Thanks. I’m not sure what to think of this game… on one hand people say it’s fantastic, on the other hand the gameplay sounds very much like a by-the-numbers angry space marine shooter to me. In the near future I’ll be playing Fallout 3 anyway so I expect there will be a price drop before I get around to it.
It is most emphatically not that. Don’t let the Doom 3 comparisons turn you away; they’re similar mostly because of the environments and lighting. This is not a retarded space marine game like Gears of War. It’s got a lot of fidgety inventory and resource management, and there’s little to no angst.
I also finished the game and would agree with LesJarvis writeup.
It’s really a very remarkable game experience where both the act of shooting a gun is as gratifying as the sheer eye-candy that surrounds the player at any given moment. Hard mode provided a decent enough challenge that maintained tension mostly throughout.
Not at all man. The combat in this game is a riot. While it involves aiming and shooting, it surely isn’t by the numbers. Having to hack off the limbs of advancing enemies is always fun, but simply moving through the environments, experiencing the grisly sights and sounds, it rewarding in and of itself.
Note: this is a followup to my previous post focusing on the game’s atmosphere.
Despite the survival horror trappings, I never found Dead Space legitimately scary, and I say that as someone who was never able to finish the Silent Hill games because they freaked me out too much. In the very early going I was eager to buy into the setting, and during part of the opening sequence I was on edge, but from that point forward I never so much as jumped. The biggest reason I never found myself in terror is that DS relentlessly telegraphs its scares. Either you get a behind-the-glass cut scene, or some really obvious audio cues, or the environment is constructed in such a way that you can tell you’re walking into an arena. And on top of the general obviousness, the game never fails to come through with a monster in these scenarios. If it had left you guessing sometimes, then maybe that uncertainty would have helped ratchet up the tension. Part of me wonders if the scares were toned down as a result of playtesting, as the world seems built to convey more terror than it ultimately does.
I want to stress that I don’t consider this a bad thing necessarily. As stated, I don’t like games that become oppressive in the mood they convey. Still, it could have gone farther than it does.
This is, so far (in chapter 4) my only real complaint with the game, and I can live with it. I started out playing at night with all the lights off, and initially I think that it is a bit creepy. But after a bit I decided that most of the fun just came from shooting up the creatures and I’m quite content playing during the day now. I really like it, but I’ll probably be picking up Silent Hill to get that scare fix.
The game has gotten me to jump, and even exclaim some coloful language, a few times, but I’d agree that it’s not particularly scary on a moment to moment basis. I do feel panic when a room suddenly floods with enemies coming from all directions, but that’s not the same thing as being scary. I think the lack of scariness comes primarily from how empowered I feel as Isaac. I always feel like I’m capable of handling the given situation, which I like. I don’t enjoy games making the horror rely on making me feel clumsy and powerless, no matter how effective it might be at evoking those emotions.
I have been liking it enough that I am going to restart on hard (just finished Chapt 3 on med). I’m pretty much owning on medium, which makes the monsters unscary. It would be a shame to spare myself the scares and tension. The atmosphere is so good and creepy, it could only be added to by really worrying about what’s around the corner.
I can only speak for myself, but I found that the difficulty increased a good amount starting in Chapter 5.
Early opinion: what Doom 3 should have been (or could have been, except that Mr. Carmack is more interested in tech demos and squashing any new creative impulses at id). Good stuff indeed.
I’d agree with all of that, particularly your description of Isaac as empowered relative to other survival horror protagonists, and lest I create the wrong impression, there were definitely some “Oh shit!” moments in DS for me. To reframe slightly what I said in my previous post, I think what it’s missing, particularly when compared to the Silent Hill and Resident Evil games, is dread. The last SH I played was the second one, and two or three hours into the game I got to a point where I simply did not want to continue, because the thought of going into the next room had become thorougly unpleasant. That’s the entire point, of course, but it was enough that, as a horror lightweight, I couldn’t go on.
The RE games aren’t quite so bad, but I remember plenty of locales throughout the series that gave me pause, and I’d often step through new environments slowly and cautiously just in case something decided to pop out and attempt to decapitate me. Dead Space never creates that tension as effectively; it never made me afraid to move forward.
But I’ve noticed that when I enter a dark room in this game, I keep looking for the button to activate my flashlight. I’ve probably played too much Silent Hill.
I’m not really very far into the game yet, but while it probably isn’t as tense and full of dread as a Silent Hill game, it does have a really cool sense of place and mystery. I’m looking forward to exploring this game.
One more thing: I’m encouraged by the wealth of health packs and plasma cutter ammo I find. Hopefully this is another place the game diverges from the Resident Evils, I always seem to get myself in a spot where I’m just short of being able to tackle my enemies and have to creep and run around them. In itself that’s not terrible, but I hate when there’s a shiny key on a desk that’s surrounded by three zombies and I’ve got maybe six bullets.
I definitely agree that the sense of dread quickly dissipates in Dead Space. I did feel that tension in the game’s early moments, but by Chapter 2 or 3, I was pretty well acclimated to what the game has to offer and fairly well prepared to face it. I still proceed slowly through doorways and approach vents with some caution, but I don’t feel uncomfortable when I play due to tension.
A similar experience for me was the first Condemned game, though the tension lasted longer in that than it did in Dead Space. For a good portion of the game I was terrified while moving through the environment, and I loved it. After a while (quite a good portion of the game really) I became comfortable with the combat and the tension melted away. So much so that I started seeking out fights with a sort of rabid glee. I haven’t reached that point in Dead Space as every encounter is still potentially lethal, but DS does call my Condemned experience to mind.
I think allowing you to see the protagonist’s face would’ve increased your perceived vulnerability considerably. I’m sure they knew this, too, so why do you suppose they gave him an opaque helmet?
If it was to make him look like an everyman, allowing you to more easily imagine yourself in his place, that didn’t work at all.
I doubt that was the case – you can flip the camera around in the opening cinematic and stare right into your character’s face before he puts the helmet on. Though now that I think about it, he was very ‘everyman’ looking.
I’d have to imagine the choice to give Issac a helmet was more a character design choice than anything. You have to admit, it does look cool, though I agree it undermines the tension slightly.
My biggest critique of Isaac as a character is not that he wears a helmet, but that he doesn’t speak. I’m not saying that he has to let loose big speeches, but when he sees something that would elicit at least a comment from anyone with a pulse, it only serves to break the illusion when he stays completely mute. A good example is when:
[CHAPTER 7 SPOILER]
…[LAST SPOILER WARNING]…when Isaac finally sees his girlfriend and she helps him by working on a terminal to open a door while he protects her from a hoard of monsters that are quite clearly going after her. She talks to Isaac, saying how overjoyed she is to see him and he just stands there mutely. He says nothing and I say, without reservation, that it’s the most ridiculous and unbelieveable part of the game so far.[END SPOILER]
[END CHAPTER 7 SPOILER]
So yeah, I think the lack of a voice for Isaac is pretty big gaffe and probably the worst oversight in this excellent game. It doesn’t ruin the game by any means, but it’s a big missed opportunity to inject some life and some empathy into the story itself.
Actually, it worked well for me. Instead, I wonder about the decision to make the other characters helmetless. I understand why it works for narrative purposes, but they could have had an in helmet cam or something.
Did you have that problem in RE4?
It does.
Hm. Maybe the purpose of the helmet was to make speech impossible.