Dead Space 3 SHOULD be the nail in EA's Coffin

[shrekfan246]

Braid had a pretty large budget for an indie game, and was also basically "Mario meets Prince of Persia, with a pretentious, unintelligible story."

Shadow of the Colossus was backed by Sony themselves, and has a pretty weird control scheme that can cause quite a lot of issues.

Limbo probably could've stood to be an hour shorter than it was.

Final Fantasy XIII is, at this point, basically Square Enix throwing darts at a wall and trying to see what sticks so they can use it for the next game.

Dead Space was always a third-person shooter. The only issue I take with this one comparatively speaking is that there are human enemies. Even Necromorphs with guns would be... moderately acceptable, it's not all that different from the Flood in Halo then, just give them abysmal accuracy or something, but human enemies in a Dead Space game doesn't really make sense.

But I'd compare the Dead Space franchise more to the Alien franchise than anything.

First one: Genuinely creepy atmosphere, clunky action sequences, gruesome and unsettling.

Second one: More action focused, more dialogue and exposition, still creepy and gruesome but not as inherently creepy as the first.

Third one (You can draw the parallel to Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection depending on your preferences here): Over-the-top action, more interaction with other people, silly new designs for enemies, and a narrative disconnection from the previous entries in the franchise. Of course, since Dead Space 3 isn't even out yet, this is all speculation and hence shouldn't really be taken seriously.

I was never a huge fan of Dead Space in the first place, though, so I might not be the best one to examine it.

 

[Leoofmoon]

It was never survival horror, it was a action zombie game. the scares were phoned in you can easily over power the zombies and simply the weapons were highly over power and some weren't even scrap metal made into a weapon. You wanna know what game IS survival horror? The souls games, you'er quickly over powers and helpless to monster and most can kill in a single hit. Also DayZ You have to seek out and find your weapons, ammo and food.

EA needs to be taken down for far more then killing a already overblown franchise that's really a action game and really they just need a better marketing and CEO.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Dead Space was always a third-person shooter. The only issue I take with this one comparatively speaking is that there are human enemies. Even Necromorphs with guns would be... moderately acceptable, it's not all that different from the Flood in Halo then, just give them abysmal accuracy or something, but human enemies in a Dead Space game doesn't really make sense.

There actually are Necromorphs with guns. Divider heads can attach to bodies that have guns, and they'll fire them at you limply, kind of like the soldiers in Resident Evil 6.

And actually, I don't mind the human enemies in Dead Space specifically because it does make sense. Isaac wants to destroy the source of the Markers, and the Unitologists reaaaaaally don't want that to happen. The only thing I found strange is that the Unitologists are fighting the Necromorphs in some of the gameplay clips, but the Hivemind thing has shown that it will tell Necromorphs to not kill humans that are working in it's interests, so I don't know why that's not the case here.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Your rant is all about DLC and pre-ordering stuff and as far as I was aware that wasn't even a problem for this game?

 

[shrekfan246]

Dead Space was always a third-person shooter. The only issue I take with this one comparatively speaking is that there are human enemies. Even Necromorphs with guns would be... moderately acceptable, it's not all that different from the Flood in Halo then, just give them abysmal accuracy or something, but human enemies in a Dead Space game doesn't really make sense.

There actually are Necromorphs with guns. Divider heads can attach to bodies that have guns, and they'll fire them at you limply, kind of like the soldiers in Resident Evil 6.

And actually, I don't mind the human enemies in Dead Space specifically because it does make sense. Isaac wants to destroy the source of the Markers, and the Unitologists reaaaaaally don't want that to happen.

I meant... nevermind.

Again, I was never a huge fan of Dead Space to begin with. It never really gripped me; while I liked the atmosphere in the first one everything was so cliche and predictable. Bioshock was a creepier game to me.

The go-to story I always use is the time I entered a brightly lit, large room, where I promptly paused the game and announced to my friend who was in the room with me, "When I walk a few more steps into this room, the doors are going to seal and the lights are going to shut off, and I'm going to be ambushed by monsters." I unpaused, and lo, so it was!

