Opinion: Five Terrible Ways EA Have Screwed Dead Space 3 – And The Thinking Behind Them
From the very first moment I saw the reveal trailer for Dead Space 3, huge grade-A alarm bells started ringing. And with every subsequent footage release, gameplay preview and feature announcement, I’ve found myself more and more convinced that the third installment in EA’s once exciting and gripping sci-fi horror series is going to turn out to be complete and utter horsecrap.
The publisher wants to shift 5 million copies, you see. And in order to do this, they’ve attempted to broaden the appeal of Isaac Clarke’s next adventure by heavily altering the tone and emphasis of the experience, and introducing a range of new features that have – in my opinion – absolutely no place in a self-respecting Dead Space game.
Here are the five worst changes that EA have so far revealed, and the Triple A corporate logic behind them, starting with…
Out With The Horror; In With Even More Action
It’s true that the Dead Space franchise has always been fairly action-oriented. But it’s also been heavily defined by tense exploration of dark, claustrophobic environments, high levels of suspense, and moments of creepily tangible atmosphere.
Dead Space 3, on the other hand, appears to have completely chucked any remaining sense of subtlety out of the de-pressurized window. The 20 minutes of preview footage that has been released is absolutely packed full of wall-to-wall bullet-spewing carnage and huge set pieces in wide open areas, with nary an eerie, shadowy corridor in sight.
"Say hello to my little friend"
You know what the most gripping parts of the second game were? The unbearably slow-burning return to the USG Ishimura, and any tense journey through a deserted apartment building, school or similarly-abandoned location.
You know what the least gripping were? The tedious, blood-soaked last couple of chapters, in which you simply guided Isaac through a procession of Necromorph-infested chambers, blasting wave after wave of screeching enemies.
The Thinking Behind It:
EA have pretty much straight-up admitted they don’t want to alienate a potentially massive consumer-base by making the game ‘too scary’. As such, they’ve decided that they can sell way, way more copies if they tone down the horror elements significantly, and shift the game pretty much all the way over into basic action territory.
As far as they’re concerned, it’s far easier to market a title to a mass audience when it’s labelled an ‘action game’ or ‘action-adventure’, rather than a ‘survival-horror’. Which brings us on to…
Cover-Based Shooting! Against Human Enemies!
Yes, that’s right. In Dead Space 3 players will be able to experience the ingenious and completely original joy of diving behind chest-high walls to exchange fire with a whole host of bad guys, who will themselves be armed with ranged weapons.
"No-one has ever thought of this before!"
Clearly, confronting Isaac with twisted, horrific, mutated monsters to fight and avoid has just got plain old – so now you’ll experience the joys of crouching behind crates and other conveniently placed scenery, popping up every now and then to blow the head off of a yelling Unitologist.
And hey, just in case you were in no doubt that Dead Space 3 really is shaping up to be a full-on generic third-person shooter, they’ve also added in the ability to combat roll. Thanks EA!
The Thinking Behind It:
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but shooters are apparently really, really popular. So popular in fact, that even decidedly rubbish shooters can shift millions of copies if they have a big enough marketing budget behind them, and a recognisable brand (we’re looking at you Operation Raccoon City).
In fact, there are colossal numbers of people out there who only play big-name shooters like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo and Gears Of War: and EA are clearly hoping to snare some of that business. If they can make Dead Space 3 look and play a lot like Gears and a bit like COD, they calculate that a lot more consumers will check it out than would do otherwise.
Awesome Ellie Replaced By Wise-Cracking ‘Bro’
One of the very best things about Dead Space 2 was undoubtedly Isaac’s newfound companion Ellie – a tough, resilient, yet understandably traumatized pilot whose sensible distrust of the protagonist gradually ebbed away to the point where she swooped into save his ass from certain death.
Pictured: One of the most awesome supporting characters in gaming history
The cool thing about Ellie was how free from cliche she was. A survivor, certainly, but not some hard-bitten, muscle-bound chick; vulnerable, yes, but definitely not some sobbing wallflower waiting to be saved. And she was damn sharp at times too. As a result, a lot of us were looking forward to seeing her kick even more ass this time around – but it doesn’t look like that’s going to be happening, sadly.
Instead, Ellie is now apparently in a spot of bother, and Isaac is on a mission to save her. So guess what? She’s now literally become the damsel in distress.
And who has Isaac now got to aid him on his exploits? Why, a wise-cracking, dude-joshing professional soldier by the name of Carver of course, with the two’s dialogue in the gameplay footage that has been revealed proving to be the height of sophistication and intelligence: “What the f**k is that?” “F**k this planet!” “C’mon! Are you f**king kidding me?”
