David Fincher has completely disowned “Alien 3”. The script went through a ton of rewrites. The main reason Sigourney Weaver came back was because producers wanted her. Fincher agreed to their project, but they set a film release date before a single scene had been shot! The studio hounded him while he worked on it. The studio was ordering scenes to be cut, and he filmed them anyways. Most didn’t show up until later in the extended cut. While “Dead Space 3” doesn’t have as many blatant stories, there are a lot of signs that point to it. Isaac was originally gonna have a split personality, with a Shadow Isaac character taunting him, but that got scrapped in favor of co-op. “Eurogamer” published a piece earlier this year that talked about the “Dead Space 3” the developers wanted. It was going to be more focused on survival horror. And (big surprise!) no microtransactions. That’s only the stuff people have come forward with. It wouldn’t surprise me if characters and plot elements were also interfered with. Remember how Ellie looked in “Dead Space 2”? Well, she’s had some… changes since then. Pretty big changes… It might seem odd to bring this up in the middle of the video, rather than the end. Well, I think it’s important to have this background knowledge going forward. There’s only so many ways I can say: “this part was changed to appeal to more people”, before I get tired of it. And you will to. All that being said, there are two sides of “Dead Space 3”: the singleplayer and the co-op. For the sake of being complete, I’m gonna cover both. I have to bring it up now, because co-op affects the weapon system, so I can’t continue where I left off without it. So, I grabbed a friend, and it’s time to talk about guns! SHAMMY: "Is that Shammy Television?! Can that be my intro?” MANDALORE: "Check it out!” SHAMMY: “Why do you have an energy bayonet?!” MANDALORE: “Oh, look, you have one too!” SHAMMY: “Oh, never mind… H-he-he-ha-ha-ha-ha…!” MANDALORE: “You made a shotgun-shotgun…” SHAMMY: “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha…!” MANDALORE: “Why would you… make that…?” SHAMMY: “(breathless wheezing) What are we doing…?” In previous games, your weapons were set in stone. You could upgrade them, but not change them. In “Dead Space 3”, you can only hold two weapons. The catch is: they’re completely customizable now. You could use a special attachment, add a damage type and of course upgrade the weapon. This is done with new upgrade circuits. They can alter multiple attributes at the same time, like damage or rate of fire. You can swap these out whenever you want, but each weapon frame has a limited number of slots. You have to build or find one to max that out. If you don’t want to fully customize a weapon, and just upgrade it, they have a big list of blueprints to choose from. The thing is: there’s such a sheer number of them that it’s better to just customize them yourself. If it was only a list of classic weapons, that would make sense, but here there’s just tons of them. So, I wouldn’t call it an easier choice. That’s not to say customizing is convoluted – it’s simple and intuitive. It’s fun to see how many lasers one gun can have. It’s a fun mechanic, but it’s true height is in multiplayer. You can work with your partner to synergize your weapons, or just try to out-ridiculous the other one. When it all comes together with a partner, it works beautifully. Your weaponry decides your role. For example, one player could serve as crowd control, while the other one deals damage. You fight large groups of enemies a lot more than previous “Dead Space” games, and they’re more aggressive. So, having a buddy to cover your reloads and watch your back feels satisfying. But if you really break it down (or play singleplayer), then problems crop up. The difficulty curve is the opposite of most games, for parts in the beginning are much harder than parts later on. This is because enemies are constantly charging at you. You only have your precision weapons to deal with them. Enemies would previously lumber towards you, and even