By Kieron Gillen on November 7th, 2008 at 6:45 pm.
Okay, that’s just going for the fancy pun-based headline as is RPS’ wont – it’s not dead, dead. But I’ve been thinking about EA’s recently released Dead Space’s chances, and this post was prompted by Yahtzee’s Zero Punctuation annihilation of it – which I’ll embed beneath the cut. He takes it apart – which is his wont, obviously – but it’s a game that seems to be slipping past everyone’s attention. Which seems somewhat odd. I mean, big-budget, hyper-slick action/horror game. It’s not exactly Dwarf Fortress.
I’m saying “wont” a lot in this post.
Anyway, here’s Yahtzee having a little ramble.
In passing, there’s a name for people who move from England to Australia: Criminals. We’ve got our eyes on you, Croshaw.
Where was I? Dead Space. Well, it’s too early to really talk about sales, but looking at the English weekly charts doesn’t show a game that’s dominating in the way which you expect a EA-backed game to do. It’s managed to hit Top 10 in all single formats, but now by its second week is already out of the all-format charts. Reviews have been favourable across all formats - currently 86% on the PC over at Metacritics – and that’s very close to its user-ratings. In other words, it’s out, people like it and… well, is that enough?
I admit, I haven’t played it yet. Jim has, and dug it. Why haven’t I played it? Well, it’s the reason why I suspect that it hasn’t done the business you presume EA thought it would do. It’s a ludicrously busy time of year. When I’m struggling to fit in Far Cry 2, Fall Out 3 and Left 4 Dead, do I really have time for a space-horror game that’s getting really good but not great reviews? Well, I wish I did, but I don’t.
And I think that’s what’s the problem – Dead Space seems to be hypercompetent and slick. But what it doesn’t seem to be is innovative. And at this time of year, selling a new creation without some obvious big hook to attract people’s attention… well, that’s hard. You suspect it may have done better in February, which is a traditional time to debut new IPs you don’t want lost in the Christmas melee.
Which leads me to the real point of the post. I’d had a few people mail us and ask us if we could do something about Dead Space, because they really liked it and thought it worth hyping up. I wanted to provide a place both for people who’ve played the game to have a little chat and for those who didn’t take the dive to say why.
I mean, is it the fact it uses the EA standard DRM? The lack of a PC Demo? Or just too busy?
07/11/2008 at 18:51 David says:
Having played FarCry 2, Fallout 3 and now Left4Dead (demo, obv), the next new game that I play has to have the number 5 in the title. Otherwise it’s just not going to hold my interest.
07/11/2008 at 18:55 Solace64 says:
I’ll admit it and say I jumped on the PS3 version because it came out a little while before the PC version. Either way though I am currently really enjoying the game. Maybe there’s nothing all that innovative but it does it all very well and that one boss fight mentioned in the video above was pretty freaking awesome.
07/11/2008 at 18:56 OJ287 says:
I played it the other day on a mate’s 360. Its not bad, which is damning with faint praise I suppose. Its just not in the same league as Far Cry 2 or Fallout 3, or most of the FPSs I already have.
Its like an ITV4 movie. You’ll play it and probably like it but theres no way you would buy it full price on DVD. Nothing special.
07/11/2008 at 18:56 ape says:
For me it’s a combination of DRM, the absurdly high price EA seems to be asking for all it’s digital download games (with the insulting extra fee to guarantee a 2 year download limit) and the fact that I know myself as a gamer. If I got bored of Crysis before even getting to the aliens ( I played about 2 days then uninstalled) and forced myself through
Bioshock so I could get to the climax with Ryan, I am certain a game that seems as repetitive as Dead Space will be a waste of money.
Not to say it doesn’t look nice, it does, it’s just that I know it will not compare to the joy of playing World of Goo, or for that matter even Fallout 3 (which I love).
07/11/2008 at 18:57 Andrew Kirkman says:
this is a slick game but It has become lost amidst me playing Far Cry2 and Left4Dead Demo, and after a very frustrating boss fight which Yatzee mentions I was left crippled with NO ammunition and a thousand barb throwing nasties to kill so I got frustrated and bored. Note this game is not scary at all, the only shocks are when the bloddy creatures sneak up on you in the vacume of space and the reaction is more of a oh jesus stop nibbling my head off!!!
07/11/2008 at 18:58 ImperialCreed says:
I’d be playing it now if Dvd.co.uk had shipped it to me when they said they would. Cocks.
