[PS3/360/PC] Dead Space

[TheForce]

I'm now halfway through chapter 3, and I'm absolutely stunned by this game. This is one creepy, scary game. So far I've only played late night all lights out, and the sound up ! The game looks absolutely great (great lightning) but the most stunning is the sound in this game, you really have to play this in 5.1 ! it's great !
So far the action is also pretty good and the enviroments are great as well.
So far this has really blown me away!

this is all what ID promised Doom3 would be , Scary as Hell in space !

[rmoxon]

No, you misunderstand. I understood, and I don't mind that stuff that much, I just don't think the game sets it up as well as it could do. I mean, CoD never really made me think "Oh my goodness how come the enemy soldiers never stop coming you'd think they were infinite or something that's not realistic how sad is that?" - the game was set up well enough I never complained about it. With Dead Space, how come at some points Zach and Kendra know exactly where you are and what you're doing and talk to you the second you pick something up off a desk, yet when you're

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stuck in a fight you can't win

, they won't say a word until you've proved how rock hard you are? Why isn't one of them telling you they'll

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hack the door the second that thing appears, or at least when you walk near the door/try and open it?

I know it's nit-picking, and I know I go on about the tiniest little thing. Still, the game's really good, good enough lazy design like this really stands out for me, and I just focus on the tiny little things because it could have been been a nine or ten on my scale if they'd just got a bit less lazy and stopped leaving them in everywhere. <shrugs>

Its a common misconception that COD games have infinite spawning enemies, when in truth, you just have to kill a set ammount of them in any given area before they stop respawning.

You also seem to have missed the point that Issac, much like Gordon freeman before him, dosent talk, but i would imagine the reason they know where you are and what you are doing is becuase he some how lets them know it. its not lazy design at all, its just that the main character dosent talk and so it cant be done any other way.

You do seem to be complaining about small things that arent even there just to find somthing wrong with the game as you dont seem to want to admit its worth a high score, when in truth there really isnt much wrong with it and a heck of a lot thats right.

[capcom_suicide]

I'm now halfway through chapter 3, and I'm absolutely stunned by this game. This is one creepy, scary game. So far I've only played late night all lights out, and the sound up ! The game looks absolutely great (great lightning) but the most stunning is the sound in this game, you really have to play this in 5.1 ! it's great !
So far the action is also pretty good and the enviroments are great as well.
So far this has really blown me away!

this is all what ID promised Doom3 would be , Scary as Hell in space !

Totally agree. I'm using 5.1 headphones and pitch black room too.

Where Doom 3 failed for me, was the monsters just spawned front and back every time.

This game succeeds in the highest degree, and much of that is down to lighting.

Take the

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"Decomtamination" section

. You have a gut feeling that something bad will happen. You are edgy, but the lights are on. You scope the places things may happen. The windows... the doors... any vents?

The it kicks off, with screaming heart chilling sounds and the best lighting in the world of video games goes from Light to some kind of physcaldelic stobe world, you heart is pumping, you are trying to use the flash light to spot the monsters. Where are they? Left right, ****, it's on the ceiling! Statis blast, 1-2-3 limbs off and dead, oooh no! There's another coming from behind ! Run to the corner, turn Statis blast! ****, no more energy for stais, plasma run out, switch to flame thrower! Light these bitches up! Electrical particals dancing, water drops bouncing from your armour (Fantastic effect!) fire balls exploding around you, creatures burning and screaming, reds and yellows adding to the complex lighting of the scene, shadows dancing all around you, your breathing getting faster and faster! Then it's over. The door unlocks, and the lighting returns, but at backup levels with the yellow neon being intersected by occasional bright sparks of energy. The dimm hummmm of the spaceship comes back and in the distance you hear the faint sounds of a door closing and opening.

Time to move on, and you are completely and utterly immersed in this sci fi horror world.

This game is absolutly stunning.

I'm sure you can find a pattern for the spawns, but I am playing "To be scared" and haven't used energy on this, (And won't) because for me, it's scaring the hell out of me all the time!

Just Brilliant.

[BaronSqwelch]

Really enjoying this so far. have finished level 4. there is a REALLY annoying bit near the end of 4 that took me about 6 tries but the rest is pretty engrossing.

