Dead Space 3 Autopsy

     This review contains minor spoilers for Dead Space and major spoilers for Dead Space 3 but none for Dead Space 2, its secrets will remain as I have forgotten them.

     I am a huge fan of the original Dead Space. It was frightening. It was dark and claustrophobic and hard, causing flashes of blind terror and panic as a legion of horrifying abominations surrounded you each wanting to kill you in a uniquely sadistic manor. Moreover, it scared you by building tension in the corridors where the above nightmares were not happening, because you knew they were going to. Through that it told the story of a man grieving for a recently dead fiancé. A completely silent man. surrounding that was an astonishingly detailed universe, set about five-hundred years in the future, that managed to explore and talk about grand topics like politics, religion and mans place in the cosmos.

     It's literally the perfect Video Game. It's even pretty to look at!

     I've probably talked it up too much now, but if you haven't played it go do so, now.

     ...Dead Space 3 on the other hand is none of these things. Well, it's pretty.

    Let's start with plot. The plot is dumb. It's big Hollywood dumb. Isaac Clarke, our protagonist of the series, is abducted to help with a military mission. Why are they forcing an unstable Engineer into this dangerous mission he's not formally trained for? "Because he's got experience in the field, General, he's the only one who can help us, he is America man!" And also he's the only one who can destroy the 'Markers', these roots of all evil things. Why is he the only one who can do that? Because they've talked to him, in his mind and he knows the blueprints for them... or god or something. The second game explains it but I never really understood it.

      So we go on our way to Tau Volantis, an iceball planet thought to be the source of the markers, which are the source of the necromorph outbreaks. So it's uber evil. You're told that Ellie, Isaac's ex from the second game, went ahead with a small team and has since lost contact. When you arrive in the orbit of the planet you find that the Sovereign Colonies Air Force ships have been destroyed around it. From what I gather the sovereign colonies is/are a country that ended some time ago and we're told that this fleet is about two-hundred years old. Keep that in mind, two-hundred years. They locate Ellie's distress call. Your ship is blown up by mines.

      An improbable survival sequence later and you land on one of the more intact S.C.A.F ships where Ellie's distress call is coming from. This sets up the first third of the game, where we get to tool around the wrecks and repair a shuttle to take us to the planet's surface. This is probably the best bit, there's a lot of history in the ships and, while not as cramped as the Ishimura, it captures the environment I liked about the first game while doing something different.

     The game doesn't fall apart radically or anything when we do transition to the planet's surface it's just a bit more run of the mill. You run around collecting stuff and re-killing necromorphs and constantly catching up with the rest of the group.

     As it moves into act three you find yourself in, you guessed it, an alien ruin. This is where all my copious suspension of disbelief collapsed. Not the aliens specifically, they were always sort of implied, but the ruin is an enormous machine that wants to blow up the moon. The moon in this instance being a giant necromorph made up of the dead alien populace. The whole fucking moon. Killing the moon is just about the stupidest final boss battle in history.

     My main issue with this game, the thing that really ruins it, is I want Isaac to die. And I don't care about the rest of the characters. The main character conflict here arises from the fact that Ellie is no longer dating Isaac. She is instead dating Norton, who is ostensibly the leader of the mission.

     I'm not kidding they treat her like a second hand car, usually while she is on the same comm-channel. Here's a gem from Norton: "She's mine now" followed by something along the lines of move on looser. He's a jock you see, and Isaac is a nerd. Those three words, "she's mine now" are a complete train wreck though. It betrays such a deep level of superiority that even if he thinks he loves her he can't possibly. He's a dick and, despite being the leader of the operation sabotages it in the most breathtaking way possible. He calls the Unitologists (they're a death cult religion that wants to end humanity using the markers) up to come kill Isaac, and doom everybody in the process. Just because this man's existence exposes the fact his favourite toy has had a life before him. His betrayal comes as no surprise and when you kill him it's a moment to cheer.

