History will surely remember dead space first of the name, which will not be denied by the feedback on the recent remake, our test included. But it will be different for its multiple derivative products, such as its very nice Wii adaptation, or its dispensable novel and animated films. And of course, for its two suites. Although dead space 2 is still adored by many players today, it must be said that it does not offer anything as memorable as its predecessor. As for dead space 3surely you already know his reputation for disappointment, and you can take my word for it, he didn’t steal it.
As explained in our test, released a few days ago and making an exhaustive tour of the owner, it would be dishonest to call it a bad game. However, we cannot decently speak of success for all that. dead space 3, despite some good ideas, a slick realization, and a respectable lifespan, does a lot of things wrong. Which remains all the more disappointing when you leave its two predecessors, much more interesting, or know the history of its development. Indeed, things shouldn’t have led to this mindless deluge of action, but rather to a more nuanced and perhaps ambitious experience.
Let’s go back today to this unloved opus to compare the experience we had, the one the developers had in mind, and the one we would have liked to have. And by “we”, I obviously mean the fans of the first two games, and the licensing universe in general. ‘Cause I have no doubt that dead space 3 appealed to some players. It must be said, getting closer to what a Gears of War in terms of gameplay and pace, it opened up to a wider audience than its predecessors, and inevitably hit the bull’s eye with some consumers. Thus, if I was certainly hard in my test, I remain lucid on the question.
Note: The screenshots you will find in this article were captured on Xbox Series X, via the Xbox 360 version of the game, available on Game Pass Ultimate. This article will spoil a lot, especially the end of the game and its DLC, Awakened, but also on the two previous games. You have been warned!
Mass sacrifice
In the first opus, you land on a mining platform lost in space, and seems abandoned, before realizing that its occupants have all (or almost) turned into necromorphs… or been killed in a painfully graphic way. Its sequel changed the context, this time proposing to experience the infection and the crush at the same time as the inhabitants of the Medusa, a large-scale space station. They differ on their subject and the way of telling it, but there remains a constant which binds them: the madness of Isaac Clarke, and his way of gradually falling into it.
dead space first of the name arrived there very well, by making Isaac’s companion appear regularly, until the last second of the adventure moreover, this one having actually been dead for a long time. Post-traumatic syndrome, coupled with the influence of the monolith, which will follow our hero in the second part, regularly causing him to hallucinate. Until making him speak, once again, to the ghost of his deceased friend, who will accompany him in the last moments of his mission. As for dead space 3if he quickly refers to the madness creeping into Isaac’s synapses at the beginning of his adventure, he unfortunately forgets it a little too quickly.
The reason is simple and yet absolutely sad: after the sales figures recorded by dead space 2, judged disappointing by Electronic Arts, there was no question that this new opus would once again fall into psychological horror. Nor in horror at all, for that matter, which results in some major changes to the way the game is built. No real downtime to give the player time to catch his breath or digest the atmosphere of the title; a frenetic action that multiplies the enemies in areas that are still as narrow as ever; now automatic backup; the abandonment of environmental storytelling…
However, it is common knowledge that the thinking heads on the project had imagined a game closer to its predecessors, more horrifying than the final product. Even the new crafting and resource recovery system was designed to bring dead space 3 of a Survival Horror. Until Electronic Arts decided to simplify it, which did not prevent the workbench from becoming unreadable and undrinkable. The publisher even announces that micro-transactions will be included, which, already at the time, was rather frowned upon. Well Named. As for the story, no one has any illusions: there is a good chance that this will be the last installment in the series, so we might as well complete the arc of Isaac Clarke.
What the title does very badly, finally, by leaving this protagonist who we had learned to love for two games (and then to love less in the third) drifting in space after having potentially saved the world. The worst being that the software finally offered a DLC named Awakened, adding a final arc to this disappointing conclusion. Isaac and Carver are not dead, and join forces one last time to return to Earth. But once there, the brood they thought they had destroyed finally invaded the place, and their rudimentary means of communication seem quite incapable of contacting the supposed billions of dead.
In pursuit of fun
That it has disappointing new mechanics, as well as a scenario that is not very intelligent and dragging unnecessarily long, is one thing. But the heart of the problem, ultimately, is the fact that the title does not really improve the mobility of the protagonist, but nevertheless places him in front of hordes of enemies even larger than in the past, even faster, and even more tenacious. We quickly have the impression that the game is doing everything to resist us, which would be a good thing in a Survival Horror, but becomes simply annoying in this not really intelligent adventure. Boredom sets in, and it is difficult to dislodge it, despite the steady pace.