Its very linear tho.

[spagmasterswift]

Must be getting near the end of the 3rd act now, the level design has

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taken on a very familiar Aliens look which some how seems to have relaxed me a bit, I guess it feels like I'm playing a sci-fi game more now,

if that makes sense. I'm very happy about this as I've almost died of a heart attack at least twice, and I'm struggling to tell if the sound of children and banging are my new upstairs neighbours or ingame. Been enjoying the flamethrower quite a bit, though I really need to work on slowing these fools down and not ending up in a fist fight with them, so many death animations to watch though

[SuperBeatBoy]

Its very linear. So much so, i made myself go in the opposite direction or doors i came across from the marker you follow. It benefitted from taking out enemies earlier and picking up many goodies, like suits and ammo.

[Synthesthesia]

Everyone complaining in this thread about it not being scary, must be one of these in my opinion (since i never really get scared off of games/ jump)

1). Playing with the lights on.
2). Playing in a social situation, friends etc.
3). Playing in stereo sound with it on a low volume.
4). Trying to predict the scares before they happen.

I've not done any of these, and it consistently makes me jump/ has me on edge.

Classic example earlier on, I KNEW the enemy on the floor was going to spring to life, but I still nearly jumped out of my skin haha. I kinda feel sorry for people if they can't see past little niggles, since there's really nothing that's going to come out without any faults. This is one of the best games of the year IMO. Impressing me much more than (the enjoyable) Fable 2.

My only problem is I've had barely any time to play it, only up to chapter 5 with about 4 hours played. I'll be playing this lots tomorrow as I'm free all day

Scraped through the turret, into Chapter 5. Still kicking my ass. Running from the

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mad doctor and his invincible uber-Necromorph

- this kind of thing pisses me off to the extent that it's supremely cheesy ancient videogame mechanics, as bad as CoD 4...

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oh, hey, the door won't open! I wonder if - should I run around fighting off infinite enemies and screaming for help for just enough time - techie chick will suddenly manage to get it unlocked? Oh, hey, sure she will! Isn't that nice?

but they're nowhere near as frustrating as the turret. They're doable, and the combat is basically a lot of fun, if flawed (the foot stomp's awful on Hard, it's so imprecise you're just leaving yourself far too open). Skill plays a large part, whereas the turret felt like luck.

You do realise that you selected to play on hard, right? The game IS going to try and kick your ass and it suits this type of game perfectly, I'm loving how brutal hard actually is. Far too many games hold your hand these days.

Its very linear. So much so, i made myself go in the opposite direction or doors i came across from the marker you follow. It benefitted from taking out enemies earlier and picking up many goodies, like suits and ammo.

I really don't see how it could work in any other way- it's a story driven game. If you raved over RE4 you can't really level that criticism here since it does exactly the same thing in terms of progression. (I know you're not complaining about it being Linear)

[Eight Rooks]

Again, it's not the difficulty that's pissing me off, it's that in a game with so much care and attention to detail and obvious love for what they're doing, why can't they do that little bit more to hide the fact I've walked into a locked room fight, something which was causing people no end of frustration when developers did it five years ago? I've never got this whole attitude of "oh, well, nothing's perfect" - maybe not, but it could be better. It could easily be better. I've also never got the whole idea that nitpicking means you hate something or you're not enjoying it. I like the game a lot. If there are no or very few more bits like the turret section I'll happily play through the entire thing and then do it again - I doubt I could manage it on Insane, but I'd like to try for as many trophies as I can. And the difficulty doesn't bother me that much - I do think it's a little too hard, but it's certainly doable and it's fun. I couldn't imagine trying it on Easy and I don't really want to have to do it on Normal. But still, just because you ignore the problems doesn't mean they're not there.

EDIT: Also, that's one thing that doesn't bother me at all - the linearity and the backtracking. It wasn't a problem in System Shock and it doesn't really feel like padding here. It's maybe not... realistic as such but it feels relatively plausible to be asked to run around different sections of the ship - I mean, I'm sure you'd be doing something similar in real life if you were trying to deal with a large scale emergency with a handful of people.

