I doubt it. It looks like it's a one trick pony that gets old. What else does it have going for it besides strategic dismemberment?
Nevermind. Here is what I could dig up on it link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Space_(video_game)
The Sci Fi Channel has a special on this game thats on TV right now (3:49 cst) 10/15/08 Man this game really looks like it kicks Mega Ass Now I gotta ditch my PS2 for a PS3
If there is anything I've learned about game reviews (both here and in magazines) I need to take them with a grain of salt. Renting is a safer investment than buying, and unless a game is something I know I might play twice a week for the next couple of years, there is no need to buy it. So for Dead Space, I'll give it a rent and decide for myself how it is.
Without a car I have no way to rent. And it wasn't a review, it was just a guy in an IRC chat room that said it was good. I don't think if I had a way, though, I would even rent it.
I'm reviewing right now... Will have a full review finished by Friday and can answer more specific Qs on it if you have any So far... It plays a bit like Resident Evil 4... and it was passed to me because it's too scary for my editor
Is the blow-off-limbs-first combat too gimmicky? I also heard the "twist" ending was sort of crap... any opinions?
Not got to the end yet... only just received the game from EA (they're rubbish getting us code early) but as of yet, loving the gradual damage, rather than pumping ammo into an enemy until the final bullet suddenly makes them keel over.
By-the-by, how can one get into your line of work? Video game reviewing seems to be a very in-crowd business, and something I've always wanted to do, but really I have no idea where to start. Any opinions, words of advice? I'm in a completely unrelated line of work right now, but have no real obligations to my current employer. Also, sorry to derail the thread slightly, and I wouldn't mind a PMed response if that is the preferred method.
My thoughts... 'Buy it!' My in depth thoughts... http://xbox.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=16930
I'm going to rent this for my PS3 at some point, watched a guy play it at work for an hour or so the other day, seems like a really cool game. Cliched to hell and back in the scenario, but executed well.
There's no real 'twist' ending... it's quite cliched, but worth playing to see. There are the standard string of crazy 'do we trust them' characters but that's to be expected If anything, the actual ending is exactly what you might expect from a survival horror game. Not that it's particularly what people want, but it's climactic and satisfying.
Maybe it was because the last game I played in the genre was Bioshock, maybe it was the massive amount of hype, but Dead Space is hugely overrated. The gameplay is repetitive to a fault. Travel there, fix this, repeat ad nauseum. It's bad when the game admits in dialog you're just moving around from one disaster to the next. It doesn't help that Isaac has zero personality. They went the Gordon Freeman route with a character who never speaks. But when you reunited with your ex-girlfriend on a dead ship surrounded by the reanimated corpses of its crew you just might want to say a word or two to her. Sure, main character dialog can be horrible. But it can also be an integral part of the story and tone of a game. Just imagine how empty Metal Gear Solid would have been if all Snake's dialog was removed. Having Isaac never utter an in-game word just reinforced the mindless-drone-running-around-fixing-shit-for-Kendra aspect. You spend the majority of the game fighting three types of necromorphs which gets crazy boring. In the second half the game shakes it up by giving them a different color and more hit points. Wow! Dismembering the necromorphs was a genuinely brilliant idea. After years of head shots it was a whole new challenge adjusting to hitting limbs, making swarms all the more deadly. The scares are the biggest problem of the game. Dead Space tries too hard to scare you with every damn necromorph. That's where the repitition of the monster attacks and the constant tension in the game really hurts it. Bioshock got it right: the best scares are those that come out of nowhere and are used sparingly. After a while I just didn't care about the imminent attacks that were being foreshadowed in hackneyed horror movie style and blitzkrieged through everything. The only attacks that were truly intense were the EVAs. Being attacked by a silent enemy from any angle all the while having to watch your scant oxygen supply, it was a highlight of the game and one that worked because it wasn't being used every minute-and-a-half. Ending planet-side was fun if for no other reason than I finally got to see a color that wasn't gray; I think the real reason the crew of the Ishimura went mad was from having to look at that drab interior all day. The final cutscene was straight out of Hollywood and fit the game well but it didn't make much sense. Then again the rest of the plot is filled with holes and twists seen coming from a country mile away already. 2.5/4 stars
I've heard the graphics are beautiful, and the game has lots of scary atmosphere and tries to make you jump out of your seat. Other than that, how is this really any different from Doom/Quake? I just bought Fallout 3 yesterday!
Graphics look great. Controls are solid. Physics were wonky in the PC version; I couldn't walk anywhere without knocking furniture or body parts clear across the room.
As far as scary games, Dead Space is one of the easier ones. All the monsters respawn in the same places every time. There's even a guy who did a weaponless run through the whole game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GLSerewoqk You can see the entire game that way, I think. Stasis is your friend. It's such a cheap thing, really. Tons of monsters coming at you? No problem! Put a lot of upgrades into your stasis and you'll freeze them for several seconds, long enough to melee them to death with ease (before you encounter the super sped-up ones, anyway). Now there's a Dead Space 2 coming out, with even better death scenes, improved visuals, and new monsters. They'll even allow you to use monsters' own body parts as projectiles. Plus a multi-player to do mini-missions with. The same guy who did the weaponless run has also updated his page with previews of the sequel, so you can check that out too.
OK... well, I'm really enjoying having the living bejeebees scared out of me every other second, so I'm going to wait a little before I view your link. I'm on Chapter 5 now and I've run into a peculiar bearded dude that seems to be advocating for the aliens onboard the mining vessell and declaring them as the logical end of mankind. I've put all my nodes thus far into my weapons and suit and I've neglected my stasis nodules. I'm having a tough time getting past this one monster that regenates his limbs everytime I shoot them off. I'm in a room where I'm suppossed to shoot his limbs off each time he grows them back and wait until a door is unlocked so I can escape... but I guess my stasis modules are so weak that it doesn't freeze him long enough.
Well, I'm used to games with more reponsive controls, that's for sure, and the automatic camera angles leaves a lot to be desired... but I find that all of this leads to a heightened sense of... vulnerability...?? It increases the tension for me. There are very few moments in the game thus far that I feel safe. I'm loving it so far... What part of the game gave you trouble, WAB?
The first time you encounter one of the aliens/mutants. I think it's about ten minutes into the game. The combat controls and camera angle stuff pissed me off so much that I just wiped the game from my harddrive. It looked like it had potential, but I can't stand games that don't have intuitive controls. A lot of games on the PC piss away their potential because of shitty interfaces. There's just no excuse for it, given the vast number of awesome games that are available. The PC was built for FPS games. Anyway, maybe Dead Space is better on consoles.
OK... I finally passed the part where I had to kill that monster with regenrating limbs. I hope I never run into that fucker again... but now I'm looking for somethig called a "Leviathan" in Hydroponics. I can tell that this will not go well, already.
