After his second encounter with the undead necromorphs, Isaac Clarke has decided his best choice of action was to go into hiding so that no one else could use him to build more of the devices that create them: the Markers. But these secrets were already out due to that second encounter onboard the Titan Station. He found this out one day when the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces (SCAF) knocked on his door and demanded his assistance at gun-point. Earth governments had made several copies of the marker based on the information they had stolen from his brain, which has lead to a religious fervor that could spell the end of mankind.
The Church of Unitology, a religion based on the research done when the first Marker was discovered, has decided now is the time for unification: an end of times scenario to be lead by the Markers they believe will evolve all of mankind to our ultimate form though death and returning to life as a super-organism made of the remains. And as such, they plan to try to "free them" from the research facilities trying to safely use their energy producing properties. With their final plan in action, the church has realized the only one with the knowledge to destroy the Markers is Isaac. As such, they will do everything in their power to destroy the one person who poses a serious threat, showing just how insane the world has become
With the hell this will unleash, the only chance the species has for survival is if Isaac and the team he is being forced to join can find the secrets of a distant world Tau Voltanis where 200 years prior, an infestation was stopped dead in it's tracks. How did they do it? What did it cost them? And most importantly, can it save not just Earth but every human being in the known galaxy from the church's mad scheme?
While you will get a glimpse of how this 200 year old event began as the game begins, your real start happens as you take control of Isaac. You will guide him and the soldiers with him as they flee the Unitologists hunting him down. But escaping is only step one.
From this point, you will guide the man cursed with the visions the Markers gave him as he and his team look for clues in the derelict wrecks of ships above the ice world of Tau Voltanis as well as on it's surface and below. Every step will take you closer to figuring out the puzzle of what happened on that planet, what that colony found and just what went horribly wrong. (Because this is Dead Space... you can assume something went horribly wrong.) The pacing and writing here honestly feels more like a modern action-horror movie rather then a tension building horror game, but that is is not necessarily a bad thing. It's just a different take then the "what the hell is going on" the first two games in the series ran with. And by this point, this pace and take works well. After all, it's the end of a trilogy and they expect you to know how these monsters work by now. And if you do not, you will be brought to speed pretty quickly. You will be ushered into the action against human enemies at first to get you used to the controls before tossing the monsters at you as all hell breaks loose on the moon colony during your escape. On top of this the game even starts with a "Previously on Dead Space" before you touch any controls to explain the lore before this chapter for new comers and those who are coming back after a while and want a refresher/details to fill in the holes.
And that gameplay it pulls you into is pretty satisfying over all. As expected, you will control Isaac from an over-the-shoulder perspective as you run, duck behind cover, and generally fight your way through the events of this title. You will also notice that despite the focus on action that takes up a lot of the game, you only focus on a the gun-play when you aim your weapon. While this doesn't make a lot of sense while all your enemies are the military of the church trying to kill you, it instantly makes perfect sense when the game shifts and you find yourself fighting the necromorphs who make up most of this game. Unlike the human soldiers who basically go down with a few rounds to the head, a necromorph is already dead and reanimated by the alien technology of the Markers. These things do not go down from a head shot and take little damage from body shots at all. Rather, fighting them is based on taking aim at the limbs and tentacles of these quick-moving monsters and dismembering the body till it can't really move and the energy within no longer has the ability to spawn more limbs and tentacles to keep coming at you. So you really wouldn't be able to effectively fire at them without aiming.
And these monsters come in descent variety even if you've seen most of them in prior games. Most of the time, the game favors the basic necromorph with blade-arms, ones that spit acid at you (and reduce your movement speed to next to nothing) and toddler-sized monsters crawling around on the ground and walls that spawn tentacles to fling barbs at you, but you will see other types like the hunters that hide and use pack-tactics to distract and attack you, monsters with an explosive arm, and even humanoid monsters with glowing eyes that just might replace parts you destroy with tentacles and come back even faster. And there are even more I'm leaving for you to discover in all their organic glory. The combinations it will throw at you is actually pretty good and will never leave you bored. Maybe a little overwhelmed at times (the game does like to drop mobs in small rooms from time to time), but never bored.
And while this game does have some exploration to go with the combat, it really is not a lot. Basically the game will offer you a few additional trails to look for items you might find useful as well as some additional resources which you will use to upgrade your gear. Where previous games had you collecting nodes you came along for this, this time around you collect 6 different resources, combinations of which you can use at benches and suit upgrade points to make useful items, build parts for your weapons (and if you have the blueprints, entire new ones), and even upgrade your suit with better armor, more health and other benefits. And you will find these things everywhere in either boxes or the bodies of your enemies you can smash. In addition to finding them, you will also eventually find robots that you can send out to collect these bits and pieces. On the one hand, this does allow you to effectively have unlimited supplies should you decide to wait around for the bots to do their job, but this would be boring and on the other hand, it means the game has introduced a new resource management element that I honestly find is just not as natural to this series as the previous node system.
But while we are on the upgrade/resource/inventory system, this is perhaps connected to the one thing this game did horribly wrong: the save system. To put it bluntly, the system is was designed to track your inventory with actually saving your progress as a distant second priority. When you start the game, you will be shown a window saying:
"This game has an autosave feature and will save your progress and/or inventory without warning. When you see this icon, please do not turn off your system."