[Synthesthesia]

I've never got this whole attitude of "oh, well, nothing's perfect" - maybe not, but it could be better. It could easily be better. I've also never got the whole idea that nitpicking means you hate something or you're not enjoying it. I like the game a lot. If there are no or very few more bits like the turret section I'll happily play through the entire thing and then do it again - I doubt I could manage it on Insane, but I'd like to try for as many trophies as I can. And the difficulty doesn't bother me that much - I do think it's a little too hard, but it's certainly doable and it's fun. I couldn't imagine trying it on Easy and I don't really want to have to do it on Normal. But still, just because you ignore the problems doesn't mean they're not there.

EDIT: Also, that's one thing that doesn't bother me at all - the linearity and the backtracking. It wasn't a problem in System Shock and it doesn't really feel like padding here. It's maybe not... realistic as such but it feels relatively plausible to be asked to run around different sections of the ship - I mean, I'm sure you'd be doing something similar in real life if you were trying to deal with a large scale emergency with a handful of people.

I've never gotten picking on little faults really, but to each their own I guess. I like the fact that they challenge you every so often in those locked rooms, if it wasn't for that you could practically run through the whole game without having to shoot anything really. How many games bosses don't force you to fight them? Not very many. They kinda explain the whole "you're locked in and forced to fight" thing by having

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that crazy guy who thinks these things are the next course in evolution

But I guess you'd just see that as an excuse. So long as you're enjoying it then I suppose that's cool.

Most people probably won't have issues with what you're mentioning though.

[Extra Terrestrial]

I have just got back on the tram after completing chapter nine, which is the most atmospheric environment in the game thus far; it is very dark (I felt compelled to turned the brightness up but I resisted) and the new enemies you meet are fast, very fast.

After my first-play comments, the game has grown on me. I could say that it is lacking in terms of originality and the predictability values are fairly high but when a product is this polished and absorbing, it is unfair to raise the issue all too often.

I am impressed with the visuals - they are consistently good throughout the game and has some rather lovely lighting effects to boot. The moment you step from the ship to the Zero-G areas is wonderful; the muffled gunshots and complete silence is a different contrast to what goes on within the ship.

I don't want it to end!

[Goemon]

Just finished chapter 2, jeez I'm a nervous wreck! Anyone who thinks this games isn't scary isn't playing it the way its meant to be played. I've just shat my pants for the past hour and a half!

Very impressed with this game. It's very polished and very well done, I really think this will become a real sleeper hit.

I'm having a much better experience with this than I am with Fable.

[Eight Rooks]

I'm playing it with the lights out, though I don't have the volume up too high... my neighbours wouldn't take it for long. Nearly finished 6 - I'm just about up to the boss, I think, though God knows if I'll have the ammo for it.

Despite my nitpicking I am impressed with the tech, too. It's a really nice engine - I'm assuming it's proprietary? I don't see an Unreal 3 logo on the box or anything. Some fantastic shader work and the exterior lighting in particular is unreal. So good.

And speaking of the exterior settings if developers take one thing from Dead Space could they please, please, please take the vacuum levels? So happy Redwood Shores stuck with the idea (I read some previews that weren't very enthusiastic about it); I mean, it's about time we got a game that did it right. I really do hope the guy who voiced Isaac gets some more work, because his incidentals (gasps, heavy breathing, crying out etc.) are stellar.

[Synthesthesia]

Despite my nitpicking I am impressed with the tech, too. It's a really nice engine - I'm assuming it's proprietary? I don't see an Unreal 3 logo on the box or anything. Some fantastic shader work and the exterior lighting in particular is unreal. So good.

Yeah it's proprietary, UE3 couldn't pull off the stuff they wanted to do with the engine, so apparently they heavily modified a DS game engine () to meet their requirements for this game.

I saw a comment on some forum, apparently CliffyB said "This game looks really good for UE3." The devs the pointed out it wasn't anymore. "Oh."

[MonkeyWrench]

Reached the afforementioned

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turret section

, gave up after 4 attempts, will try again tomorrow. Please tell me there's no other ****ty mini-game sections like that later on in the game?

[Eight Rooks]

Not so far as I know. At least it's not just me who can't/couldn't stand it. If I go for a second playthrough - if - I'm not looking forward to doing that again.