     Isaac isn't any better. After Ellie, much too politely and subserviently tells him and Norton to knock it the fuck off already, Isaac says: "Just let us fight it out, one of us will win eventually". This is just as bad if not worse than Norton's onset of abusive behaviour. What this says to Ellie is: You are an object, you have no agency of your own, and whomever wins the rutting contest will inseminate you. It's primitive, and nakedly so. She should run a mile from these men but because the writers are treating her like a prize, she doesn't.

    I mentioned that Isaac shoots Norton in the head, right? It's a boring pseudo-dramatic scene. Shortly afterwards you tell Ellie and she's mad at you for like 5 minutes. (Well for me it was like an hour. Honestly I hit a roadblock in the game and couldn't get passed this cave area, more on that story later.)

    One conversation she's crying and blaming Isaac entirely, to be fair it was self defence in the end, Isaac is only half to blame. The very next conversation and she's damn near chipper. "At least I have you Isaac", she says. She's just stupid. I sympathise with her for having these horrible people in her life but this is the first time the writers give her a say in the drama and she does it wrong! This could be a really good story, her mixed feelings of things. Her and Isaac survived the second game together and that kind of trauma is binding. It would be interesting to have her come to terms with the fact he killed the man she was with − especially after all the alpha male crap that she seems to never notice anything wrong with − while still honouring the current mission and mourning the loss of Isaac's friendship. There's PAIN there. Lots of it! Lots of interesting pain!

     Overall, death is treated pretty lightly in this. (if only Joss Whedon had written it...) Characters that constantly tell you what to do and spout exposition die and we're never even invited to really care. The game doesn't ham it up with violins or anything, it doesn't even make things seem more desperate as it's always the auxiliary characters, with the exception of Norton who wanted killing. They just sort of die and nobody really cares. I know in a vaguely military situation like this there would be a lot of 'getting on with it' but there is just nothing there.

     Also when it does try to pull your heartstrings by killing Ellie it takes that back in a surprise not-twist towards the end. She's resurrected to have a teary good-bye with Isaac as he goes off to destroy the moon. Fucking moon monster, honestly. And then immediately escapes to safety.

    Right here at the end we become best friends with Carver. Who's he you ask? He's the angry one with a recently dead family. He appears throughout, mostly to be unhelpful or a bastard to someone. He's also the character a co-op friend would play as. At least I think, it accounts for the sudden and unexpected friendship at the end of all things. from a solo game perspective it's shocking story telling.

     I kinda like the villain. He's not a The Joker or a The Mayor or a The of any kind. His name's Danek and he's a little foppish but in a downplayed way. He's a sociopathic religious leader that wants Isaac dead as much as I do. Unfortunately that's really all there is too him; a by-the-numbers antagonist.

     The ending before the credits leads you to believe that Isaac has died to save humanity. Instead he's survived falling from the moon monster sigh only to then die on the frozen planet. Alone. With no hope of rescue. I honestly laughed. But I'm not sure if it was a dark-humour joke or not. They've not handled humour very well in the previous eighteen hours (yeah really, it's a looong campaign, not an inherently bad thing but with the generally poor to bad dialogue and irritating characters it's too long.), so why start now?

     Moving on from horrible people, though, let's look at the environments. They're not horrible. But they aren't as precise or as well thought out as in the first game. Like I mentioned the buildings and space ships you're in for the first two thirds of the game are two-hundred years old. You know they're a bit rusted in places, paint and wallpaper are peeled and all of the fucking lights and computers still work. I couldn't escape this fact. I mean I guess 300 years in the future they've got better fuel cells and things but one of the more heavy handed messages of the first game was that we hadn't, and that we needed to tear planets in half to get more resources. I mean the Ishimurah had gone unmaintained for a matter of days, maybe weeks, and nothing worked. It was all broken to fuck.
    Maybe it was a subtle joke, commenting on how grandpa bought a computer in '89 and hasn't replaced it since. "Ah they don't make 'em like they used to. cough, cough, where's your grandmother gone − I need my pills and a sandwich."