At least you’ll only have to put up with that macho bromance bullshit in co-op mode, anyway. Oh. Yeah. That’s right. There’s co-op now…
The Thinking Behind It:
You don’t really want a strong, complex, intelligent woman at the centre of the drama if you’re aiming for the linear shooter crowd – especially if she’s not a straightforward love interest. No, if there’s one thing that Gears and COD have taught us, it’s that macho FPS and TPS titles relish the camaraderie between two butch ass-kicking heroes as they unleash testosterone-fuelled devastation upon everything in their path.
"We're so goddamn heterosexual, we don't need women in our lives"
As for the action-centric co-op, it’s both a way of garnering more interest from the multiplayer shooter crowd, and a slightly sneaky ploy to increase participation through online passes and Origin, dealing with issues such as lending and the pre-owned market too. As plenty of exclusive content and achievements will be locked away behind this mode, it’s a sure-fire way of getting people to shell out extra cash if they don’t pick the game up new.
But for the love of God EA, if you were going to introduce co-op – at least let Isaac’s partner in action be Ellie…
Universal Ammo
Sweet Mary mother of Jesus. When this feature was announced we all thought it had to be some kind of sick joke. I mean, they wouldn’t actually introduce universal ammo in the third game would they?
Oh yeah. As it turns out, they totally have.
"You maniacs!"
One of the most integral features for a horror game is that ammo be limited to some extent, or that its management must at least be paramount. In the previous two Dead Space titles, we can all remember experiencing that awful, gut-wrenching feeling when we’re almost out of ammo for our chosen few weapons, and the only pick-up we come across turns out to be…ammo for another weapon entirely.
This kind of feeling is essential for a game to have any feeling of tension at all. But not in Dead Space 3, apparently. Now, we have a ‘one size fits all’ approach to pick-ups, rendering the whole point of careful weapon selection – and inventory management – utterly redundant.
The Thinking Behind It:
In a word: accessibility. Almost every popular, mainstream action game out there now uses universal ammo and makes use of little or no inventory management, and EA want their new-found friends to feel right at home stepping into the shoes of Clarke and Carver.
I mean, having to actually keep track of what ammo you have for which weapons? And think about that shit? That sounds like a lot of work…
It’s A Dead Space Game…That’s Not Actually Set In Space
The first Dead Space took place on a stricken spaceship. The second took place on an overrun space-station. Dead Space 3 takes place on a frozen ice planet – and every piece of footage revealed so far shows not a single glimpse of Isaac going anyway near the cosmos itself.
Wow. This looks...dull.
The space setting has always been absolutely integral to the Dead Space experience. The Zero G sequences felt really quite groundbreaking and nifty, helping to mark this out from other series, and the backdrop has always been used to provide interesting objectives and impressive spectacle, as well as fantastic gameplay moments (shooting out windows to zap enemies into infinity, for instance).
Without this, Dead Space really doesn’t seem like Dead Space at all.
The Thinking Behind It:
Sci-fi is for geeks, right? And things like Zero G sequences, often paired with puzzles or technical jargon, just feel a bit too ‘out there’. So it’s got to take a bit of a back seat.
EA are doing everything they can to make Dead Space feel both familiar and welcoming to a wider audience, and therefore the last thing they want to do is make it seem in anyway niche or different (see above for other examples).
Kicking things off on a planet surface, and having the predominant locations be installations, labs etc., the whole idea is that the game will instantly seem straightforward and – quite literally – ‘grounded’, like a ton of other FPS and TPS games that provide shootout after shootout in a series of open spaces and rooms.
Once the game gets to a certain point, the Zero G sequences and space-based stuff will make a re-appearance, because at that point you’ve already reeled in your new audience. And then you can simply claim that the Dead Space fans were just crying over nothing all along. All while swimming in your considerable pile of cash…
Bravo. Excellent article indeed. The gaming industry is becoming very lame, very fast now. Here’s hoping for a huge video games crash and an implosion of these huge gaming corporations and hopefully, one day, we can go back to some gaming with heart again. And before anyone jumps on me about millions of people losing jobs etc…whatever…so what, i don’t know those people and i don’t care about those people. I am sure highly skilled gaming industry types will soon find nice jobs elsewhere anyhoo.
your fucking stupid man deadspace three is great and its still going to be fucking scary maybe not as much since theres two ppl now but its still a horror game you fuck btw things such as universal ammo are implemented because its what you do in real survival your jackass
Thanks for your intelligent and articulate contribution Bob. You’ve made me see things in a whole new light.
Always has to be one guy who things if he speaks ill against a game he’s a hero. You are a joke and a failed writer that’s the only reason you have to make this small articles. Do the world a favor and stop or better yet go play in traffic.
Instead of just throwing around insults and insinuating that you would like to see me die for writing this article (which is obviously a fair and reasonable response), would you mind explaining WHY you feel I am ‘a joke and a failed writer’? Perhaps you could offer some constructive criticism or actually make a point about the article in question?
