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Dead Space 3 - Feb 5

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Never played the second after the mess that the first was. I tried to play it a few times but the controls were horrid, there was a good half second to full second pause between giving the input and it registering in the game. The best way i can describe it is like you were underwater and all actions were delayed. Made it literally impossible to play with any kind of skill, and since im a oldschool twitch FPS player i cant handle that kind of technical glitch, and really there is no excuse for it other than crappy/lazy programming.

Perhaps i will give it another shot with the third game but that quote above makes me thing it will yet again be a crap console port.... perhaps when it hits the $10 bin.
 
Rifter said:
Never played the second after the mess that the first was. I tried to play it a few times but the controls were horrid, there was a good half second to full second pause between giving the input and it registering in the game. The best way i can describe it is like you were underwater and all actions were delayed. Made it literally impossible to play with any kind of skill, and since im a oldschool twitch FPS player i cant handle that kind of technical glitch, and really there is no excuse for it other than crappy/lazy programming.

Perhaps i will give it another shot with the third game but that quote above makes me thing it will yet again be a crap console port.... perhaps when it hits the $10 bin.
Click to expand...

disable vsync. A quick 5 minute search fixed this issue for me on dead space 1 and DS2 I didn't have any issues with.
 
I beat the game today with an 87% completion rate in 17.5 hours. I think I missed three optional missions so if you do everything the game will probably take between 16 and 18 hours. It's a very good game but falls short of being great.

For me the biggest plus DS3 had going for it was it's length. It's a lot longer than the previous two games and the levels are a lot larger. It's a vast improvement over DS2 which can be beaten fairly quickly (under 7 hours) especially once you've played it before.

The biggest minus was the weaponplay. The guns were a lot more fun to use in the previous two titles. Guns like the plasma cutter, line gun and ripper were a ton of fun to play with. Now the plasma cutter is useless, the line gun is nerfed and the ripper isn't that effective. The enemies are now a lot quicker so there's not a lot of time for "strategic dismemberment" as in the previous ones. DS2 had quicker enemies that made stasis necessary but it still was slow enough to allow for strategic dismemberment. DS3 is basically aim for the limbs rather than carefully dissect your enemies.

I should note that I'm playing with a controller so the feel of the guns includes the vibration. In the previous two the guns felt right. The line gun felt like you shot a large beam, the ripper felt like you were tearing into necromorph flesh. They were also a lot more effective. Fully upgraded the line gun would dismember both legs with a precise shot. In DS3 it sometimes took three precise shots to dismember legs. It's supposed to be a slow yet powerful weapon but in DS3 it often ended up just being slow with mediocre damage. With the ripper in the previous two you could hold necromorphs at bay by backing up into a corner and tearing into their limbs with the saw. Now you can't do that since the necromorphs will continue to come at you when you're tearing into their limbs. It's still somewhat effective for hoards but isn't a weapon you'd want to use against regular necromorphs.

Overall, the gunplay is decent but not as much fun as the previous two. Hopefully they'll tweak it and the necromorphs behaviour in the next game and get the balance right.

As for some nitpicking, first I want to comment on the addition of human enemies. The gunplay doesn't work well against human opponents and the cover system isn't very good. The encounters against humans aren't overly hard, they just don't fit into the gameplay of a dead space game.

Although the story picks up at the end for about 2/3 of the game it's badly executed. I don't know how it is with your co-op partner there but for soloing the story is mediocre for at least half of the game. The overall plot is good, it's the execution that's lacking.

DS3 didn't turn into a cod action fest like some feared but there's little to no of the horror you'd expect for this type of game. There's no tension/creepiness like you felt in the first and nothing disquieting like the children necromorphs of the second. I'd like to see a return to that.

While the suits are one of the iconic images of the DS games here they're just cosmetic. When you upgrade your rig it applies to all the suits so it doesn't matter which one you chose. I wish there had been some difference in the suits like in DS2 where diffenet suits gave you slight bonuses such as statis recharge time or weapon damage.

I've already mentioned the weapon configuration system before and don't really have anything to add. Thematically it fits with Isaac being an engineer and the only thing I can see being a downside about it is that it takes a while to learn. It's a welcome change but I'd like it a lot more if the gunplay was better.

Overall, I think that DS3 is a very good yet slightly flawed game. It'll be one of the better games to come out this year but it's flaws keep it from being in the potential game of the year class. I don't regret paying near msrp for it but for those of you on the fence there's no problem with waiting for a price drop. Right now I plan on going back and trying the co-op.
 
Pretty good summary, Madia. I agree that the gun-play was the biggest mistake.

I've put ~6 hours in and have only crafted two guns worth using. The revolver is pretty sweet though, I'll give them that much.

I think I would enjoy DS3 much more if I had never played the DS1. It feels a bit empty without the tension/horror of the earlier games.
 