     I really liked the overall feel of archaeology and discovering these old stories but it lacked subtlety. There's one section where you're looking for extra resources and find yourself running into all these traps that were set by a man who died two-hundred years ago. The things is he's left recordings that seem to hack into your rig and taunt you. They're timed in such a way it's like he's talking to you, and, though you don't talk back, you talk about him like he's actually there. It's like it's trying to get you to forget the two-hundred years thing. Which I never could. This section is kinda fun but it's not engaging or surprising in the way it clearly wants to be, which is a shame.

     Another thing about it is you're always interfacing with the tech like it's stuff you work with every day and it's all compatible with your rig. It's like the technologies stopped evolving for two-hundred years, which I do not buy.

     Some of the design choices were kinda jarring too. In the Ishimurah no space is wasted, it obeys the same principals that real space vessels would, even do. Functionality over everything else and nothing wasted. In these ships there's lots of wasting going on. Which doesn't make sense.

     Nonsensical wastes of time and space were everywhere in this game. Nowhere was it more evident than this fucking ladder. I mentioned earlier being stuck at a certain area for an hour didn't I? After every death I had to fight against the wind on a ridge and then activate a foldaway ladder to climb into a campsite, where I would then die.

    This fucking ladder.

    Why the fuck does it foldaway!? It's a tiny little cliff-face you need to get up. No, really tiny − if it were Minecraft it'd be two blocks high. High enough to need a ladder but not one that has all the mechanisms necessary for a power box. just prop a normal ladder up against the wall and tie it to a rock.

     The thing is, this is the first time we're introduced to Dead Space 3's foldaway ladders. Back in the ships they have whole rooms dedicated to ladders. Huge ladders set right in the middle of the rooms that exists for no other reason. Foldaway ladders would make sense on a spaceship.

     Bear in mind we're on an icy planet that's not seen intelligent life for two-hundred years. How does this ladder still work? Its power source has been on all this time, presumably causing the ice on it to melt creating water, giving you everything you need for rust. Rust breaks metal things.

     The most unforgivable sin of this ladder is just how fucking slow it is. It takes like seven seconds to completely unfold. I was stuck here for a very long time. Assume I died thirty-eight times. That's four minutes and twenty six seconds I spent staring at a ladder that makes no sense. That's more than enough time to have a psychotic break. I'm not exaggerating here! Fuck the ladder!

    Maybe if I'd had a friend at my side it'd have been better though, right?

    No. When I heard DS3 was gonna be co-op enabled I decided to not buy it. Dead Space is the perfect survival horror. on par with the early Resident Evil games in terms of fear, better in terms of everything else. Specifically because you feel abandoned and you're always alone. In the first game there are only two other living characters that you pretty much only interact with via your rig.

     Don't get me wrong, co-op is great fun in a ton of games but it just feels wrong in games like this. Ones that set out to be scary.

     I wouldn't have minded if it was truly just an option that had no impact on the solo experience but it does! I mentioned earlier Carver's sudden friendship at the end. Well scattered throughout the game are co-op only side missions where, I assume, his character development takes place. You know, in a matter of a day getting over his wife and son's sudden and brutal murder to learn to love again. Stupid but at least it isn't a medieval property exchange.

     Withholding content like this punishes gamers for either having no friends, no friends with the game or gamers who don't have a reliable internet connection. And you will need two copies of the game, you can't do co-op on the same TV. It's an obnoxious business strategy that ruins the experience.

     If co-op introduction was where I decided I wasn't gonna buy the game, microtransactions are where I decided I didn't even want to play it. Microtransactions are the devil. On the workbench screen you're invited to "maintain your edge" with resource packs. It's like cheats you pay for. It's exactly like those horrible iPhone games. It's a disease that needs to be told no. I stole this game and I encourage you to do the same. Vote with your wallet!

     

    So yeah, I've talked a lot about how this game fails in comparison to its gold standard, and it's inexpert attempts at story telling. How does it hold up simply as a game? Pretty well, I guess, it's not boring.

