From this video, http://www.joystiq.com/2012/07/25/the-quiet-solo-side-of-dead-space-3/#continued It looks a bit as if Gears of War, Mass Effect, and Lost Planet had a baby. Big ol boots? Check. Glowy Armor? Check. Drop in co-op? Check. Rapid fire default weapon? Check. Rpg Elements? Check. Shooting orange bits of limbs? Check. Magic Powers? Check.
So the demo is out if you signed up for it on 360. It feels a lot like Dead Space 2 to me, which is high praise. Drop-in/drop-out coop is in the demo but I was unable to get a game going but it's a neat feature. I'll miss the competitive multiplayer though. The weapon crafting system is really neat and you can do a hell of a lot to your weapons (the standard assault rifle comes with a force gun attachment, or you can have multiple types of shotguns, or best yet a linegun.) The only qtes in the demo are pressing A or pressing up on the left stick to climb which isn't that bad, nothing that wasn't in DS2 already. Not sold on the human enemies, there is already a necromorph type in the demo that turns corpses into enemies that fire their weapons at you so having standard enemy troopers actually aiming and throwing grenades and stuff seems a bit unlike Dead Space. I was amused that the grenades they threw had what felt like 10 second fuses though, I guess future grenades don't cook.
Oh and if anyone wanted to get in on the early access demo you still can https://www.facebook.com/deadspace?fref=ts&rf=142385209109048#
Played through the demo mission on co-op, unfortunately you are stuck with normal difficulty but it feels good, being able to reconfigure your weapons to complement your partner is really great. Item pickups seem to only be visible to you so there is no fighting over resources.
I loved the first two games but I'm waiting on this one to hear how heavily they lean on the coop. I can never play these games coop and want to play it solo.
I probably won't play co-op, but I'm interested in continuing the adventures of Issac Clarke, The Most Unfortunate Man In The Galaxy. I (in theory) actually like the shift to universal ammo - it removes the ammo sub-game that was in previous DS titles (namely: only carry 2 - 3 guns max because the ammo that's dropped depends on the guns you carry) and the idea of crafting weapons.
Just played through the demo in single player. It retains the Dead Space look and feel, so no worries in that regard. It's also gorgeous to look at. The presentation is just fantastic. What I didn't really warm to was the game play. Did enemies always require that many shots to take down? I felt like compared to the previous games (I finished DS1, played about 1/3 of DS2), everything I fought was just soaking up rounds, even when I was "strategically dismembering." Yeah, you could pump anything full of shots and kill it in previous Dead Space games, but I seem to recall them going down with far fewer shots if you hit the limbs right. Everything in the demo seemed to take way too long to kill. I also didn't like the little wormy guys that bring dead bodies back to life. Once is fine, but hopping from body to body is obnoxious and tedious. The drill bit fight that ends the demo was something else I didn't care for. It seemed like bullshit to have to deal with a bunch of bullet sponge enemies AND a murderous, out of control drill. One or the other, please. That circles back on the enemies taking too many shots to go down, though. Did the devs take a lot of inspiration from Uncharted in that regard, or what? Finally, while I think it's overly complicated and unnecessary, I'm okay with them bringing in a bunch of doo dads and crafting materials for me to pick up so I can craft and upgrade weapons. But if you're going to flood the game with bits and pieces to pick up, it's time to start marking that shit on the ground in some obvious way. I shouldn't have to run around like an idiot after a battle so the little window will pop up telling me something is there when it's close to Isaac's feet. When the amount of stuff to pick up was limited to ammo, health and the occasional upgrade coffee can, it was fine. With all this other shit to get now, they should have made it a lot less tedious to do.
A new character, a soldier. From the coop I played he seems to be a stereotypical "DONT GET IN MY WAY WORRYING ABOUT YOUR LOST GIRLFRIEND OR WE'RE GONNA HAVE PROBLEMS" type. He's still in the game if you aren't playing co-op, it just acts as if he's a few steps ahead of where you are in the demo.
I think the first dudes you encounter are a pain because they like to transform into the triple stalk which makes any limb severing you did before that pointless (you can kill them before this though.) They did seem stronger than the default blade dudes in the previous games. The worm dudes are easy to kill if you go for headshots. I had problems with the drill in singleplayer because as you said you get swarmed so fast, although my teammate was keeping them off me in co-op I found that the attachment I created for my assault rifle that put an AOE radius knockback spike in the ground was extremely useful at keeping things off me. I imagine many encounters you'll want to spec your weapons out for the best use. Never had a problem seeing things on the ground really, collecting billions of tiny objects is a hallmark of Dead Space.