when they charged, it wasn’t that fast. This was all to encourage you to aim at the limbs. The starting weapons still operate like that’s the case, but the enemies have changed. When a basic Slasher can cross the room in about 2 seconds, you don’t really have time to precision-aim. Now, there IS a new enemy type in the beginning that rewards aiming, but why are the other ones so off? Why did the Slasher go from a common enemy type to a super lightning-quick Destroyer of Worlds on harder difficulties? Well, it’s because they’re not balanced for these guns. They’re balanced for THESE guns. Even with their buffs, once you have a custom weapon, they don’t stand a chance. Even on the hardest difficulty, once you get past that initial bump, it’s all over. See how stasis is freezing the enemies? You can put that on your bullets now. [super-fast barrage] How about an upgraded pulse rifle that sets enemies on fire? [belligerent shriek cut short with a rapid burst] It just gets silly. [crunching of bodies being torn apart] [rapid gunfire] With universal ammo, your weapons always gonna be stocked up. You don’t need to think about weapon supplies, just shoot what you want. The direction they were going with is all over the place. If you explore around some ships in the beginning, it’s sort of like the first game: you have to aim carefully, and there’s not a lot of ammo outside. When you go inside the ship, there’s a regenerating enemy. There were only one of these in each game before, and they were a big deal, but now you can put them all over the spaceship, because they are not as deadly anymore – the player’s more powerful. Taking so many limits off the player just trivializes the enemies. When you have the gun that does it all, there’s a lot less frantic weapon-switching or reloading. You don’t need to save special ammo for a bigger enemy – you’ll always have it. If you think I’m irritated because it’s easier – no, it’s not that at all. It’s the irony of having deep weapon customization that gets repetitive. You switch between two weapons, each with an alt-fire, giving you four attacks. It’s basically choosing between four weapons. Previously, you could choose between four weapons, but each had a unique alt-fire, effectively giving you eight attacks. They just wiped out half your options! If you bring a buddy, I guess that balances it out, but it’s not the same. The weapons are still really satisfying, with great impact and sound effects. Some of the new ones, like melee weapons, are a welcome addition. The problem is confused direction. They didn’t commit to being an action game, so a lot of elements don’t make sense. [sonorous wails and screams of dying] That thing’s pretty spooky. [super-fast barrage] ♥ Goodbye! ♥ RECORDING: "Then they started changing." RECORDING: "Became sensitive to bright light. Just shining my flashlight would send them into violent rage." RECORDING: "I disabled the elevator to trap them down there." RECORDING: "God rest their souls…" Okay, so this part has a lot of buildup. You’ve just gotten onto a strange planet, and you heard a guy talking about locking monsters up in the basement. [startled squeal] What was THAT thing? “I smell… FRESH MEAT!!” You’re trapped in the basement with emaciated monsters. But they’re blind, and they can only hear you. It’s dark, they’re making weird noises. This is great. I wish every day looked just like this. I’ve gotta be a careful snooper. If I make one loud noise, these bad men will be all over me. When I see one is blocking off a doorway, I throw a canister in the corner, and sure enough, he skulks out to check it out. This is tense! I’m starting to like this! I open the next door, and… it’s over. That was two minutes… It also never happens again, except for some optional missions and near the end of the game. I have a feeling that a lot of people don’t even know stealth is an option. Because you can completely obliterate them. And they drop mountains of stuff. So, not committing a massacre only hurts yourself. They find you a few rooms down no matter what. I