Game Reviews

Dead Space 3 represents the culmination of two story arcs: that of protagonist Isaac Clarke and that of the game series itself. Like dead flesh that comes in contact with the malevolent alien Marker artifacts, Dead Space as a franchise has transformed into a nigh-unrecognizable version of its former self. Whereas the initial game was full-on survival horror, the second game's last act traded dread for a tension built around overwhelming amounts of enemies in claustrophobic spaces.

Dead Space 3 dials it back in its opening moments, but it returns to that frenetic pace in short order. It’s clear the series isn't going back to its roots anytime soon. Tension isn't built from the environment or atmosphere; it comes instead from over-long enemy encounters that are more a test of endurance, accuracy, and wherewithal than a tool used to convey mood.

Dead Space 3 shows a series that is a victim of its own success. Playing it is like seeing Metallica in 2007 at the 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium versus a 1982 show at the 1,000-seat Whisky a Go Go. The same essential pieces are there, but changes were made along the way to fill that giant venue. Publisher Electronic Arts’ investment in the Dead Space series has grown so large that Clarke and company need to find a huge audience to be successful. The easiest way to do that is to cut away what gave the franchise its edge and uniqueness, taking it from a killer niche experience to something more generic in nature.

Protagonist Clarke is a near-perfect representation of a tabula rasa. In Dead Space he was little more than a cipher, a quiet errand boy who unflinchingly followed orders and didn't ask any questions. Scarred by the events of the first game, Clarke’s personality and demons come to life in Dead Space 2 to reveal a conspiracy, transforming him into the hunted man we find at Dead Space 3’s outset.

Clarke is in a bad way: he’s self-destructive, on the verge of eviction, and missing his girlfriend; a half-hearted, sci-fi version of Max Payne. That changes once members of the Marker-worshiping cult try killing him; from there he turns into a headstrong hero, not the damaged man we last saw at the end of Dead Space 2. His escape from the dingy hell he has descended to is plenty flashy and bombastic, but it lacks heart and hook.

What follows is a cockamamie chase to a far-off frozen planet to destroy the original Marker, but there are so many setbacks along the way that it’s hard to keep track. Clarke fights tooth and nail for forward progress only to reach an objective where he is told, in effect, that his princess is in another castle, or he is physically knocked back to square one. Relentless backtracking is exhausting and strips power from the narrative and gameplay. It feels like a cheap way of bloating the ill-paced campaign. Optional side-missions feel like little more than filler when they reuse assets and entire rooms from the main story ad nauseam.

The hallmark of the Dead Space franchise isn't anywhere to be seen in this third entry. Ample opportunities to build tension or a sense of urgency are squandered for no apparent reason. In one instance, Clarke needs to open an airlock door so his team can retrieve an escape pod from the vacuum of space to the inside of a vessel. We hear a frantic radio call from inside the pod: its habitants are on the verge of passing out from a dwindling air supply. Clarke has to reach an access panel and learn to use a new door switch, all while his oxygen supply ticks down. The problem is that he has over 200 seconds worth of oxygen, and even a sub-par player would have a hard time messing this up. Creating stress would have been as easy as quartering the oxygen supply or adding a few more frantic voice-overs, but it never happens.

The first two games were dripping with ambiance. Even in the “classic” Dead Space sections in Dead Space 3’s first act, there’s something missing. None of the ships in the lost flotilla surrounding Tau Volantis feel haunted or even infected like the Ishimura or the Sprawl did from the prequels; they feel like a bone thrown to appease fans of traditional Dead Space and little more. Planet-side, it’s a bit different. The frozen tundra comprising much of Tau Volantis is prone to whiteouts, and the wind almost never stops howling. But even then, there isn’t anything scary about it. What little tension is built never lasts long.

A lot of this comes down to the level of polish. Dead Space had a rough charm to it, but its limitations added to the experience. Movement and animations were nowhere near as smooth as in the follow-ups, but the human brain perceives erratic movement and flaws in locomotion as a latent sign of something not being right. It’s also why it’s so effective to show Clarke limping around when he’s low on health: we instinctively know he’s not well. This added to the tension and overall feeling of the enemies being scary and dangerous. Dead Space 3’s enemies never feel frightening, which is a major detriment to a game with horror roots.

Introducing humans as enemies in Dead Space 3 feels like sacrilege, especially given their brain-dead AI. The inclusion of humans makes sense narratively, but in play, they feel like an unfinished addition. They don’t do much besides stand behind cover, swear, and shoot at Clarke. Even when Clarke uses telekinesis to grab an oncoming rocket or grenade and fire it back at them, they don’t leave their positions. When a Necromorph comes along to reanimate a body in the middle of a sortie, the reanimated body usually stands in place firing blindly in Clarke’s general direction, nothing more.

On the other hand, Necromorph AI has been made much more challenging and even smarter than before. The Necromorphs will swarm, flank, and generally make for a very bad day if you aren't careful. It’s not uncommon for several different types to attack at once, each requiring different tactics and an acute situational awareness to eliminate. Some encounters are downrightnasty, even on normal difficulty. The final hours ramp up the challenge dramatically, and checkpoints are spaced out to an unfair degree, tasking players to take down six of the game’s biggest and toughest enemies without perishing. I had to turn the difficulty level down to casual in the interest of finishing and maintaining a non-broken controller (not to mention a full head of hair).

And that’s one of the biggest problems with the game: across the board, Dead Space 3 has forgotten what it was. None of its myriad changes are so great as to break the core appeal of shooting shambling things in space. But what made Dead Space special is absent this time around. Dead Space 3 is such a marked departure from the franchise that it feels like a side story or spin-off. There are glimpses of what Dead Space does best here, but they’re never allowed to mature into what the series and its fans deserve. Knowing what developer Visceral Games is capable of makes this entry even more disappointing.