Dead Space 3 Review

Dead Space 3 Review | March 7, 2016
Xbox 360, Windows, PlayStation 3

Dead Space is a 3rd person survival horror shooter. You can play in single player but you also have the option of drop in and drop out co-op. It is in the same style of Dead Space 1 & 2, Gears of War 3 and Resident Evil 6. Isaac and Ellie lived through and escaped Titan Moon but their relationship did not last. Now separated Ellie continued to try to stop the Necromorph threat. She and her crew are missing. Captain Norton and Sergeant Carver find Isaac and convince him to help find Ellie. Carver and Norton are the last battalion members left since the resources shortage has become so uncontrollable that EarthGov is failing. All Isaac whats to do is find Ellie or find out what happen to her.

Dead Space 3 adds some major changes to the series. First, all the previous Dead Space games that are 3rd person shooters and are single player. Dead Space 3 you can play in single player but if you want to some else can play as Sergeant John Carver. It works well either way but there are three missions that you can only play in co-op because it involves some background into Carvers life. We don’t like having co-op forces on us to play certain missions. We paid for a game and now we are lock out of parts of the game? Despite this minor grip we did like having co-op play. Some of the areas two guns were better and when you are playing in some of the more difficult modes you will prefer to have another player most of the time but you are not missing much in single player.

Dead Space 3 also changes how you play the game as a shooter. Mostly it is the same as other Dead Space games, third person shooter and dismemberment is the key. But, there are several Necromorphs that you can’t line up your shot to take them out. This is where the change in guns comes in, you can only carry two but each gun has an upper and lower weapon setting. Sometimes blowing them up is the better choice but if they are to close it leaves you exposed to the blast. You can upgrade to protect yourself from your own weapons but that means you have one less slot on your upgrades for things like more ammo, stasis shoots and stopping power to name some examples.

There are also times when the games combat switches over to a run and gun military style shooter and there are some huge issues with that. The Unitologist are armed with guns and rocket launchers and coming after you. Not only are they shooting at you but they are hiding behind cover and throwing grenades and fire bombs at you. This means that you have to duck behind cover pop up and shoot like Gears of War. The change in gameplay means that the controls are now different. Aiming, movement and camera issues start to become a problem. It does not work and we don’t know why they put in the game. We did not buy Dead Space 3 to play as a run and gun shooter.

Dead Space 3 took us between 20 to 22 hours to play through the story the first and that is well above average for this style of game. The replay value is pretty good even with the issues we previously stated. We really like the new weapon creations system, there are dozens and maybe even a hundred different weapons you can build and combine. We hate that out of nowhere we kept running into small camera, aiming and control issues. Dead Space 1 & 2 are spot on the whole time and we don’t understand why all of a sudden this is problem in the third game. Dead Space 3 does have a great story and Isaac, Ellie and Carver are easy root for. The game is worth paying $45 for, you will enjoy the ride even if Dead Space 3 is not as good as the other earlier Dead Space games.

8.0 out of 10
Good Game

8.0 out of 10
Good Game

Rated
M for Mature

Rated PEGI 18