Thanks for the tip on head shotting the worm dudes. I was going for the legs, thinking a head shot wouldn't be effective because it typically isn't in Dead Space. That AOE knockback spike sounds awesome and very useful for single player. I can see the stuff on the ground when it's just setting there and I come up to it. The little lights are pretty easy to see, especially sitting next to the green crates. For some reason after a battle though, I was having a hard time seeing any of the various things left in the environment. Speaking of ammo and crates just sitting there, I love the quick scares that sometimes happen when you roll up on those caches. It makes every one a little tense.
I finished Dead Space 2 over the weekend. I had forgotten how I had chosen to upgrade my weapons, but it turns out I went all Force Gun and Plasma Cutter. The win button in Dead Space 2 seems to have been the Force Gun. I was letting everything get close and then just blowing it to bits with that weapon fully upgraded. There was a lot of dismemberment, but it wasn't particularly strategic. Regardless, it was fun. The Force Gun equivalent in the Dead Space 3 demo doesn't seem to do any damage, or at least very little. It knocks guys down, but four or five shots at point blank range was not enough to kill a guy. I wonder if they adjusted the Force Gun's properties to make it nonlethal so dorks like me couldn't cheese their way through by simply exploding enemies.
I didn't really use it, but from what I remember, the unmodded Force Gun in Dead Space 2 was about as wimpy as you describe.
I played DS2 with a firm memory of what I most enjoyed in DS1, which meant I did the "only cutter" achievement for my one playthrough. It was interesting because I got to upgrade so much other stuff that it ended up not feeling like a limitation at all, especially because that weapon is so dominant when you get the hang of it. But I did really want to do a second playthrough with the full range of weapons, it's just that other things got in the way. I'm really looking forward to this, though I hope that my single-minded dedication to the cutter won't prove too much of a disadvantage.
I definitely used the Plasma Cutter pretty exclusively in Dead Space 1, along with the Line Cutter for bigger jobs. I must've wimped out a little in Dead Space 2, because the Force Gun was definitely my weapon of choice for dealing with the faster moving creatures that were constantly in my face. I tinkered some with the weapon customization in the Dead Space 3 demo, but didn't get a feel for whether or not you could just upgrade weapons as in previous Dead Space games. It seemed more like the various attachments and whatnot altered the properties of the weapons, but not necessarily the strength. It must just be that the demo never provided an opportunity to actually upgrade the weapons, though it definitely provided an upgrade opportunity for the RIG and the stasis ability.
If you've played Mass Effect 3 and still have a save file, you'll get N7 Armor for use in Dead Space 3. Kind of a neat little bonus! Edit: Removed the picture from the linked page. It's huge.
So how are the first two? Worth checking out? It's a shame the first one has been so thoroughly spoiled, but in gaming terms I guess it's ancient history now. If they can fit hallucinations into the co-op the way the trailer was suggesting, that'd be pretty awesome.
Actually, I totally forgot about Ellie. A one-eyed kickass co-op partner would have been awesome, and she had the attitude for it ("Other people are just a liability"). Instead, they went with generic jerkbag.
Yeah, it's a little dumb that Ellie wasn't tapped as the co-op partner. Maybe it didn't make sense to do in Dead Space 3 with the story they're looking to tell.
I never played the first (I just watched a LP of it) but the second is awesome. I liked it so much that I took over a hundred screenshots: http://adree2.imgur.com/
I somehow managed to do the eye poke on my first try. It doesn't even provide any instructions on what to do, at least not that I saw. I thought it was cool how it communicated the aim was right by changing color. A very cool sequence, though I can see it easily becoming frustrating. I was tempted to fail on purpose just to see what would happen. I didn't end up doing that because I hate seeing him get killed. Dead Space is pretty unique in that it shows the protagonist dying in brutal, gut wrenching ways when you screw up. I don't know about you guys, but I always feel awful when I see Isaac get torn apart.
I'm sure you can look up the video on YouTube. I failed it a few times, mostly because of the lack of instruction so I just hit the button and went to town the first time. Then I thought the heart beat was the indicator but I think I went past the sweet spot a couple of times. Anyway, yeah it's gruesome, as you'd expect it to be.