don’t think anything saddens me more than wasted potential. Can you imagine if they decided to flesh out stealth mechanics, instead of… other stuff? Even just taking away your weapons for this one part would have made something memorable. It’s a shame people can miss this. So, with the game being all over the place, which is better: singleplayer or co-op? The good news is: choosing one over the other won’t really change the story. The bad news is that… it really won’t change the story… TIM: "Alpha-Niner, this is Whiskey-Two-Five-Zero." TIM: "Come on…" TIM: "Alpha-Niner, this is Whiskey-Two-Five-Zero! Serrano, do you read me?" SAM: “Jesus, Caufman! This is hopeless!” MANDALORE: “You’re like my imaginary friend.” SHAMMY: “What is wrong with the guy in the background’s face?” MANDALORE: “Whah… What are you talking about his face?” SHAMMY: “Heh… He looks like a Cro-Magnon…” DANIK: “Take them out!” CULTIST: “This one’s still alive!” I’m the only one here! SHAMMY: “Am I in this cutscene in the singleplayer thing?” MANDALORE: “No, you’re not here at all! You’re somewhere else!” SHAMMY: “What the fuck?!” Wait, what? Why did Carver’s legs just appear there? Basically, no matter how you play, some scenes are a complete mess. Some were made with co-op in mind, others – singleplayer. It’s always a dice roll. If you play singleplayer, the game will always remind you that it’s co-op. Two buttons for this door. Hmm... Two hooks for climbing. Two buttons for this big door computer. A lot of negative space in that right side of the screen there. So, you can play singleplayer, but it just keeps reminding you it’s a co-op game. You’re also missing out on some story and a few levels. “Dead Space 3” has a few optional missions, and some of them are co-op only. These have some interesting moments, where both players will see something different. One player could see nothing, while the other is being manipulated by the Marker. So, if you want some of the more surreal visuals, you have to play it in co-op. One character might secretly talk to other characters. It encourages you to talk back and forth to try and get the whole picture of what’s happening. The developers wanted to go farther with it, but due to… reasons… they couldn’t. So, it’s very lacking. It doesn’t help that the co-op levels suffer from the “reused area” problem I was talking about earlier. So, despite being a main selling point feature, co-op can still feel tacked-on at times. The weird thing is that it’s integrated really well into the main campaign. Some puzzles get altered, so you work together. Like here, where I hold down the clamp, while he charges it up. One player figures out a puzzle, while the other one defends them. One player flies the sheep to avoid debris – the other one shoots it down. Both characters have conversations, where you can learn more about the backstory. CARVER: “What are you gonna do, when everything you care about is gone?” It does have its own set of problems. The way loading works is very annoying. Get used to the “waiting for partner” button when being by doorways. Even when you’re both right there. Also be prepared for some of the most crammed ladder maneuvering in videogames. It’s a lot more waiting than singleplayer, but that’s the cost of friendship. Things also break more in co-op. I don’t think it was ever fully polished. SHAMMY: "Ehh… I don’t really…" SHAMMY: "I don’t have a plan for this…" SHAMMY: "Okay, I’ll just…" SHAMMY: "How are you doing man?" I also have some reasons to believe that enemy AI wasn’t tuned for co-op. [mighty gunshots] MANDALORE: “Ehh… He’s just… going…” MANDALORE: “Ehh… He’s just… going…”
SHAMMY: "Okay..." SHAMMY: “Live your life, man…” MANDALORE: “There he goes.”
SHAMMY: "He’s leaving!" SHAMMY: "Later, boy, heh-heh-he-he-he!" SHAMMY: "He’s seen enough…" SHAMMY: "Okay, well…"
[vent break] MANDALORE: "Did he just come back at…? Oh, no…" MANDALORE: "Oh, he’s here, he’s leaving again!" SHAMMY: “Where he… Ahahah!” SHAMMY: “Where he… Ahahah!”
MANDALORE: “It’s behind you!” SHAMMY: “Ah-hah-hah-ha…!” SHAMMY: "I’m down!"
