Dead Space 3, and why it's a better game than most would have you see it.

[Church185]

WHY do people keep saying this? EA Did *NOT* close down Visceral! They shut down Visceral Montreal, which was about 1/5th to 1/4th of the Visceral team. The majority of the team, the other 3/4, that are at the core Visceral studio at EAHQ are still going strong!

My biggest gripe with the game is that I can't get it to run properly on my 360, after about 20 minutes of playing the game will freeze and it is hard to make progress. With the studio closing and a fix being far off, I'll probably never get to see the game through to the end.

Truth be told, DS2 is my favorite as well. A lot of that though stems more from the fact that I spent a year and a half working on DS2, and only about 3 months on DS3 (waaaaaay in the early beginning) before leaving the company. I just feel a tighter bond with the project on that one, heh. As an actual game I think it's only slightly ahead of DS3 by a small margin.

Hmmm, EA or Visceral may want to come out and tell news outlets to quit confusing people.

Is anyone at the studio talking about the 360 freezing problems or a patch for DS3? Sorry if you can't talk about it or that isn't your department, but I would really like to be able to go back to the game. I think the human enemies were a misstep but I still love the series. :/

 

[Sargonas42]

Is anyone at the studio talking about the 360 freezing problems or a patch for DS3? Sorry if you can't talk about it or that isn't your department, but I would really like to be able to go back to the game. I think the human enemies were a misstep but I still love the series. :/

Honestly I have no idea. I stopped working with the team in May of 2012. While I'm still friends with many of the folks there, when they do drop a bit of work related content here or there during a conversation I tend to intentionally flush it from my mind as soon as it is no longer relevant to the conversation at hand. It's a bit of a habit you develop when working in this industry for so long and talking to so many people from so many studios daily. It's the easiest way to keep yourself from accidentally sharing stuff you aren't supposed to know.

 

[Church185]

Honestly I have no idea. I stopped working with the team in May of 2012. While I'm still friends with many of the folks there, when they do drop a bit of work related content here or there during a conversation I tend to intentionally flush it from my mind as soon as it is no longer relevant to the conversation at hand. It's a bit of a habit you develop when working in this industry for so long and talking to so many people from so many studios daily. It's the easiest way to keep yourself from accidentally sharing stuff you aren't supposed to know.

I bet that is stressful at times. I could never work at a video game company, I'm too much of a games enthusiast. I wouldn't be able to contain the excitement every time a new project was announced and I would end up telling everyone in the world about the new game. I guess I could work in marketing....

 

[ThriKreen]

Hmmm, EA or Visceral may want to come out and tell news outlets to quit confusing people.

What, and make misleading headlines to drive traffic, relying on the actual content of the article to say so and expecting people to do some reading comprehension to understand what it means?

Nah.

That said, I still need to find me a DS3 coop partner (PC/Origin) ...

 

[Sargonas42]

Hmmm, EA or Visceral may want to come out and tell news outlets to quit confusing people.

I totally agree, but to be honest Game studios can't keep up with every single outlet making crazy claims just to drive traffics with sensational headlines. After a certain point they have to just tune out the white noise and only respond when it becomes a HUGE issue... other wise a lot of time and money gets wasted on things that could be better spent elsewhere.

Fact is, game media, like all media, will always word the facts in whatever way gets the most attention. You have to learn to pick and choose when to correct them, and when to ignore them. Otherwise you will be fighting a 24/7 uphill battle.

 

[mfeff]

Didn't really care for the first game, the second was very interesting, the third is a technical marvel. Very impressive product. Design is quality, very clever level design, even managed to squeeze in some good multi (assuming a bro-or dudette to play on the hardest difficulty with).

One complaint and one nitpick... towards the end the game feels tired, the "quake it up" comes through here with the waves of critters... sorta tells me these fine folks just ran out of stuff to do or assets to toss at the audience. The nit-pick was having the various hardware and guns displayed at all times. This seemed to be a marketing decision rather than a game design decision.

Best review I can ever give a product... it's worth you time and money to play. I'd play it again. What else can be said? Nice job I suppose. Keep it up... I have money to exchange, maybe make a space sim or something. =D

 

[Kopikatsu]

Is anyone at the studio talking about the 360 freezing problems or a patch for DS3? Sorry if you can't talk about it or that isn't your department, but I would really like to be able to go back to the game. I think the human enemies were a misstep but I still love the series. :/

Honestly I have no idea. I stopped working with the team in May of 2012. While I'm still friends with many of the folks there, when they do drop a bit of work related content here or there during a conversation I tend to intentionally flush it from my mind as soon as it is no longer relevant to the conversation at hand. It's a bit of a habit you develop when working in this industry for so long and talking to so many people from so many studios daily. It's the easiest way to keep yourself from accidentally sharing stuff you aren't supposed to know.

Major respect, then. My top three favorite games are Dead Space 2, Uncharted 2, and Metal Gear Solid 4. Although I can't rank them. They're just sort of jumbled at the top.

It's good to hear that Visceral lives though.

 

[EHKOS]

I think the thing I hated most about the game was Eliie. They really changed her personality and how she made decisions, and the Ellie I knew in 2 would never have gone with Norton.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

It's a pathetically easy (on impossible, first playthru), bland and uninspired third-person shooter that does nothing with its own setting. The characters were uninteresting, the dialogue dreadful (possibly written by a 12 year old who played DS2 and was asked to make a new game based upon it), the story forgettable and throwaway, often making little sense whatsoever (Norton is so atrocious and inconsistent I can't even bring myself to start).