Anyway, I’ve been really looking forward to this. I’m lucky enough to have been able to afford to buy pretty much all the big games out this past month. Finding time to play them is another matter, but I’d make an effort for Dead Space.
I’m surprised it hasn’t set the world alight too. I mean with the TV ads, the animated comic, the DVD, the short games on their website. A tremendous amount of work has gone into marketing this, and it’s turned out to be a really solid game to boot. The fact that it isn’t burning up the charts makes me a little sad.
But only a little. I still have Far Cry 2 to keep me company.
07/11/2008 at 19:04 Chis says:
Based on Yahtzee’s review, lack of innovation is an issue, but I’d wager – a guess, I haven’t played the game – that it simply isn’t particularly inspired. Yet more “sudden scare” pseudo-horror. Wake me up when another game comes along – like Call of the Cthulhu – that dares to attempt true horror: something that makes you feel fear. Horror cinema and gaming feels grossly inadequate after reading Lovecraft, or Ashton Smith.
07/11/2008 at 19:05 MechaKisc says:
I haven’t played it, and probably won’t. I haven’t played Mass Effect, and I haven’t played Bioshock.
Those are exactly the kinds of games I’d have said I want to play, if you’d have asked me, but none of them interest me in the least right now.
Fallout 3 and Dragon Age are the only things that interest me at the moment.
Ok, fine, and WoW. I’m excited for the race to level 80.
07/11/2008 at 19:07 Tom says:
I’m thoroughly enjoying Dead Space personally.
The game play is a mix between Sys Shock 2 and Doom 3 I guess. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
The moment when you go outside or glimpse space through a fractured hull are awesome. It is beautiful. I’d go as far as to say I’m enjoying it way more than I did Far Cry 2 – but only because my dislikes of FC2 just kept cropping up time and time again until I just couldn’t ignore them any longer. That game drove me nuts occasional – but to be honest it droves me nuts to the same level it impressed me.
There’s more to Dead Space than I think people realise and isn’t really shown well enough in the advertising. So many lovely little touches, it’s extremely competent but not a game I’m loosing hours to without realising. I can happily quit and pick it back up whenever. Having said that though – whenever is daily, and for at least a couple of hours.
I must admit I’m not feeling that desire to keep pushing on like I did with Sys Shock 2. But then I haven’t felt that in a game in a long, long time.
Miss you Looking Glass! o/
07/11/2008 at 19:07 Pavel says:
I played it about 20 minutes and quit, mainly due to meh beginning and small vomit inducing field of view. But I may try to play it sometime later, when I am not occupied by FarCry 2 and the others.
07/11/2008 at 19:08 kwyjibo says:
It’s doing rubbish in the charts because it’s not a gift item, or heavily promoted.
07/11/2008 at 19:10 Jim Rossignol says:
It is very slick and solid. And I enjoyed it a great deal. And it is exactly the wrong time of year to release it. It’s getting drowned out by the half-dozen other games every already has on their plate. If it had come out after Christmas it might have caught more limelight. It is *just* a corridor shooter, albeit a pretty one with cool space vacuum/zero-G effects, and big boots in which you can stamp on stuff. You can also upgrade your mask, which I like.
I gave it 86% in PCG. That makes me Metapsychic.
07/11/2008 at 19:10 frymaster says:
actually I thought Yahtzee’s review was pretty positive, for a Yahtzee review ;)
I will play this once I’ve finished Crysis, Crysis Warhead, X3:TC, Far Cry 2, Red Alert 3, and played some more left4dead.
I haven’t even bought Spore yet, never mind dead space :(
07/11/2008 at 19:12 Heliocentric says:
My other half is a survival horror junkie. I’ll be playing this some time after christmas, thats right i’ll assume she won’t read this and ruin her present.
I already have a stack of older titles so i’m forbidden to buy anything but little indie titles which arn’t even at retail (hinterland, world of goo). Or titles under a tenner (gog.com here i come) oh… And 2 copies of l4d.
We loves us some stupid zomfies.
07/11/2008 at 19:12 Seniath says:
I picked up Dead Space, but have no intention of getting either Far Cry 2 or Fallout 3. Shun me.
07/11/2008 at 19:14 Solace64 says:
Maybe I am crazy but I was mega hyped for Far Cry 2 but then I brought it home and played it for a couple hours and have not touched it since. I am tired of guard posts re-spawning in a matter of 5 minutes and random jeeps just dropping out of the sky to attack me while I travel across the map for the 7th time to go shoot something. I really want to enjoy this game, someone please tell me it gets better further in.
