Final Dead Space 3 Thoughts

This was, overall, a good game.  A lot of the things that I thought I would have a problem with ended up being non-issues.  Such as:

The micro-transactions.  These were very transparent and easily avoidable.  I give the developer kudos  for their design on this.  If the publisher is going to demand that you put micro-transaction in your game, this is definitely the way to go about it.  

The "bare bones port".  Game ran fine, looked great, and controlled well.  No issues.  I don't think the developer understands how "bare" a console port can be.  (I'm looking at you, Dark Souls.)

The focus on action over horror.  If the game wasn't co-op, this probably would have been an issue for me.  But since I was able to play through it all with John, I really didn't care.  It was a fun game for the both of us, and that left the horror aspect as a moot point.

Unfortunately, this doesn't mean the game is perfect.  It's actually far from it, and I discovered a whole bunch of new issues that I wasn't expecting.  These I will now share with you, in case you were still on the fence when it comes to playing the game.

1. The game is repetitive when not playing it co-op.  I'll be honest with you that I haven't played the game solo.  But, it's easy to come to this conclusion.  Without having a partner through the whole thing, the game would be boring, repetitive, and quite lonely.  And without the larger focus on horror to distract you from that, you're left with a rather bland experience.  

2. Backtracking, ho!  There's a lot of backtracking, especially near the end.  Sometimes new monsters pop up in areas you've already cleared, sometimes they're empty.  But either way, backtracking is bad and it's boring.  There's way too much of it in Dead Space 3.  

3.  Accuracy?  We don't need to stinkin' accuracy.  You can craft weapons that are very powerful, to the point where you can just shoot a necromorph in the chest and it'll die.  This breaks tradition with the whole concept of Dead Space, where you surgically aim for the limbs to dismember them.  I didn't like it.  I enjoyed having to be accurate.  

4. DLC.  Okay, look, I'm not always against DLC.  I'll give you some examples of good DLC:  Skryim's Dawnguard and Dragonborn.  Borderlands 2's Booty, Wild Hunt, and Torgue packs.  Dishonored's upcoming DLC pack.  I like these DLC packs because they are more content for a game a love, but NOT part of the main story.  They are all stand-alone things.  DLC that is an add-on to the main story or even an extension of it is bad.  I don't want a game given to me piecemeal.  That ruins it.  Unfortunately, for a game like Dead Space 3, which is very linear, you can't really make a story based DLC for it unless you don't focus on the main character or make it a flashback or something.  And the DLC coming out for Dead Space 3 doesn't do that.  So, that's another strike against it.




So there you have it.  Use this information to your advantage so that you are a smart, well informed and responsible consumer.