That's not to say there were no surprising moments, and that I didn't find the game creepy. It certainly was. It just didn't feel like it was... I dunno, redefining the survival-horror genre like some people apparently expected it to do? It was Resident Evil in space, and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

And actually, I don't mind the human enemies in Dead Space specifically because it does make sense. Isaac wants to destroy the source of the Markers, and the Unitologists reaaaaaally don't want that to happen. The only thing I found strange is that the Unitologists are fighting the Necromorphs in some of the gameplay clips, but the Hivemind thing has shown that it will tell Necromorphs to not kill humans that are working in it's interests, so I don't know why that's not the case here.

I was under the belief that these aren't Unitologists, but Earth Gov soldiers. Remember, it's the shadow organization hinted at in 2 that is running the Maker projects, and since Isaac is coming after them, I'm betting that the humans are their soldiers. That's why they're fighting the Necromorphs, because they don't want to die. They don't view those things as ascended humans or whatever.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

I don't care that EA has absurd demands. What bothers me is this nonsense about being able to play the game by cursing at it. The media keeps claiming that videogames make people violent and this only goes to prove them right by making violence a viable method of playing our games. I sincerely hope this stops at Dead Space 3 because my face would be flat due to the number of facepalms I'd perform before we hit 2014.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well sadly Gears and it's ilk sell better then Dead Space, so this will again make bank and show them very clearly how low they can go.

 

[deviltry]

Just tried the demo:

You barely walk because of snowstorm, but when you hold down LT you move at normal pace - okay, holding LT all the way inside, bad design.

After first stomp on a crate I knew I would never stomp on more crates, boring and annoying and bad design.

Suddenly music changed to cliche "horror is happening" and first enemy poped up. This didn't awaken any emotions in me, let alone made me scared, and like the first encounter should be the scarriest, bad horror design.

Then I went in a side cave and even got attacked from behind while dead dude suddenly jumped on me. Neither did anything to me. I did not had any reaction. And stuff suddenly awakening should atleast startle. From behind is the scarriest poisition. Fail horror.

Shooting was meh. Atleast in Max Payne 3 or Rage you get some feedback, now just random limbs fall off - way less satisfying. And I don't have anything against cutting off parts, I really enjoyed Blade Mode in MGR: Revengeance demo, it's just that Dead Space's combat is an example of bad and boring design.

Then I climbed some ladder and yet again had to hold LT down to make my character move at normal pace - aand I quit.

Never really understood what made Dead Space fun to play. Boring and generic and boring and boring and boring. Just.. boring. It's not scary. It's action is not very involving or gruesome or.. actionly. Really, what the fuck do you people see in Dead Space? Mediocre surroundings?

 

[daveman247]

I can't tell if the demo was bad or im just done with the dead space games. Dead space 2 took the combat and ideas as far as they could go i think. I really liked it. The dead space 3 demo just came off as phoned- in. :/ Except the drill part which was pretty sweet.

 

[daveman247]

Never really understood what made Dead Space fun to play. Boring and generic and boring and boring and boring. Just.. boring. It's not scary. It's action is not very involving or gruesome or.. actionly. Really, what the fuck do you people see in Dead Space? Mediocre surroundings?

To be fair, the first dead space was fairly unique a the time. There hadnt really been a horror game set in space. And the idea of having to literally cut monsters to pieces until they couldnt move anymore was unique too. But yeah, once you were used to the monsters the jumpy-scares got REALLY old. A horror-themed action game is what it was

 

[Twilight_guy]

You know if you channeled that rage into art rather then long winded posts on forums you could probably do quiet well.

Okay so first stop thinking that every gamer thinks like you or should think like you. People have diverse interests and ideas. You're opinions is not right, nobody's opinion is right. What you think is good for the games industry is not necessarily right (in fact with an industry this big its hard to even keep track of all the variables).

DLC and micro-transactions aren't evil. Yeah some people implement them badly and sometimes they are cash-ins, but we have seen good DLC and micro-transactions systems to. EA has a bad track record with it, but that's not a good reason to condemn such systems. You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater (whoo, I get to use an under-appreciated idiom).