07/11/2008 at 19:16 Paul Moloney says:
Publishers Publish Glut Of PC Games In Nov/Dec And Then Wonder Why The Ones with Review Averages < 90% Don’t Sell Shock.
Seriously, my wallet is pretty bare what with Crysis:WH, FC2, FO3 and now L4D on my computer desk.
P.
07/11/2008 at 19:17 frymaster says:
(You haven’t got around to that Dwarf Fortress For Idiots Post yet, have you – RPS Subconscious)
Thanks to your linking of the tag, I came across that line. It would be most appreciated, please :P
07/11/2008 at 19:18 Konky Dong 1000: I kissed a RPS Editor and I liked it says:
Dead Space is not very innovative, but it’s fun as hell. I’ve played through it twice and I could see myself playing through it again.
07/11/2008 at 19:18 Carra says:
Bad time to release “good but not great” games.
Already bought World of Goo, Fallout 3, Left 4 dead & the new WoW expansion. Those alone should keep me busy for a few months.
I don’t get it, there haven’t been any great games in the last 9 months and now they all pop up. Just release the good but not great games in those 9 months and I might have bothered with it.
That and I won’t buy a game wich limits my number of installs.
07/11/2008 at 19:21 Jim Rossignol says:
Someone should remind the big publishers that we don’t actually just play games at Christmas.
07/11/2008 at 19:23 Maximum Fish says:
People who have played this: I keep hearing about “the most terrible mouse controls in port history” and so forth, which -and this may make me silly- has prevented me from buying the game. Is this true? Is there a workaround? In what way are they terrible and/or just fishy? Or are they?
Obviously it’ll be awhile before I get tired of Fallout 3, but i’d be really surprised if Dead Space ever got a PC demo so i guess now’s my chance to find this stuff out.
07/11/2008 at 19:26 dadioflex says:
You want to see a positive Yahtzee review look at the Saints Row 2 one.
I think I have a prejudice against Dead Space because the videos I’ve seen remind me of Doom 3 and I got thoroughly disgusted with that about halfway through. From what I saw in the Zero Punctuation review I was probably right.
Another thing. Dead Space is about 26 quid or so. X3 Terran Conflict is 18. I know which will give me far more VFM. (I’ll be reinstalling the now disk-check/Starforce free Gold version of the original X3, long before Terran Conflict though. I played X3 Gold for weeks and barely scraped all the modly goodness. I think it was only fifteen quid when I bought it too.)
When games stopped coming out at that £17.99 price point on Play and Amazon I started to get a LOT more picky about what I spent my money on. I used to buy a couple of games a month, now it’s more like a game every couple of months. Doesn’t help that I don’t even know if I’ll have a job this side of Xmas. A situation shared by a lot of people I reckon.
07/11/2008 at 19:32 dadioflex says:
Oh… Far Cry 2 again – re-spawning guard posts is amateur night. I figured out they should have had a pick a faction and expand your territory motive in the game so that once you took over a guard post it got held until they tried to take it back. Then you have the option to help the defence or leave it to take back next time. Running up the road killing everyone and then turning around and running back only to have to kill their friends all over again was awful.
Oh and we DO play games at Xmas, except in my house it’s Gamecube MonkeyBall Racer on the Wii with my nieces and nephews.
07/11/2008 at 19:33 The_Mhor says:
For me it’s the DRM. Sucks, but it’s true, they’ve cost themselves a sale (more actually, since I cancelled my RA3 preorder at the same time).
Still, Fallout 3 and Multiwinia should see me through to Left4Dead, and I think that’ll be the end of buying other games for a long time!
07/11/2008 at 19:35 Kadayi says:
Your pretty much on the money really Kieron. It all comes down to a lack of time. Dead space interests me as a title (I do find myself staring at it every time I’m in Tescos getting a lunchtime Sandwich), but with FO3, FC2 and the L4D beta to contend with, as well as GTA IV a few weeks away there really doesn’t seem much incentive to buy it fresh when by the time I’ve sated myself on what I’ve already got on my gaming plate, it will probably be in the 2 for £20 sale at Zavvi (along with BiA:HH). There was always going to be casualties in sales because of this busy release period and Dead Space is one of mine. I’d say it was a wise move by Monolith to shift the release of FEAR 2: Project Origin to next year tbh, because I suspect that too would of traded second best to a lot of other titles had it come out now.