MANDALORE: “What’s happening?!” Co-op’s a good time. It’s fun with friends, as kind of an obvious thing, since, if people are good enough friends, they can probably roll a dog turd back and forth and have some fun, but the mechanics are there to have a good time. I’ve actually played the multiplayer in this a few times with different people. It’s easier to forgive the shortcomings when you can play the entire thing with someone else. If you do the optional missions, you get better guns and upgrades quicker, so it will be an even easier playthrough than singleplayer. I should talk about that. I’ve actually already covered all the gameplay issues. All that’s left is story. I’m not talking spoilers just yet, but there’s one part near the end that shows just how screwed up everything is. Don’t worry, it doesn’t give anything away. I’ve praised the sound design of this series in the past, but never the music. Well, there’s a great track near the end. And look at the scene that goes with it! CARVER: “If I don’t make it…” CARVER: "You get this done, right?" ISAAC: “We’ll get this done, Carver. You and me.” CARVER: "Yeah, but… If I don’t…" CARVER: "I helped get us this far." CARVER: "And that’s close enough for all this to count, right?" CARVER: "I alienated my son, wrecked my family…" CARVER: "Isaac, I killed [sboilers]!" CARVER: "Is that what a good man does?" ISAAC: "Good men mean well." ISAAC: "We just don’t always end up doing well…" CARVER: "H-h-he…" CARVER: "Yeah…" This is a great moment killed by two fatal flaws. If you played singleplayer, you’re missing out on a lot of context. You never got to know this guy like the way they’re talking. And if you played co-op, it’s hard to be invested in this at all. SHAMMY: “Oww, my bo-ody…” CARVER: “I helped get us this far.” SHAMMY: “Yeah, wait, Spider-Man, kiss me! Spider… Wait, stop! (fuck off) Spider-Man, kiss me!” MANDALORE: “Which one of us is gonna be Mary Jane though? I mean, you’re the red one…” SHAMMY: “OH! FUCKING ZOMBIE!! H-h-eh-eh-ha-ha-ha-ha!” CARVER: “Is that what a good man does?” There’s no best way to play this game. I give up… I tried to talk about story the least in these videos, but “Dead Space 3” is an exception. It’s a complete mess. So, this spoiler warning is unique, because I’m also gonna talk about the DLC. It costs $10, is about, maybe, 2 hours, at maximum, and it’s the ending of the game. This is the last “Dead Space” content ever put out, so if you don’t want spoilers, go to here: Let the nightmare begin… Remember when the second game hinted at there being a mastermind behind all the projects? Well, they’re not in this. [gunshot] ♪ Can you feel the love tonight? ♪ ♪ Can you feel the love tonight? ♪
DANIK: “Isaac Clarke!” Who would have thought Elton John was behind it all? There was a Runaway Train, and I guess you could call Isaac a Rocketman… The necromorphs do fall under the Circle of Life, just… not very well. I did skip over some things, so I need to go back. Remember when Isaac got recruited by the government in the beginning? Well, apparently that was THE LAST of the government. Anywhere. ISAAC: “Last battalion? What do you mean?” NORTON: “Last means “last”, genius. As in: “no more left”. Looks clear.” ISAAC: “No more left?” Yeah, “no more left”? Everyone in the game talks like the apocalypse is happening RIGHT NOW. The opening shot for this looks like “Blade Runner”! Look at all the traffic! You can see that Earth lit up like a Christmas Tree in the back. This is just the Moon! I’m not getting a feeling of this being the end times. It’s a vague setup when people are telling you that everything is chaos, but it looks pretty alright. Elton John’s motivations fall pretty flat. So, when he causes a Marker event, and Isaac runs away, then… what happens on the Moon? Is there another Marker builder, or does it need to absorb Isaac? If EarthGov is gone, then who’s gonna stop the outbreak? When you find Ellie in the flotilla above the planet, it turns out she’s in a relationship with Norton – the man who… ehh… “recruited” you. I love Isaac’s face – you can just tell what he’s thinking. “I thought you were my “Home Depot” dream girl. But without “me”, you’re just something else entirely…” This is supposed to be a dramatic reveal, yet the first time I saw this, all I could think was: “Why isn’t Ellie the co-op partner?” You can learn more about her backstory than the second game hinted at, and new players can learn more about Isaac through her. She has engineering skills, and can use improvised weapons just like Isaac. She’s killing