Game / Dead Space 3

There’s a line of thinking that just because a horror game isn’t scary, said game is, as a whole, rubbish. The Dead Space series is a common victim in this argument, often barraged by ‘brave’ gamers, beating their chests about their nerves of steel and clean underwear. But I’ve always thought that’s a touch unfair.

No, Dead Space 3 isn’t especially scary (certainly not stacked up to the likes of recent indie efforts such as Slender and Amnesia), but as a AAA third person shooter, there isn’t  much on the market that challenges its often overwhelming intensity, nor its eye-widening set piece spectaculars, or even its unique gunplay. It’s not scary, no, but it’s an incredibly compelling title all the same.

Much like previous entries in the series, this is a tale all about survival against the most brutal odds, holding true to the usual horror tropes like limited ammo and plenty of monster closets. Terribly unlucky engineer and total John McClane wannabe Isaac Clarke returns, this time heading to the snowy wastes of Tau Volantis, the supposed home world of the horrific alien necromorphs that have been slicing, stabbing and disembowelling both him and his friends for the past few games now.  

While the core gameplay remains at its dismembering, button-mashing best, it’s the structure of the campaign that’s seen the biggest switch-up: a co-op partner can drop-in to the experience and detailed weapon-crafting makes its debut along with side-missions.  At first, each addition threatens to harm that essential single-player experience that series fans crave, but the campaign admirably emerges unscathed (for the most part).

Co-op adds a second player, but if EA hadn’t pushed the feature so heavily pre-release you might not even notice it here. Developer Visceral has done an amazing job of keeping the frantic single-player experience intact where games like Resident Evil 5 fell short. The side-missions, on the other hand, are a dud, often copying previous areas room-for-room and dragging on for far too long. The game would simply be a tighter, better experience without them.

My other main issue is more on the self-indulgent side; Dead Space 3 is a bit too nice to its audience right off the bat. This is the kind of game that wants to you scream “oh shit” and jump out of your skin when a bloodthirsty monster leaps out of a vent in front of you. In this sense, it’s a game that really needs to be experienced on the harder, more demanding difficulty settings for its true potential to be realised.  Truthfully, the game is doing a disservice to itself providing so many more casual difficulty options.

And if you do choose the challenge, you’ll likely find Dead Space 3 to be one of the most exhilarating action games around. Any one encounter can provide more satisfaction than many of its rivals’ entire campaigns. You have to challenge yourself to get its best results but if you do a fitting send off for Isaac awaits.