1. They haven’t removed the horror element, admittedly it’s downplayed slightly towards the end of the game as you deal with human enemies, they have tried to add another dimension to the game, building around humanity’s survival as well as your own. The human enemies are just as much a part of the story as the necromorphs. Also this game is anything but non stop blood soaked corridors, there are just as many tense and misleading moments as ever. Adding action elements to the game doesn’t make it into the ‘mainstream’ games you seem to have some dislike for.
2. The inclusion of cover based shooting against humans makes sense. I can’t even begin to understand how you thought this was a bad thing.
Oh look some enemies with guns…. maybe I should go to cover so I don’t get blown to bits. No wait….. I’ll stand here and get shot to bits.
What in the name of hell did you expect him to do? Adding a cover dynamic has in no way ruined the game, it makes sense to add it if anything. Issac has progressed as a character throughout the games, not only in terms of story but in terms of ability. He has become combat hardened (albeit not by choice.) so of course he’s going to utilize cover and anything else to his advantage it only makes sense to. He began as someone looking to survive, in the second his experience was apparent as should the players if they played the first game. Having him actually being an accomplished fighter is hardly game breaking.
Besides If you were being shot at in real life, I’d bet any amount of money that you would take cover. I know I would.
3. Ellie hasn’t changed that much as a character, she is still basically the same character, the difference being her personal relationship with Issac is now different due to their divergence. Also the fact is she has become determined and hardened in her resolve to end the Marker crisis, it would only make sense for her to progress. Besides the opening few chapters (until you find her) she is no way a damsel in distress, she is just as capable of handling herself as she was in the last game, also a damsel would break down at every point with the events/background surrounding them as they progress, yet due to her experience you can see very little of this phases Ellie anymore.
4. Universal ammo did not ruin the game in any way, it made sense to go in this direction due to the new weapon upgrade and creation systems. There are so many weapon types and tools, it would be unfeasible to carry around the literal fraktonne of ammo types you would require, understandably in the last few games you had different ammo types but this was different due to the fact you couldn’t combine weapons using different types of ammo at once. It makes sense to create a universal ammo type as it saves the massive amount of time it would take to micromanage your inventory. If you want to argue that balancing your inventory etc was integral to the survival part I wouldn’t agree, with the first two games, you get to a stage where most inventory items are pretty much non-essential and you could acquire more inventory space, meaning you could just about carry everything you could ever dream of. Admittedly the beginning of the game you may rely on balancing your inventory but I never found that to be an issue besides it’s distracting you from what you should be doing, developing your character and pregressing the story/gameplay. Also as mentioned, in a survival situation you would do whatever you could to make anything you could work for you and given that as humans develop we tend to make systems relatable/compatible to make things as easy as possible to use.
If you want to go around spending hours organising your inventory, I’d advise playing a different game, I’m sure The Sims or some other drivel can sate that thirst.
5. This is probably the worst point yet…… you spend a vast quantity of the frst portion of the game in…… shock horror…… space, going between the haunted wrecks of hundreds of years past with an equally grim or even darker disposition than the Ishimura. There are sections in which you are literally floating in space. You can fly around in SPACE. Not to mention the ‘Space’ element of Dead Space could be set anywhere, the simple fact of travelling to another galaxy/planet is in itself ‘Space Exploration’. Just because your feet touch real ground does not make this a bad game.
Thats my thoughts, make of them what you will, but I personally think your opinions are built around a disliking for EA and Shooting games in general. I am a fan of the Dead Space series, but I am at least giving a fair opinion, there are a lot worse things about this game than anything you’ve mentioned. The Micromarket created by EA for example to try to lure into buying ‘Resource packs’ and the like is bad for this game and ruins its gameplay. Buying a few packs is enough to fully upgrade your RIG and most weapon systems to the point that even playing on Hard is ridiculously easy.
The upgrade system itself isn’t great either, combining and making weapons, gathering the resources can be a labourious and often dull activity, I like the system itself, but to ge tthe best of the game and to try each weapon etc is a long process without buying from EA. I understand that playing co-operatively and doing multiple runthroughs would solve this but at a first glance this is a flawed system.
Next time I would actually put a bit more thought into your article and not just rip on the bad points (although you actually haven’t mentioned any bad points as far as I can see.). Look at the positives also and try to balance your argument or at least seem less petty.
While I can appreciate that this article is the way it is largely because it was written based on some marketing footage put out long before release, it could hardly be more wrong or, sadly, more determinedly and unnecessarily pessimistic and reluctant to see how many of the small shifts the game has taken were necessary to keeping it fresh and interesting.
I don’t feel the compulsion to go point by point, which someone has already done fairly well anyway, but I will say that, after having played the game and for the benefit of those considering it, I would say that *none* of these are problems with the actual game.
The franchise has evolved a bit, and you will certainly notice a few differences between the games, but overall it is enjoyable, it still felt very much like a Dead Space game, and the story, characters, and combat have not suffered in any way that should feel like an affront to a die-hard Dead Space fan.