Dead Space 3 (PS3)

Date Purchased: November 1, 2016
Date Completed: February 22, 2017

Price: $5.99 (PSN Halloween Sale)

Dead Space 3, you are so far from the Dead Space I loved, however you are not a bad person....errr...game. You are just not Dead Space.  If Dead Space (the original) is Michael Jordan, and his son (Michael Jordan 2) went on to be an amazing soccer player (but not one of the greatest of all time), that son would be Dead Space 2, quite different, but still really good.  And if Michael Jordan 2 were to have  a son (Michael Jordan 3) and he went on to win his city bowling league, that son would be Dead Space 3, competent in what he does, but fallen oh so far from grace.

Okay, so basketball and bowling ball analogies aside, I still kind of enjoyed my time with Dead Space 3.  I started playing it and I was thinking “hey this is kinda cool, fighting humans, using my stasis in a big city, this could really go places!” … and then that stopped and I was back in outer space doing more Dead Space things, just not as well.  The games later 2/3’s becomes a little more interesting as your environments open up and that’s really where the game comes into it’s own, and by it’s own, I mean Gears of War.

Dead Space 3 is a co-op shooter that I played solo.  That comes with being a patient gamer, you play games when few others do.  Now don’t get me wrong, you can play the game completely on your own, but I couldn’t help feel like I was missing something as there reminders everywhere that I should have a partner with me.  On my own it took me just over 13 hours to complete, which felt stretched out as I was going on a lot of “fetch quests” for lack of a better term (rebuilding that Rosetta alien!  Oyyyyyy!!!).  The puzzle sequences I didn't particularly enjoy and I felt threw off the pacing of the game.  

Graphics and sound are…fine.   The game seems to seem less polished than previous entries, perhaps intentional to make the game seem more “gritty”, the voice acting is well done despite the writing being a little suspect at times.  The overall story left some to be desired.

What Dead Space 3 did very well in my opinion, was make me appreciate Dead Space 2 so much more, which I gave a pretty hard time for beingso different from the first game.  I'm sorry Dead Space 2, you deserved better.  I really can’t recommend Dead Space 3 on it’s own merits, if you want to see the series through like I did, you may as well just play it to see for yourself, but if you’re looking for a good game to play?  Pass.

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