Can you believe it? I forced Xian to set up a skype recorder, so we could make an awesome video of first reactions to what I was assuming would be an epic opening set piece, and.... nothing! I feel so ripped off. If I had only recorded our first playthrough of Dead Space 2, it would have been amazing. Alas for missed chances for us, back then, and for Dead Space 3, now.
I had heard that there was some light outrage, something about the game giving up on being scary, complaints about multiplayer, something. I wasn't concerned, because I never felt it was the solitude that was scary. After all, Xian never actually played the game alone. I felt that the atmosphere could still be there, with two people. But no, it's not about the multiplayer. The game isn't scary because it has, in fact, abandoned any pretense at atmosphere or scary. It has become full modern RE, or even worse, Borderlands. The opening sequence is so not scary, there's no words for it. You just roll up to a brightly lit spaceship armed with full guns, ammo, and health, as some nameless person that's probably going to die anyway. You go ahead and click that link back at the top. Look how dark it is in DS2, first of all. You can't see anything properly, except for the gruesome death of the only person that is helping you, right off the bat. You're a crazy man, one hit from death, in a straitjacket. That's right. You don't even get use of your arms at the opening of Dead Space 2. You don't get kinesis or the plasma cutter until after... well, some gruesome stuff happens first, I'm not going to lie (like I did during those parts to reassure Xian). But it was more memorable than Dead Space 3, right? Man, in the middle of that video, it is so dark, you can not see a thing while reloading your gun, since the gun has the flashlight on it. So you unload the clip into one creature, and then all is dark for the entire seconds of reload - you just have to hope that the other one didn't close in on you in the pitch darkness.
And where are my super-creepy Nicole hallucinations? And super-punishing deaths? Sometimes, the deaths in DS2 were so bad that Xian would shut off the machine and we'd all have ice cream instead. In Dead Space 3, we were at Chapter 5 before we knew it. By Chapter 5 in Dead Space 2, we had already seen a man slit his own throat, crashed a tram and had to fight off brutes upside-down, been through the creepy ruins of a city, been through an even creepier church of Unitology, been swarmed by a pack of scary zombie children and then shot them out an airlock, and finally betrayed by the only lady helping you and made a harrowing escape. Just to fight a boss. These are the kind of cinematic setpieces I'm expecting from you, Dead Space. I don't want to play another Gears of War. Or what this is really turning into: Borderlands. Because of their new crafting system, I find myself wishing more necros would show up so I can get my hands on more materials to craft more awesome trinkets. That's bad, Visceral - wanting more necros should be counter to your goals. Or is it? I hear that you want to 'appeal to a broader audience' to sell more stuff (or someone has told you to do so), is this the way you're doing it? It really feels like you've taking away the 'Dead Space-ness' of it all.
Well, we will turn it up to a harder difficulty and see how the rest of the game goes.