07/11/2008 at 19:38 andy says:
different strokes for different folks. i’ve enjoyed dead space a ton more than the ilks of farcry2. and personally have no interest in left 4 dead, not even worth installing steam to try it out.
heck, i even bothered to finish the game. unlike farcry2, or the mirror’s edge demo.
as for the doom3 reference above, please, not even in the same league. dead space is what doom3 SHOULD have been.
07/11/2008 at 19:42 Andrew Kirkman says:
Edit to my earler comment…if u have played it or most of it…go back to the first chapter and play it with Biffy Clyro’s I am a mountain and no other sound…makes it much better :D…or maybe its just me :D
07/11/2008 at 19:42 cowless says:
Far Cry 2 has a lower metacritic/gamerankings score than Dead Space.
FC2 was a much higher priority for me than Dead Space because it’s in first person, basically.
07/11/2008 at 20:00 xz123 says:
I really did like – or better: still like Dead Space.
It is, together with Assassins Creed (surprisingly, as that one is uber-repetitive), the only game since.. Hitman : Blood Money or Thief 3 (whichever was last, excuse my brain) I didn’t put aside after two days of playing for a few hours. Bioshock got boring (although it reminded me of the good old System Shock 2 times), Crysis got boring – but remained pretty. Far Cry 2 didn’t ever even start to get interesting, and so on.
Still not done with it yet due to some time constraints, but except for some minor flaws I really like it. It’s beautifully gory, and, playing it at night, scary. Sometimes you absolutely know what’s going to happen but still are full of fear and get shocked like hell. As long as you allow yourself to be immersed, of course, especially with headphones. There’s nothing really new in it, but succesfully implemented stolen ideas.
07/11/2008 at 20:05 Dean says:
Also: not an established franchise.
07/11/2008 at 20:16 Katsumoto says:
I definitely intend on picking this up, opinion over at EG is almost universally positive (which is very unusual!). It’s just that I hardly have any cash at the moment and Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2 seemed more essential.
In hindsight, i’ll probably prefer it to Far Cry 2 (which I have been utterly disappointed by) but hey, too late now. I’ll get it at Christmas.
07/11/2008 at 20:24 Log1c says:
Can anyone comment on the PC control scheme? I heard that its pretty much a console port in that regard and doesn’t handle as well as it could. (ie Mass Effect).
07/11/2008 at 20:26 I don't understand this comment system says:
Yahtzee is dead wrong about this game. I had zero excitement for this game all during it development and only picked it up because of the ridiculously good reviews and because I was in the mood for another horror game.
This game may not be “innovation”, alot of the ideas come from other games, but then again you can say that about every game out there right now. This game is just exceptionally well made with a few sparks of brilliance. The weapons are interesting and the monsters you us them on are designed to make the choose of weapon you use of them a strategic one. The upgrade system is just plain brilliant, every upgrade is a exercise in what do you need right now versus what you are going to need down the road.
Of course normal mode is pretty much a cake walk so alot of the games subtly is lost. I know Yahtzee is playing on this mode because he is complaining about too much ammo. Whatever, I am going to back pedal and say that the game was still a blast on normal. I have no idea how he managed not to have fun with this game. Yahtzee is moving more more towards having a weekly flash video telling us to get off his grass.
07/11/2008 at 20:38 Dominic White says:
I’ve currently got the PS3 version on rental (LoveFilm – I’ll keep it till I’ve beaten it on the highest difficulty setting, and then maybe a New Game+ run) and I’m with Jim here. It’s a very good game. Derivative (System Shock 2 + Resident Evil 4 + Metroid Prime + Event Horizon + The Thing), but highly polished and a lot of fun.
The video review of it on Gametrailers pretty much nails everything I’d have to say about it – well, except for their gripe about slow inventory management in combat, because you have a quick-heal hotkey which is the ONLY kind of inventory usage you’d need in combat anyway.
It’s just in the unfortunate position of being a ‘very good’ game in the middle of a cloud of ‘fucking fantastic’ games.
As for Yahtzee – the guy has incredibly narrow taste in games, and lacks any kind of objectivity. He can be relied on for a fairly amusing bile-fuelled rant each week, but he’s pretty useless as a review source. He’s no Charlie Brooker, that’s for sure.
07/11/2008 at 20:46 Lobotomist says:
I dont know why nobody ever mentions that the game is almost unplayable on PC due to insanely unresponsive mouse.