By trying to please the mass-market, they failed to please anyone. There are better shooters, better RPGs, better action RPGs, better tactical shooters and many more with more interesting stories and settings. The micro-transactions is a despicable money grab to put into a full-priced AAA single player title. Too much dev time was wasted on coop missions (and further, locking content behind it that the solo player cannot access, thereby preventing collection of all items for bonus content) instead of making a better single player game.

The "puzzles" often give you the answer, on screen, whilst trying to "solve" them. There is nothing clever or sophisticated in this game at all. The only thing they got right was the general aesthetic and pacing.

To call this game mediocre is about as far as I can stretch to. Anyone who hasn't bought it, save your money. You can probably get a 2nd hand gamecube/wii and a copy of Resident Evil 4 for less than buying this game, and RE4 is in a different league altogether, setting the benchmark that DS can only hope to emulate. Alternatively, get 1 (more scary) or 2 (better at everything else).

 

[Silvanus]

By trying to please the mass-market, they failed to please anyone.

He replies in a thread full of people saying that they enjoyed the game, on a forum attached to a game journalism site that gave it a positive review.


Anyway, OT: I loved Dead Space 1, 2, and Extraction (which is overlooked, people! It's not on many platforms, but if you have the PS3 move, it's worth a look), but I don't have the money for DS3 as yet. When I do, it'll be mine.

DS3 is alongside Bioshock Infinite and Crysis 3 as one of my most anticipated games right now. (Crysis 3 being 'anticipated' because I can't play it on this non-nuclear-powered machine, damnit!)

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

And yes, without spoiling anything, it really does END here.
Putting aside the fact that EA closed down Visceral (f*ck you sideways with a plasma cutter, EA!) story-wise, I have no idea how they could continue.

WHY do people keep saying this? EA Did *NOT* close down Visceral! They shut down Visceral Montreal, which was about 1/5th to 1/4th of the Visceral team. The majority of the team, the other 3/4, that are at the core Visceral studio at EAHQ are still going strong!

Really?
Oh, thank goodness.
I had heard, well, you know what I heard.
Thanks for informing me.

And as for this...

It doesn't end there. After the credits...

Yeah, I know about this.

Spoiler: But still...

The necromorph threat is dead, the fact that Isaac is still alive is more-or-less irrelevant. Maybe the other moons could be grounds for future games but to me the Marker threat is over.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

By trying to please the mass-market, they failed to please anyone.

He replies in a thread full of people saying that they enjoyed the game, on a forum attached to a game journalism site that gave it a positive review.


Anyway, OT: I loved Dead Space 1, 2, and Extraction (which is overlooked, people! It's not on many platforms, but if you have the PS3 move, it's worth a look), but I don't have the money for DS3 as yet. When I do, it'll be mine.

Well unless your standards are extremely low and/or your easily amused, you'll be disappointed. You'd have more fun replaying DS2 and saving your money for a game worthy of your expense. Bargain bin game at best.

 

[Magicman10893]

As someone involved in this game and who has many close friends who toiled away over it for years. Thank you.

You guys did an amazing job and deserve better than the unfounded hatred that the internet has spewed from its loud, obnoxious mouth.

OT: I am also one of the people that didn't really find the Dead Space games scary. I played Dead Space 2 first, and then played Dead Space 1. I found Dead Space 2 to be far scarier (although the "scary" bits where either just creepy or jump scares) than Dead Space 1. This was playing the game in the middle of the night, by myself, in the dark with a Turtle Beach headset on. I don't know how I could've gotten more into the mood for being scared.

I feel that most of the people that complained about the horror being missing from Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 are seriously looking through nostalgia glasses. The jump scares become predictable after the first two or three chapters in any of the games. The creepiness of the enemies wears off rather quickly once you see hordes of them attacking you by mid-game. The fans that are so disappointed are just accustomed the Dead Space experience already and as such aren't surprised or on edge anymore.

That being said, Dead Space 3 definitely does feel like they didn't really try for the horror aspect this time around. There were definitely some creepy moments (the projector in the one military base/bunker towards the end of the game was unsettling as all hell), but that pales in comparison to the creepiness of the survivor encounters in Dead Space 1 or the hallucinations and pre-school segments of Dead Space 2. Playing the co-op actually makes the game creepier because of the hallucinations, whether you are playing as Isaac or Carver.

Also, I totally agree with the OP about microtransactions. As much as I hate them, especially in AAA $60 releases, they are completely unnecessary in this game and are totally optional. It's not like most Freemium games where not buying items makes you severely under powered. The DLC here can be EARNED for FREE! That is how microtransactions in the good free-to-play games work! I have not spent a single dime on Dead Space 3 after buying the game itself and I have an abundance of most materials and have built a whole arsenal of hilariously powerful and stupid guns.

 

[Sargonas42]

As someone involved in this game and who has many close friends who toiled away over it for years. Thank you.

You guys did an amazing job and deserve better than the unfounded hatred that the internet has spewed from its loud, obnoxious mouth.

I'm flattered but really I contributed very little to the game beyond May of last year. The real heros are my friend who are all scattered to the 4 winds at the moment enjoying some MUCH deserved vacations.

 

[Drizzitdude]

I bought it and wasn't really a fan, not very scary, in order to do some mission co-op is required (despite the fac they dont have any challenges that only a co-op partner can complete or anything), the wide open environments are cool at first, but there isn't much to them at all, just a lot of barren space. Also the human problem that fighting humans is hard or anything, its just boring. Its like the missions where you fight against people in lost planet 2, no one bought the "lets kill monsters game" to end up shooting at some generic grunt.

All in all it was a good game, just not a good dead space game