And this boredom, coupled with the fact that the adventure is more predictable than a Marvel film, is enough to quickly let go of the controller. The most persevering will only be rewarded with uninteresting puzzles, a single boss reused over and over again, and the embarrassing evolution of the relationship between Isaac and Ellie… little consolation! Especially since if the game does offer a cooperative campaign, it is only accessible online. Impossible to play two in the same sofa, and therefore to fully take this adventure as a joke. Which would be, however, the best way to appreciate it, like watching a nanar!
It’s still damn sad to think that the creative director on the project had a more horrifying experience in mind, and less of the silly and nasty action oriented experience, but that the final product isn’t even capable of being seen as a good dick. Slightly stupid action games, we had tons of them on the PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360 generation. We could quote you Army of Two, fuse, Kane & Lynch, Lost Planet, The memory in the skin, Stranglehold, Vanquish, The Club, The Outfit…I could go on like this for a while. And if, among these low-ceilinged games, some are real nuggets, the others simply let themselves be played, often being able to be taken, precisely, like funny and enjoyable nanars…
Dead Space 3, meanwhile, never really manages to be enjoyable. What he owes so much to his bestiary, which seems to have combined the worst of what the license offered, with the worst of what displayed Resident Evil 5, only to his felt controller in hand. A concept that is difficult to explain in words, of course. What we can say about it, despite everything, is that the tactical dismemberment has lost precision, that the shoot does not pay for the same visual or sound feedback as dead space 2and that the hemoglobin deluge is a bit bland when combined with super-fast vanishing of corpses on the ground.
How to make a good Dead Space 3?
Spend more time demonstrating the flaws of dead space 3 wouldn’t make any sense. But then, what would this ultimate opus need to be a complete success? Today, let’s change the way we usually do this column a bit, to see together what this episode lacked to be as good, if not better, than its predecessors.
For starters, the graphics engine still worked very well, and there was no need to change it at any time. However, it is used to display less inspired places, and that is problematic. By stretching its adventure, the game is adorned with redundant sets, and does not benefit from a striking level design. At this level, there was something to do. More work on the environments would not have been a luxury, with an environmental narrative designed to make us feel the decay of the ice planet that we visit a large part of the adventure as a bonus! And, why not, longer sequences in space, these being more inspiring, and more successful in general.
It would have taken less action, moreover, to allow the game to offer a less dynamic, more immersive atmosphere, and to give the player time to breathe. It’s not a bad idea to make the player feel like they’re never really safe, but there were better ways to do it. dead space the first of the name used his sound design for this purpose, and forced Isaac to go back to areas already explored, which had changed somewhat. What create a tangible tension, which is at no time felt in dead space 3, replacing all these qualities with a profusion of enemies… that it would have been good to revise downwards! Why not articulate part of the adventure around a HUB?
No matter what the teams in charge said at the start of the project, after seeing the final result, it was difficult to understand where they wanted to go with the crafting system. There are some good ideas, but this unnecessarily complicates a recipe that has worked perfectly well until now. Thus, not trying to stupidly add new features that were done a lot with other big productions of the time would have been more than welcome. Especially since the rhythm that we criticized above is ultimately a bit jerky, since once an action sequence is over, we will often have to spend long seconds picking up all the junk left by the enemies… a shame .
Finally, it is obviously on the script side that we would have liked things to go better, or at least differently. Because dead space 3 develops its characters too much, to the point of making Isaac and Ellie loathsome, its big villain excruciatingly bland, and its stakes ridiculous. Save the world, why not, but then do it well! Because we do indeed feel a sense of urgency, but this one never manages to make us fully invest ourselves in this predictable story which, with each vaguely interesting idea, trips over the carpet. There was a way to draw inspiration from so many SF works that did this better than dead space 3…
For example, the novel Ship of Fools, by Richard Paul Russo. A story in which humanity sails through the galaxy in a huge ship, and discovers, following a visibly human signal, a colony without a living soul, where mutilated corpses are legion. A starting point that could have totally made sense in the universe of dead space, even if it means moving away from Isaac Clarke, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing. Finally, everything could have done the trick, just a less conventional story than the one we had, and above all, no stupid love affair!