monsters the first time you see her. It just makes sense to me for a co-op buddy. I don’t know… Maybe, they were afraid of being called a “Resident Evil 5 clone”. She doesn’t do a lot either. The game just wants you to be mad at Norton for being her boyfriend. ELLIE: “I knew you’d catch up.” NORTON: "Good to see you made it, Isaac." NORTON: "Yeah, maybe we should give you two some time alone, huh?" ELLIE: “What the hell does that mean?” NORTON: “It means, for someone who is in the past, you’re awfully glad to see him.” ELLIE: “We need him! THIS MISSION needs him!” NORTON: “Come on, WE need him or YOU need him?!” ISAAC: “Oh, you got something to say to me, captain?” It’s bland. They made Norton completely irredeemable, and he’s just boring for it. His mouth is always hanging open, like a toddler. He’s always telling Isaac how much he loves Ellie. NORTON: “I get it: you think you and her… Yeah… Well, forget it. She’s over you, alright?” Is this really what we have to worry about? A love triangle with a piece of cardboard? He’s always wanting to run away. Oh, right, when you crash-land on the planet, he sells you out to Elton John! Wat? You see him up to something at one point, but you don’t know when he did this. NORTON: “All he wants is Isaac! Carver, the rest of us can go home!” Go where? I thought everything was in shambles? He then blames Isaac for Elton John wanting to kill them, even though he told Elton John where they were. To save a lot of dialogue: Norton couldn’t pour water out of a boot, if instructions were on the heel. So, Norton draws, yelling about Ellie, and Isaac pops him. ISAAC: “What am I gonna tell Ellie?” CARVER: “Hey! You tell her the truth.” This could have meant something if Norton was a good character, and if the body didn’t ragdoll during the cutscene. So, Isaac tells Ellie that Buzz Lightyear will never fly again, because he’s sold them out to the Pinball Wizard, and she’s still upset. That makes sense – they could have been dating for a while… ELLIE: "You never believed in me… or this mission, or us!" ELLIE: "I had to go find someone else to help me, and now he’s dead!" ELLIE: "You sabotaged it! Just like everything else!" ISAAC: “What’s that supposed to mean?” Very compelling stuff. They get back together 20 minutes after her boyfriend is dead. Well… I guess that worked out… I’m skipping subplots, but it’s all like this. Motivations can change on a whim. Everyone is acting stupid. I mean ASTOUNDINGLY stupid. There’s this one part where Isaac has to assemble an alien creature out of slides. Other characters note how strange it is. CARVER: “Alright, it’s just a blob, whatever. How are we supposed to piece this thing together?” Then Isaac does it, and you can clearly see it’s an alien being. There’s really no denying it at this point. ISAAC: “Well, there she is! Meet Rosetta!” CARVER: “Where’s her face?” ELLIE: “She doesn’t have a face. It’s not even a “she”. It’s an “it”. Rosetta’s an alien!” CARVER: “Wat? What does that mean?” Are you shitting me? Did you think… that was a human being? Look at it! It’s not! It’s clearly not! Did you guys miss the ancient mummy-dragon walking in? There was that ancient giant monster research lab? You lowered me into it in a cage? I was probing it until it got mad and escaped? I thought we established aliens were here already! I’m gonna go crazy if I stay on this, so I’m just gonna tell you the secret of the Markers. It turns out that Tau Volantis is not the Marker home world. It was inhabited by another race of aliens, who were also looking at them for their energy needs. It turns out that Convergence is the process of all the necromorphs combining together into a moon. The aliens then built a device that froze the process, hence why the planet’s a frozen hellhole. Markers didn’t generate power – they’re just power relays for these things. So, the use of Markers and the rise of civilizations everywhere are just a reproductive cycle of an apex predator. I love the concept of it. Maybe this was always the plan. The good news is that playing the games back-to-back, nothing really stuck out as being a retcon here. Everything from the beginning lined up with this. Things only got confusing when you factored in the Sovereign Colonies being involved, but I’m not even gonna touch that. As far as Markers and monsters go, these are satisfying answers. You just have to sit through a lot of bad character drama to get here. This makes going through the alien city in the final levels impactful. This is an alien race that lived on an ocean world, a long, long