     The weapons have had a major overhaul, you can now only carry two at a time, however most weapons you can weld together to make a dual weapon. So you can have a SMG attached to your plasma cutter, run out of ammo in one, start using your secondary fire button to finish the enemy off. Once you have a bunch of different weapon parts you can create guns that feels a bit more 'yours' there are even attachments that turn your guns into something out of Borderlands, where your projectiles set things on fire, bathe them in acid or electrocute them. Not sure why you'd want to electrocute dead flesh, you'd probably just reanimate it like Frankenstein but... oh, too late I guess. These sorts of things are cool but, like with much else I've talked about, do nothing but remind me I'm playing a game. There's no precedent for them to exist within the universe.

     The enemies you're shooting haven't changed much for the most part. Humanoid mutants with sickles for arms. Dog/baby tentacle missile creatures. Gluey-acid vomit men. Most have just had a change of raggedy clothes. Notably there are occasions where you're killing living people, who are shooting at you. Or who have guns in their hands. The human enemies are generally kinda dumb. They'll shoot a little bit for covering fire and then run out into the open and stand still. Head shots really work on these guys, more so than any other game I've played. which is realistic I guess but very easy to pull off, making these enemies some of the easiest to kill. I never died to a human enemy until they were given rocket launchers, and even then only once. Well, twice.

     The alien, necromorph type is pretty basic. It charges at you. It's disappointing, the necromorphs come from humans mostly and are fairly varied, they could have done more with something that was alien to begin with.

     Moving up to the bigger things now. Boss battles have never been the series' greatest strength. Even in DS1, they were very close to completely stupid. But The Moon. something bigger than human comprehension is reduced to a large tentacle that you have to throw rocks at. Worse final boss in history.

     The mid-way boss is better, it at least swallows you alive, giving you the chance to kill it from the inside. Like those other games, you know all of the other games.

     The best of the three is the earlier one that's much harder to scare away than it is to kill. It appears a couple of times where you have to hurt in a quick and specific way to scare it away when you meet it the third time you have to shoot it with giant harpoons and tear it apart. I did it practically by accident. It's only tricky because other, smaller, more efficient enemies are trying to kill you at the same time.

     Video games, for the most part, are easier the higher the number at the end of the title is. I'm not sure quite why this is, I suspect new weapons and things that get introduced are not counter balanced properly. I certainly think this is the case here. Or perhaps the universal ammo. Once you have a great weapon you're never gonna use anything else. I fell into that, I had to make a conscious effort to use inferior weapons, just for something different to look at when I was dismembering a pregnant necromorph.

     I played on hard difficulty. In the first game this drove me to tears but as I've mentioned through this review there was only one place I was stuck at and that was really only because I had no health or ammo after the mid boss.

     After completing the game You unlock a bunch of different modes that seem to offer more of a challenge but it doesn't beat being hard to begin with. All the alternate modes restrictions are made easier by the fact I know what's coming next and can prepare accordingly.

     The gameplay is good fun, like I said. The mechanics all work, I never had problems controlling Isaac, and there was only one glitch that I noticed. It made me fall out of the game world and into that nowhere place of grey that happens in games occasionally. This is still one more glitch than both its predecessors but ultimately forgivable.

     A lot of what I said here, is nit-picking, honestly, but I was never distracted enough not to notice it. Primarily because of the writing. What is actually there for a solo player isn't good enough and you're actively denied access to a sub plot. Sub plot's are nice, they make the primary plot feel important and/or add depth to characters.

     Partly also because I really liked the first game and really didn't hate the second (though it did take a couple little missteps in this direction) they put a lot of effort into immersing you in the world and telling a story, game elements such as upgrading weapons felt integrated into the world and never got crazy (they were brutal sure, you were repurposing engineering tools as weapons, but they never felt like fantasy) and so DS3 had big shoes to fill for me.

     To sum up, most of its failings aren't individually critical hits, they're more like damage over time. If you're just looking to shoot things this is a pretty good game but if you're looking for Dead Space one again you'll only find a monster wearing it's skin.