At times I would be wowed by Carver's psychosis and devolution into madness. The subtle differences between the first and second player's gameplay and story are a nice touch and show the hidden potential behind the creative team. He begins to see strange things that the other player can't see and is transported to an ethereal world where he must confront his own demons while the still-sane player must fight off hordes of enemies on his own. Throughout the course of the game while playing co-op, you can go on unique team missions where Carver begins to go just as crazy as everyone else in the world. The only interesting twist the game has to offer is unlocked when playing co-op with Isaac's partner Carver. Every character in the game is unlikeable and as shallow as a street puddle on a hot summers day, and that's terrible when you're playing a game that tries hard to make you care about a romance that you know is doomed to fail. Every note from every plot point is taken directly from the words of a 13 year old's Dead Space fan-fiction, and given a few extra curse words to make it seem mature. At one point, when it became clear that Isaac had a new love interest, I knew exactly how it would play out, with the needless conflict and strife that would come from Isaac choosing her love over survival. I cannot just accept that humanity has collectively devolved into a bunch of neanderthals despite mastering space travel because Dead Space 3 takes itself so seriously. I can accept the clearly evil, diabolical plots of the Umbrella Corporation because at this point Resident Evil is a parody of such exaggerated tropes, at least in my eyes. I can imagine that Superman putting on glasses convinces people he's Clark Kent because the DC universe has traditionally been campy and not meant to be taken too seriously. Willing suspense of disbelief can only go so far. The very fact that every single one of these questions and many more concerning the story came to mind when playing Dead Space 3 says something about the plot. Are we really supposed to believe that future human civilization is capable of faster than light travel and galactic colonization, but isn't capable of destroying the so-called markers that are very clearly driving people to insanity? Are we supposed to believe that supposedly intelligent people find the idea of being turned into a necromorph in any way appealing? I've heard of some pretty weird religions throughout Earth's history, but I can't recall one that was so widespread and so very dangerous. I repeat, it was a religion that revolved around the idea of killing everyone and turning them into space zombies. This plot kind of worked in the first game where the 'religion' in question was more or less confined to the Ishimura, but once it spread to human civilization, surely it should have been eradicated. I've enjoyed some dumb games and movies, but I've never felt like my intelligence was insulted so aggressively as when I was playing Dead Space 3.Īs in the first two games, you play as Isaac Clarke, a space engineer who keeps getting in over his head in a conspiracy involving mystical alien artifacts that are turning people crazy and urging them to start a new religion that revolves around the idea of turning everyone into a space zombie known as a necromorph. The series has become too fixated on action set pieces to make its modern horror leanings work, and both gameplay and plot suffer for this. Dead Space as a franchise is said to have one of the better stories in recent memory, with a deep history and unique lore, but despite its commendable world building it's difficult to get past how terrible the story and characters are, and Dead Space 3 only makes matters worse. Granted, there are games like Portal or Uncharted, or even the flawed but interesting Heavy Rain, but for the most part it's a sea of sludge with the proverbial diamond in the rough. By Gordon Bryant, posted on 16 February 2013 / 6,903 ViewsĪs game budgets inflate and the medium grows, it's becoming increasingly frustrating to see so few games with good writing.
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