time ago. It’s completely unknowable. Their greatest achievement was managing to DELAY Convergence, not stop it. Their ruins are dark and filled with strange architecture and Markers. The slog of the early game felt worth it to see this. You learn a bit of their dialect to open doors. It gave me a feeling like I was playing a different game entirely. But then reminders would come, and it’s like: yeah, this is “Dead Space 3”… I love this city though. It makes the journey worth it. Then characters come back and things get silly again. Carver’s big moment was telling Isaac to finish the mission no matter what. So he gives Elton John the key to turn the Machine off and end all life in exchange for Ellie. So the moon wakes up… That was a really bad idea. The planet is being sucked up into this thing. The lighting and shadows are going crazy. Everything built up to this. Then Isaac says something that makes me laugh every time. ISAAC: “Carver, I see the Machine! We have to get it before the moon does!” CARVER: “Copy that! I’ll meet you there!” Something clicks in my brain when Isaac says “grab it before the moon does”. He’s gone from fixing antennas to fighting a moon-monster. The sense of scale is all off now. So, Isaac reaches the… something… and then fights it. I don’t know if this is better or worse than the final boss of the last game. You get eaten by a giant monster earlier in this one, so the bar is already even set too high. Yet there’s also the boss fight against a giant drill, so… I don’t know anymore. Somehow, the Machine still works, and Isaac freezes it again. The moon has crashed into the planet, but the Marker signal is stopped. There’s a scene after the credits that implies Isaac is alive, but we have the DLC, so we know he’s alive. Don’t worry, it’s gonna be quick. CARVER: "That doesn’t make any sense!" CARVER: "Isaac, you activated the Codex! The moon fell! WE fell!" ISAAC: "What about the alien Machine?" ISAAC: "It froze the planet! It pulled the moon out of the sky!" ISAAC: "We don’t know what that technology can do." CARVER: “Wat? What does that mean?” After miraculously surviving a moon ramming into a planet, they decided to get off. Isaac and Carver keep saying that it doesn’t make sense, so I can’t really complain about it. While they did kill the moon, things may not have gone exactly as planned. Try taking that out of context… There are strange visual effects, hallucinations and reskins of previous enemies. They’re clearly trying to make it scary again, which is appreciated. The other moons are awake and wanting to feast on humanity. They said it, not me. MOONS: “Awake and hungry. But where is it? Take us home, Isaac. Make us whole.” The visuals are gorgeous. I think giving the moons a voice is a mistake if you’re going for Lovecraftian horror, but it’s still a good presentation. Unfortunately, you have all your equipment from the main game, and your memories of it… It’s hard to pick this apart, because they were given a budget for a $10 DLC to finish up the series. So, once again, there are a lot of reused areas. CULTIST: “They are hungry… They’re coming… They’re hungry… They are coming…” Sometimes I wonder if this entire DLC is just potshots at their publisher. The first half of the DLC is escaping the planet. The screen can get pretty frantic, which is a nice change of pace. The second part is re-boarding a ship from earlier to get a hyper-drive. Or shock-drive. Whatever it is. Unitologists are already aboard. The absence of Elton John has not made their hearts grow fonder… Going back to weird space cults is a good change. These are all good changes. I wish there was more of it! What really stinks is that this seems like a glimpse of what the main game might have been like, if they could have done what they wanted with it. Yeah, it still has some problems from the main game, but look at it! Imagine letting this team go nuts? Anyways, it all ends with Isaac and his friend escaping back to Earth. Isaac is having trouble getting a signal, so Carver tries to call EarthGov command. At this rate I’ve given up trying to understand what’s going on with that. So, at the very least, “Visceral” could give them a happy ending. [weird static] [rising distorted moan] [sonorous inhuman moan] CARVER: "Oh, God…" ISAAC: "Oh, no…" [distorted cry of terror] It’s a cliffhanger? Oh, God… So, that’s “Dead Space 3”, and wow, what a shift it did… I think the singleplayer experience is overall the worst in the series. I wouldn’t call it a bad game though. I think it’s alright. I’d bump it up even more, comparing