Do you like third person shooters? If so, absolutely. Note that DS isn't really survival horror unless you are 1) a terrible shot or 2) carry around 4 different types of guns and run into ammo problems. It's action horror. DS1 and DS2 are different experiences. DS1 sees you all alone and the game uses sound brilliantly, with the noise of your breathing inside the suit, environmental sounds and the screams of the necromorphs being all you hear. However, your character moves with the agility of a supertanker. (If you do start from here, only carry 1 - 2 weapons at a time, since the ammo that drops is only for the weapons you carry. Going with the Plasma Cutter only from start to finish is completely doable and arguably makes the game easier - I think I beat the end boss on Hard using just a fully-upgraded Plasma Cutter.) DS2 is a bit more action-y and gives you some company in terms of other characters. Background music was added (I don't think DS1 has any background music) which actually makes the game less scary - "are there any more necromorphs in here? Yes, because the dynamic music tells me so". Narrative is a bit so-so, but I thought it was a good evolution of the concept overall. Also, you are a bit more agile as a character, which is nice. It is more action-y, but I think that fits the setting well enough. I'd also say that the DS2 DLC, Severance (?) is worth a look. It's short-ish, but that just improves the narrative impact.
They're going to be selling crafting components via micro-transactions. So if you really don't want to bother picking this stuff up you can just buy it in the Dead Space 3 in-game store. Read more at the source. /wince
After going back to finish Dead Space 2 and then replaying the DS3 demo, the loot gathering didn't seem quite as tedious as it did on my first play through of the demo. I guess I'm not opposed to EA offering micro transactions in DS3, so long as the game isn't balanced in such a way that you're forced to pay for doo dads to upgrade to the best weapons. I guess we'll see.
IIRC, both the other DS titles had weapon packs as DLC. So it probably isn't a surprising move by EA.
Seems like a natural progression from what EA has been experimenting with in some of their other games. The Battlefield, Medal of Honor and Need For Speed series all have downloadable "shortcuts" that unlock stuff you'd otherwise have to earn by actually playing the game. This is very similar, as it lets you bypass the grind of collecting crafting materials.
There were no materials other than Power Nodes in the first two games. I can't help but think the crafting was put in just so they could add microtransactions.
Yeah, they definitely did. I think I even bought one of the suits for Dead Space 1 because I thought it was cool.
Maybe but a single item for upgrades is pretty limiting also it sounds as though the upgrade system is now more of a modification system and not just traversing some graph. Also if they wanted to they could have just reduce the number of power nodes available in the game and make them available for sale via microtransactions. Altering the upgrade system wasn't necessary to support that.
I imagine the marketplace stuff will be random packs of parts (there is one in the demo that you can collect) and will be set up similar to Mass Effect 3's N7 packs. At least it won't be quite as much of a gamble since the items are so interchangeable.
Well, here's one good reason to not overdo the impact of microtransactions: there's a risk you'll write something like this.
I disagree with that article on a number of areas. 1) DS1 and DS2 both had DLC that you could buy giving you access to special weapons and armour. They'd be sitting in the store at the first opportunity, which kind of destroys the "internal world" Kuchera is going on about. "Hi, we thought you'd be fighting undead space monsters today, so here's some weapons and armour from the vending machine. Tomorrow we'll be back to supplying chips and drinks". 2) DS has a lot of holes in its "internal world". Like Isaac Clarke being an engineer who is able to go head-to-head with waves and waves of necromorphs that tear apart better trained soldiers (who theoretically know the rules of fighting them as well). That his "engineering tools" seem designed poorly for any work function, but fantastic for removing limbs off reanimated corpses. That you can buy a military machine gun from a vending machine. That necromorphs drop first aid kits, money, ammo and transistor boards when you kill them. The "game" part of the DS universe is always very clear. 3) To my knowledge based on the information thus far released, you aren't forced to hit the button to buy DLC. It's not "the HBO character turns to the camera and asks you to pay a subscription fee", it's "press this button if you want to pay for some extras while watching this HBO show, but you don't have to". I think Kuchera's article is a touch premature until we can tell what impact this system actually has - if it means that some players buy strong guns and armour upfront, it won't change my gameplay experience at all and as such doesn't matter to me.
I'm with you on everything, except I would just punctuate each point with "...and fuck your starting premise, you ponderous, concern-trolling hack". But you know, different strokes.
