I’m not quite sure what to make of Dead Space 3 after watching this 20-minute gameplay demo featuring solo action, co-op multiplayer, a giant drill that makes Necromorphs pulpy, and a huge boss that swallows poor Isaac whole and leaves him tumbling around inside its tummy. The gameplay looks exciting and intense, but at the same time I’m getting more of a Gears of War-meets-Lost Planet action vibe from this and not so much of the horror-soaked atmosphere of the previous titles. Something about the wintery setting and the new human enemies just doesn’t seem all that ominous or terrifying.
But of course, this demo is merely a snapshot of one act early on in the story (and I’m also guessing the difficulty is set WAY low given the abundance of ammo and the fact that the player seems to get by easily without focusing on dismembering Necromorphs), so I’m not going to make any sweeping judgments yet. Click play, and see what you think.
Elsewhere in Dead Space land, I finally got around to clearing the first game out of my massive backlog today. I’d started it a long time ago, made it roughly 8-9 chapters in, then got sidetracked on other things and never picked it back up, not realizing that I only had a few chapters left. It’s a really great game, although the final boss is pretty damn frustrating when you get it down to the final two glowy weak points and have to shoot them while hanging upside down and swinging all around while trying to aim with the targeting reticule moving in reverse. Of course, it didn’t help that the game somehow glitched out to the point that even when I destroyed the final two weak points, the Hive Mind continued to gobble me up without tossing me back to the ground as scripted. It didn’t work properly until I reloaded a previous save point. But after some hair-pulling, the game is officially complete, and now it’s time to restart on Dead Space 2 to get completely caught up for number three (yep, I started and prematurely stopped the sequel as well).