Dead Space 3 Review

The first time I heard about Dead Space was in the middle of one of my freshman programming classes in college. A couple of guys, two rows up, were raving about the pure horror of the game. At the time I was not really a fan of the survival horror genre, but that would soon change. Going off of the raving review of my classmates, I purchased the original Dead Space and was instantly hooked.

Nearly every aspect of Dead Space that I enjoyed, the horror, intriguing story/history, and gameplay, was carried into the series' second entry, Dead Space 2. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Dead Space 3. For the first time in the Dead Space franchise, I was left wondering what went wrong. I was finding myself frustrated instead of scared.

Players will once again take control of Isaac Clarke, an engineer who has found himself wrapped up in a crazy alien conspiracy threatening all of humanity. The first game revolved around Isaac's struggle to survive a Necromorph outbreak on the planet cracker ship, the Ishimura, and the second focused on resolving an outbreak on a human colony. This third entry to the Dead Space series covers a more humane issue, religious fanaticism. Unitology, the upcoming religion within the Dead Space universe, believes death is the beginning of something much grander. Unitologists support the idea of being brutally massacred by the Necromorphs as part of a transformation into something much grander. Now this concept is where things begin to get rocky for Dead Space 3.

With a large portion of humanity becoming witness to the horrors of the Necromorphs in Dead Space 2, one can only wonder how the Unitologists were able to spin that in their favor and continue to exist. What is more interesting is the fact that the leaders of this religion are seemingly able to do whatever they want with whoever they want. This notion begins the story of Dead Space 3.

The game begins with a depressed and in-hiding Isaac living in what appears to be a beat-up old apartment. Finding another way to get Isaac involved with the Necromorphs would be essentially impossible, if not for a love interest. Nobody would be crazy enough to go face to face with these blood thirsty aliens for a third time, but when love is involved, a guy will do anything. Like all of the Dead Space games prior, this game gets things started pretty quickly. Isaac is confronted by a group of soldiers who claims his love, Ellie, has requested his aid. Shortly afterwards the Unitologists are seen massacring the entire population in search of Isaac. They then release the Necromorphs upon the city and we now have ourselves a game.

A generic love over safety and insane religious zealot story quickly confines Dead Space 3 to mediocrity. The only unique element that Dead Space 3 offers is unlocked through the game's new cooperative mode. One of the more interesting concepts from the first two Dead Space games was the spontaneous moments of insanity brought on by the Markers. With Isaac cured of these hallucinations in Dead Space 2 those moments are lost in this game if you play single player. In co-op mode, Isaac's partner Carver will begin to experience these moments of insanity. In a unique gameplay element, the person playing as Carver will be transported to an odd world where he must fight off his own demons while Isaac is left to fend off the Necromorphs on his own.
Seeing Carver gradually grow into a state of insanity was a welcome highlight to an otherwise boring experience.

However, with the pros of the co-op experience comes the cons.  Dead Space has always been known for its survival horror elements. Following an ill-advised path of Resident Evil 5, Visceral Games decided to add a co-op partner to the series and to focus more on action. One of the great concepts of Dead Space was the fact that Isaac was always alone and having to do everything by himself. By adding a co-op partner this sense of dread has been removed and the game is just not scary anymore. Hardcore fans of the series would already be onto the game's many scary tactics, watering down the fright level already, but this co-op experience just further killed the mood.

Surviving in Dead Space used to be about ammo conservation via dismembering limbs. Due to the item sharing feature of the co-op experience, ammo is abundant and staying alive is easier than ever. Gone are the precision limb hacking shots and in its place a spray and pray element. The enemies are also faster in Dead Space 3, giving little time to line up those shots anyways.

For those of you who wish to play alone, there is always the single-player option. Not much has changed in this game mode from the last couple of games. The most notable difference is the ability to craft items and weapons. The new crafting feature actually enables you to totally create new weapons from the ground up, upgrade existing weapons, or to create more common items such as ammo and health. While this feature is a bit cumbersome at first, it does prove to be fairly useful as the game progresses. In fact, it may become too useful and again serves as a way to reduce the game's fear factor and difficulty. One such example is the ability to add a rocket launcher perk to your weapon. Once this add-on has been attached, nothing will stand in your way, not even bosses.

With the addition of item crafting, is the absence of 'credits', aka money. Shops are essentially a thing of the past and everything you "buy" is done through a range of crafting materials such as scrap metal and somatic gel. Due to a glitch in the game, it is really easy to quickly horde these materials and be souped up in no time at all.

All of these elements combine together to create a pretty decent action game. However, Dead Space is known for survival horror, not action. This fact makes the game suffer at times. A notable example of this is the controls. Dead Space 3 still plays like a survival horror whereas Isaac moves in a sluggish and cumbersome manner. Yet the enemies apparently did not get this memo as they are faster than ever which will highlight the control problems.

With all of this criticism being thrown out, I may be giving the impression that Dead Space 3 is an absolute train wreck of a game. However that is not the case. While the game certainly suffers from a lack of identity, it still manages to provide a halfway decent gameplay experience. Fans of the Dead Space series will definitely not want to miss out on this game as it finally resolves (albeit a fairly disappointing way) the mystery of the Markers and adds some elements to the Dead Space universe. Newcomers to the series, who has not played the other two titles, will probably enjoy the game more.

Dead Space 3 added some decent elements to the series, but it was an overall mediocre game that just suffers from a clear lack of direction.

Presentation - 5.5
Gameplay - 7
Value - 6.0
Overall - 6.5

Byline: Noah Glaser is an avid gamer and part of the gaming media. At E3 this year his favorite game was Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.