it to co-op games. I think if someone picked it up fresh, not knowing anything else about the other games, they might like it even more. I’ve just been spoiled. I’ve heard a lot of people say this game is horrible, but I don’t think it’s that bad. But when a series falls from “amazing” to “okay” or “good”, that can make it seem a lot worse. That’s what “Dead Space 3” is: it’s an okay game after some really spectacular ones. As far as sales go, “Dead Space 3” had the strongest opening week of the franchise. It also had the largest second week drop. Week 2 sales went down something like 80% average across all platforms. It sold around 600 000 copies in its first month, which wasn’t anywhere near the 5 million the EA wanted. So now the series is dead and “Visceral” is dead. They’ve had quite the ride. I’m not sure how to recommend “Dead Space 3”. It’s probably the best dollar I’ve spent on one game. I’m just not sure about it now, because all the money goes to EA, “Visceral” is dead, and the DLC ending is $10. So, it’s in a weird place for me. I have no idea how to feel about it. Maybe I’ll figure it out one day… Thanks for watching! Sorry for the wait, but it’s been pretty hectic. This is gonna be the last review video for a while. I’ll have a channel update and an FAQ video out in a week or so. I’ll be able to explain more then. So, until then, maybe try “Dead Space 3”. Or don’t. SHAMMY: “David Bowie?”
God I fucking love Dead Space. Rivals Resident Evil as my favorite horror franchise.
It deserved a more definitive end to the series than DS3
I loved all three games. No, the third one was not as scary, but they are all well done and fun to play. I'll never forget playing DS2 and it slowly dawns on you that Spoiler
As a sci fi shooter fan, DS1 remains the best horror game I've ever played. To this day, the voice acting, atmosphere and intro scene still amaze me.
Just another franchise and studio victim of EA's greed and lack of vision. They could have made millions if they let the devs do their job instead of only thinking about quarterly profits.
With all the flak the game gets, this is the closest to a cosmic horror game we've got. Not that it was well executed, but I can't deny the sense of dread I felt from the final moments of the dlc.
It was just forgettable, as many people have already mentioned time and time again. I played DS3 looking for some closure, but . At best, there few cool areas and the weapon customization was okay, but that's the most I can say about it. I just felt like I was going through all too familiar motions.
It'd have been nice if EA had left their grubby mits off the 3rd instalment. DS2 was also more action orientated, but fair enough because it was still a great game (and my personal favourite of the 3).
A 5 million sales target was an absolutely ridiculous onus to put on the game. In what world was that feasible? You either: A) gut the horror element almost completely and turn it into co-op action shooter and piss off a lot of the fans (which is what they did), or B) keep to the core vision of the franchise and keep the horror focus. In both instances the game sure as shit ain't gonna hit 5 million, so surely they may as well have gone with B and at least earn the good will of making a worthy entry in the series.
Jesus, the story in this game was god awful. I couldn't understand why everyone was a dick to Isaac or why they just acted like fucking twats. Isaac has faced this shit twice. TWICE!
And why did they add the most pointless love triangle? I don't give two shits about Isaac having feelings for someone with the biggest douche of a boyfriend.
Big asshole spewing the same cliched bullshit "I know you still have feelings for her". Motherfucker, I don't want anything to do with you pricks. I just want to save the universe.
I picked up Dead Space 1 and 2 cheap on a steam sale for a second playthrough of them. I played them both on console. Talk about a game that still holds up well. It looks great, plays great, and some of the gimmicks introduced (like the integrated HUD) all still feel great.
You can definitely start to feel the beginning of the decline in 2, however. In a game about dismembering enemies, they start adding in a lot of peculiar weapons: a stake gun, a sniper rifle, a grenade launcher, a pistol...none are exactly the first choice when it comes to cutting things apart.
Currently at the nineteen minute mark and he's talking about the shitty co-op cutscenes...If he doesn't highlight the cage scene I'm going to have an aneurysm.
Edit: This aneurysm sucks.