Next, the first dead space didn't succeed in being a survival horror game. It tried really hard but it fumbled in several places and it ended in an action adventure game. Dead Space always sort of failed its intent. However just because the next game was more action oriented doesn't mean anything. Maybe they realized they screwed up and tried to be less scary. Maybe people liked the shooty bits more. Maybe the developers just thought that it would make the game better. A game's gradual shift doesn't necessarily mean some scheme or some heartless cash-grab. Besides, even if the second (and third) were more shooter focuses, it still features exactly the same things that were designed to make the first game scary, monsters, scary looking settings, unpredictable enemy movements in some sections, and brief sections designed around horror. It's still selling itself as the original horror game, with all the failure to achieve that goal that it originally had.

As to whether this just ripped some other game off... survival horror didn't begin with RE4. I'm not going to call it a rip off just because a popular survival horror game existed around the same time, chronology does not equals causation.

Yeah it was dumb for them to say how many copies they need to sell. AAA costs lots of money and many copies need to be sold to recoup that money. However, i don't see EA making iOS games anytime in the future and I don't see people suddenly not being interested in AAA games anymore.

It's impossible to intentionally make a great game. Believe it or not, developers always start out thinking that what they are making is the greatest game ever, and sometimes its good and sometimes its bad. Nobody aims to make a bad game.

 

[Leoofmoon]

Never really understood what made Dead Space fun to play. Boring and generic and boring and boring and boring. Just.. boring. It's not scary. It's action is not very involving or gruesome or.. actionly. Really, what the fuck do you people see in Dead Space? Mediocre surroundings?

To be fair, the first dead space was fairly unique a the time. There hadnt really been a horror game set in space. And the idea of having to literally cut monsters to pieces until they couldnt move anymore was unique too. But yeah, once you were used to the monsters the jumpy-scares got REALLY old. A horror-themed action game is what it was

Wile I hate calling Dead space horror it is a vary much action game and to its credit the Zeno G sections with no sound were vary scary when you got hit and some of the set peaces were truly terrifying. However I stick with my rule in a game that if I can defend myself its not going to be truly that scary unless you just giving creepy things to fight.

 

[Darmy647]

It was never survival horror, it was a action zombie game. the scares were phoned in you can easily over power the zombies and simply the weapons were highly over power and some weren't even scrap metal made into a weapon. You wanna know what game IS survival horror? The souls games, you'er quickly over powers and helpless to monster and most can kill in a single hit. Also DayZ You have to seek out and find your weapons, ammo and food.

EA needs to be taken down for far more then killing a already overblown franchise that's really a action game and really they just need a better marketing and CEO.

Ok....He just called the souls franchise survival horror...It just occured to me we have seriously, SERIOUSLY lacked a true true survival horror game in a while if this guys calling souls survival horror. Holy Drunken Ninja jesus. Go play ZombiU man. For the Love of god go find the true meaning of survival horror again. You've lost your ways horribly.

 

[Flare_Dragon123]

You know if you channeled that rage into art rather then long winded posts on forums you could probably do quiet well.

While that seems like a backhanded compliment at best, I am most certainly, a fiction writer.

 

[King of Asgaard]

I understand the point OP is trying to make, but really, EA won't be the one who really suffers, as the title implies.
The company who's going to face the music is Visceral Games, because as EA has said, if Dead Space 3 under-performs, the company is kaput. EA has quite a few other sources of income, though, so losing Visceral won't hurt their money-making capabilities much.

 

[Vault101]

snip/

*snrrrrk*...oh wait..your serious?

HAHAHAHAH

ok you didnt play dead space or dead space 2 right? theres your porblem right there

THEY WERENT SCARY don't get me wrong..they were bloody great but they were "Aliens" not "Alien" and you know what? thats fine, they have other thngs going for them (frantic combat, atmosphere)

on the surface DS3 looks like its being given the "EA triple A" treatment....but from what Ive seen and a fan of the series i'm actually cautionsly optimistic, this co-op may not be the death of it

in other words it pays to know what your talking about before you rant