Most people will simply nod at this message. After all, we are used to AAA games using checkpoints as a regular thing, but you should read this closer. The game is warning you right here that not all checkpoints in this game will necessarily save your progress, but just what you are carrying. This opens up the possibility of losing things you used when fighting the monsters in the game, but still having to repeat that fight. And you will see checkpoints that actually say they are saving your inventory instead of saving your progress, so just because you see the save icon doesn't mean you actually what you have done.
But it gets even worse, as this game also requires you to save when you quit your session. We have been trained through decades of gaming to accept this to mean this is a complete save of everything and at most we might go back to a well-marked and per-determined starting point, but everything we did will remain done. That is not the case here. Any progress you made after the last time a checkpoint specifically saying it was saving your progress will be lost and so will any items you used in the meantime since that is the ONLY thing this save is actually concerned with.
So in essence you have a system which does it's best to hide that saving doesn't mean saving as we know it, even including having "checkpoints" that don't actually save to try to throw you off and make you have to replay large chunks of the game while still taking away anything you used in the process. This is frankly a shitty and deceptive design choice that pretty much slaps you in the face as the player, completely disregarding why you would save and disrespecting you by routinely setting you up for it. It would be a baffling and horrifyingly bad choice of a core system to support the game if it was that simple, but I have a hard time believing that is all there is to this. After all, this game came out within a year of Mass Effect 3: a game EA released with day-one DLC to squeak an extra $10 from people who didn't want to slap it down anyway for a collector's edition.
With such a mentality, I went to look at the DLC available for the game to see if there was a reason, and I think I found it: Scavenger bot upgrade packs. To go back to the game, scavenger bots are the little robots you will find which you can set loose to find and come back later with whatever bounty of resources they can pick up. But the process is relatively slow and may seem to not bring back a lot. The first 2 DLC listed in this game's Origin page are updates to improve both that speed and bounty brought back... for $10 combined. Why not shock the gamer into thinking they used up precious ammo and medkits to sell a quicker way to make more, right?
Still, however serious a sin this is, it does not override what else the game offers. And as much as exploration is not a big thing here, the world itself is. All around you are signs of the hell spawned by the Markers and their creations in vivid detail, complete with mad ramblings painted on the walls, collapsing and broken buildings, and even the very notes and audio recordings you find within the game. Everything points to their influence and the ramifications of it, leaving a record of what was before and adding the flavor of a world now dead... especially as you play through the second half of the game. Viceral knew how to make a game feel oppressive and they brought their A game to this final chapter as well. If you are a lore-hound who likes to put the pieces together along side your slaughter, this is actually going to be a really good entry in the series for you.
Bugs: While this game ran very well, I did notice two bugs while playing. Neither of them even slowed me down (and in fact one was a sure fire way to speed things up) but they should be brought to your attention.
- So focused even the wind doesn't effect me: This was an odd issue, but something I could recreate pretty much at will. There are times in this game where whether it's due to decompression in space or wind raging by you in the tundras that the air moving around you is so intense your character will be forced to move slow into it, arm protecting their face. However, you do not need to obey this law of nature if you do not wish to. By simply aiming your currently equipped weapon, you can move as normal without any issues this is supposed to cause for you. Clearly this isn't a huge issue by any means, but if you get tired of a longer pathway, you can definitely take advantage of the fact that the developers forgot to add adjusted animations for these scenarios while you aim down the barrel of your favorite cutting device.
- SPACE!!!!! At least that is what I imagine the little guy might have been thinking when this one happened. While playing this game, you will come across small monstrosities that look similar to human heads which basically try to play the roll on corpses missing that part. In this particular event, the little guy tried to pull onto a corpse, but wound up tossing it into the air, and flinging both of them through the roof and out of the map. It was not gone for good, as when I actually reached that point it tried to climb back in through the wall, but died in the process... rest in peace little guy, you brought a smile to my face.
Overall: While talking to my brother about this series he mentioned one of the biggest problems this game had was that it followed and so was forced to follow in the footsteps of Dead Space 2, a feat few games would ever have a hope at doing. For the most part, I have to agree with him. Dead Space 3 is overall a really good game and if it did not have to follow such an amazing title, it would likely have fared a lot better in the memories of the gamers who played it. But at the same time, I can not ignore that EA baked a key system to how any game meant to be played over multiple sessions as a cheap gimmick to try to make gamers "feel the need" to buy DLC for an extra edge. It's a complete show of disrespect and a touch of malice towards the audience and as such, I find it hard to forgive or forget about. Does it ruin the game? Absolutely not, and I found myself enjoying it a lot, especially the second half. But it does drag down the overall picture by injecting unnecessary greed and then hiding it till you are knee deep in the game itself.
Still, I can't call the game shit when it's only one mechanic that clearly is. If you enjoyed the previous two there is no reason not to pick it up at this point. At $20 it's far from a bad deal and you will definitely enjoy this one, too. If you are new to the series, the game will accommodate you as well, but I have to honestly recommend going to find Dead Space 1 and 2 first if you can. This is the end of a trilogy, and it's worth treating it as the end of the journey instead of the beginning.
Score:
System Requirements:
- 2.8 GHz CPU
- 1 GB RAM on Windows XP or 2 GB RAM on Windows Vista or higher
- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or ATI X1600 Pro with at least 256 MB VRAM and Shader 3.0
- Windows XP
- 10 GB hard drive space
- Internet connection
- Ryzen 7 (2700) 3.2 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce 1660 (6GB VRAM)
- Windows 10 (64 Bit)
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