Archive Update: Dead Space 3

FAIR WARNING: Spoilers are abundant within, in the hopes that a real discussion of the game's subject matter may follow. If you have not played the game yet but still plan to, do not read this post.

Dead Space 3 is an action/horror game that completes a trilogy of necromorphic conquest. Isaac Clark returns yet again to face his nightmares and save the universe from the plight of the Unitologist, albeit reluctantly. Fans of the first two games will undoubtedly feel at least somewhat compelled to compete this chapter of the storm just as I was. Like most third installments, there's a mixed bag of returning good and bad ideas, as well as some new subtleties that fans will react to divisively. A question I always ask myself with franchises that grow like this one is, "Do I really need every game to get the full experience here? And if not, which game is the one to keep?" As a result, I played through Dead Space 3 looking for a reason to keep the game. it's kind of a hostile way to approach a review like this, but that's my style.

Just like my Archive Update for Far Cry 3, I really don't want to go off in traditional review fashion here. So instead, I'm going to list some notes and observations I made during my playthrough, followed by a summary and grade at the end. These observations are in a kind of random order because there were some things that I forgot to write down at the time and remembered later, and now I don't remember exactly where they would have originally fit in.

When Isaac crashes down onto the snowy planet, the gameplay narrative instructs you that Isaac is going to freeze because his helmet is malfunctioning. Nothing else is wrong with the suit, and the game gives you a timer to get to heated shelter before he freezes to death. Once the helmet is repaired, I found it a bit hypocritical that in cutscenes and conversations Isaac can freely take his helmet off without any danger of freezing.
Weapon crafting is a cool concept, but it's basically pointless to toy around with because a plasma cutter is still the best weapon for pretty much everything. Even if you don't use that, you'll probably pick a gun early on and stuck with it throughout, making all those new parts you pick up pointless.
The camera sucks when you get backed up to a wall, causing aim to be impossibly jumpy.

There's an annoying tendency for the game to have enemies sneak up from off camera and attack you just lightly enough to throw off you aim, but not blatantly enough to indicate the true cause of the damage. I only discovered it after deciding to pick a better spot to shoot from and seeing them right on top of me when I turned.
I find it hypocritical that Unitologists religiously believe in becoming necromorphs to be the next step in human evolution and they strive to have it happen to them and all of humanity, yet when necromorphs are present that still attack them. They also still try to kill Isaac. So they are killing the beings that they worship, which I would consider a betrayal of the cause, but still try to kill the target their cause that they've just betrayed tells them to. What?
Overall the game was at its best when Isaac was actually in space, while the Arctic parts (which were the majority of the game) were not nearly as cool or interesting to me.

Isaac becomes too easily trapped by the big arachnid boss. I never got cornered or anything, but Isaac's movements were simply too squared to adequately get out of the arachnid's path while running around the circular area.
I hate how when Isaac has more than one weapon in his inventory, the game has a nasty habit of changing the equipped weapon after a cutscene. Especially since those cutscenes can feed directly into a combat situation, and I'm expecting a specific weapon to be in Isaac's hands to start.
The grappling hooks/rock climbing sections were stupid and annoying.

The game's auto-aim often chooses a different target than I do, which leads Isaac to waste a lot of ammo.
I think it's more than a little strange that Isaac can change into a completely different suit than that covers his body 100% and the enemy never once stumbled on identifying him correctly.
The stats for weapons feels off. A plasma cutter with full damage still requires more ammo to kill an enemy than a shotgun at 50% damage. Now, I know common sense tells me that a shotgun is naturally more powerful, but I would have preferred a single standard for the weapons stats that would have let me really see which of my guns was most powerful, but just which of my weapons had reached their specific full potential.

The end was weird. Danik's use of the machine seems to be breaking the planet apart, which is Isaac's plan. Then once you see that Danik's breaking the planet apart like you wanted, you have to keep fighting him in order to use the machine so it continues breaking up the planet. It doesn't make sense that they're both fighting each other to do the exact same thing, or that somehow this same action would have different outcomes based on who pushed the button.
With as much as IGN's reviewer boasted about the song in the ending credits, I found it to be a bit lacking. Maybe because it's just an ending credits song and what the hell was he going on about that for in the first place, but also maybe because I know of a song that is eerily perfect for the credits scene that wasn't licensed. Seriously though, lyrics are an almost perfect match for it, and if they had used that song I would have understood someone taking the time to give it some extra attention. No offense to Pelican. Linky-loo to my song choice / linky-loo to the end scredits of DS3

On the whole, Dead Space 3 isn't a terrible experience, nor does it live up to the two games that preceded it. To address the questions I raised earlier in this post, I don't believe I will be keeping this game forever, but for now it's safe in my collection. I know a lot of people have complained about this game going away from the survival aspect and the scares, but I think it's only natural at this point that Isaac's skills and expectations of these enemies would have matured him past that. It's not that I don't miss the thrill of entering a new room with only half a clip left in my inventory and knowing that anything could be waiting to gut me as I explore; I just accept that by now Isaac has well established that he can handle himself in these situations.

I wish more effort had gone into making the story coherent and interesting, and I wish that the level designers didn't rely to much on overwhelming numbers to create the illusion of difficulty. But as it is, I'm glad I played it through to the end, and might even give it another go in a full trilogy run someday. I give it a C.

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“You call it abuse. I call it a reason we keep a cage in the basement.”

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