Madia said:
The new Awakened DLC is coming out next week. It's an epilogue and looks to be more in the macabre/horror vein of the previous two games. I'll be picking it up once I finish Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC. Here's a link to the trailer and about 15 minutes of gameplay footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq4ETw4Tf-A
http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/03/08/dead-space-3-awakened-developer-commentary
Click to expand...

Is it a true epilogue after the whole explosion?

*****************SPOLIERS**********************

I thought that Isaac and the other guy died at the end when the moon exploded/
 
It's a true epilogue:

If you wait until post credits you can hear Isaac calling out to Ellie.
 
I'll be passing on this I think. I watched some walkthroughs and it didn't look interesting at all. How can you ruin this so badly?
 
I took some time away from Skyrim to play the new Awakened DLC. Quick synopsis is good DLC but too short.

Overall, I thought the DLC was an improvement on the base game. It did many things better than DS3 but was still hampered by the gunplay.

The first improvement is that the pacing is a lot better. While I appreciated the amount of content in DS3 (~16-18 hours worth) at times it felt like it could use some editing to make the game more streamlined. The pace of Awakened is a lot quicker and I didn't find any of the content to be extraneous.

Second, the story is much better executed. DS3's story didn't pick up until later in the game and early on contained an awkward love triangle. In the DLC everyone is struggling with their sanity and the storyline is much more involving especially regarding Isaac.

The DLC also handles Isaac and Carver's relationship much better in the solo mode. I only played a tad of co-op in DS3 so most of my experience with Carver is from the solo campaign. In it he never felt like a fleshed out character; instead he merely felt like someone who happened to be one of the last members of the group to survive and honestly only survived because he was the guy who was your co-op partner. In the DLC's solo mode Isaac and Carver seem much more like a team and their relationship feels like it has been forged by them fighting side by side. Basically, in DS3's solo mode Carver feels like a minor character and in the DLC he feels more like a major character such as Ellie.

One of the big promoted aspects of the DLC is that it's a return to the earlier game's horror atmosphere. This part was well executed but somewhat hampered by the third installment's gunplay. The creepy atmosphere and intense battles are executed well but it's still stuck with the rather pedestrian gunplay from the base game. I'm hoping the next game will go back to somewhat slower enemies with an emphasis on strategic dismemberment rather than the quickly shoot the enemies in their weak areas gunplay in the third.

The biggest disappointment of the DLC is the length. For some reason I though the DLC was several hours (around 3) and ended up finishing it in maybe 100 minutes. When the game was about to end I felt like I played through 2/3 of the DLC and was ready for another 45 minutes or so of content. Instead the DLC ended 2 minutes later and the credits rolled (don't bother waiting until the end of the credits - nothing happens).

If the DLC was 33% longer I'd give it an 8/10 and recommend buying it at full price. As it is I'd knock it down to 7 and recommend waiting until it's on sale at 33% off.

Quick edit: Just finished the co-op. I had planned on only playing 1 or 2 of the 3 chapters but the DLC was so short I finished the whole thing (it took under and hour in co-op). It's actually better played solo since co-op doesn't scale the difficulty (the enemies have the same numbers/health) and having a partner eliminates a lot of the intensity of battle and creepiness of the atmosphere. Maybe seeing thing's from Carver's perspective may change the experience a little but unless you're able to play with a friend it's hard to find someone who's waiting for a co-op partner from the beginning meaning you'll be dropping in a little later in the campaign.

The co-op did nothing to change my thoughts which is that it's a good DLC but way too short for $10. If you do pick it up make sure to play solo the first time through or you'll miss some of the creepiness of the atmosphere and intensity of some battles.
 
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Rifter said:
Never played the second after the mess that the first was. I tried to play it a few times but the controls were horrid, there was a good half second to full second pause between giving the input and it registering in the game. The best way i can describe it is like you were underwater and all actions were delayed. Made it literally impossible to play with any kind of skill, and since im a oldschool twitch FPS player i cant handle that kind of technical glitch, and really there is no excuse for it other than crappy/lazy programming.

Perhaps i will give it another shot with the third game but that quote above makes me thing it will yet again be a crap console port.... perhaps when it hits the $10 bin.
Click to expand...

Disable vsync in game, use adaptive vsync and FXAA.
 
Just beat the game+dlc and it was a lot of fun. I did it solo and kind of want to at least get the side missions done that required co-op. Im not sure if you can just chapter select and then do the side missions or whatever but I'd love to get these done; I believe they're required to get all the collectables and 100% in every mission, if not then im dumb.

Anyways, if anyone wants to do them add my origin Id - GraYMatteR, I also have mumble if you want to shoot the shit when we're playing.

thanks
 
I never played the first two, but I find the controls rather clunky...as it seems that everything is in slow motion whereas the baddies move like lightning...(and this is in coop)...

Dave
 
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