That combined with weird displaced point of view , makes player noscious in mater of minutes! I wonder if the whole QA department of EA puked their lunches every day testing this game. Or was the game tested for PC at all ?
07/11/2008 at 20:50 Jahkaivah says:
Going partially off-topic, is it me… or us Yahtzee going to absolutely LOVE Left 4 Dead? It has pretty much everything he had ever said to like in a game:
- A creepy atmosphere making heavy use of paranoia (ala silent hill)
-Intense killing-tonnes-of-dudes action (ala Painkiller)
-In no way lets the plot drag the game down (one thing that irritates Yahtzee in a number of reviews)
-A sense of humour (ala portal and psychonauts)
-A valve game
Multiplayer? Sure that may hold it back… but its a multiplayer game without alot of the flaws found in multiplayer games.
07/11/2008 at 20:50 Lars Westergren says:
PC controls are ok – IF YOU DISABLE VSYNC! This is a bug probably… with it, controls are sluggish, there is a one second lag on mouse movements which makes it impossible to aim at the flailing limbs of monsters running at you. Once I disabled vsync and put mouse sensitivity to max, you still turn slowly but aim feels crisp.
It’s great if you like survival horror. I got maybe 80% through it, but then I got bored with it, then the repetitiveness Yahtzee talks about kicks in. Now I’m stuck in Fallout 3 which I admit I love (despite being one of the angry fans of original Fallouts and hanging out at places like No Mutants Allowed and RPG Codex), and soon other titles will come out, so I don’t feel I’ll go back to Dead Space anytime soon.
07/11/2008 at 20:54 Pags says:
Does anyone actually take Yahtzee seriously anymore?
But yeah, I’d like to be the millionth person who agrees that this was just a poorly timed release which would’ve gathered some more momentum had it not been released amongst a bunch of other AAA titles. Unless people have a little more patience than I credit them with and they’re waiting for Christmas to get it.
07/11/2008 at 20:58 Sagan says:
I have to disagree with Yahtzee here. I haven’t finished the game yet, but so far I don’t think it is bland.
Like when you listen to the audio log of your girlfriend, and the heartbeat of Isaac quickens as a response. I thought that that was really clever, because they managed to show character reactions, even though your character is mute.
And there was a “wtf” moment when I figured out, that sound is actually realistic in vacuum. As in – you don’t hear anything, except for your own suit.
Or the moment when you figured out, that the meteorite field is also simulated realistically: When walking over the ship hull, you don’t have to dodge meteorites, but there are thousands of tiny dust particles that rip you to pieces because of their speed. Who would ever expect something like that in a game?
Sure there is nothing radically new here like the Portal gun, but the game has surprised me a couple times so far with concepts that I didn’t expect. And that hasn’t happened to me in a long time outside of puzzle games.
07/11/2008 at 21:00 Skurmedel says:
Solace64 : I think it does.
07/11/2008 at 21:00 Jamie says:
The games scaring the crap out of me.
07/11/2008 at 21:01 rocketman71 says:
The DRM. And they say the controls suck. But the DRM is enough. I’m not buying anything from EA until they drop the SecuROM shit.
07/11/2008 at 21:03 Jahkaivah says:
@Pags
Yahtzee isn’t neccissary right, but given the games which he says are good, he has a decent sense of quality, he is well worth taking seriously.
07/11/2008 at 21:05 Conquests.of. says:
To me the game’s unnoticed passing simply means the game’s not good enuff for the picky Pc gamer’s palate.
07/11/2008 at 21:06 Sal says:
what DRM? I played the S out of Dead Space last night, with a back-lit keyboard, headphones, and the lights out…spooky!
07/11/2008 at 21:08 Nahual says:
I’m probably going to get some hate but the problem with this game it’s the fact that it’s in third person.
The atmosphere is actually pretty good, the voice acting is good enough, the setting and graphics are great and all, but a third person game is just not scary beyond “monster jumping out of windows” scenarios.
Resident Evil, Silent Hill, you name it, are just not as scary as good old fashioned AvP or System Shock (hell, even Doom 3 is scarier even if it’s mostly closet monsters) because as much as people want to defend those games you’re placing yourself in the role of a puppeteer, not inside the world itself and that just doesn’t do it.
Other than that, i got the game but haven’t finished because Fallout 3 came out and i did kindda got bored of chopping limbs off. It’s just too busy right now.
07/11/2008 at 21:11 Ravenger says:
I’d love to play this game but after getting burned with DRM on Mass Effect and Warhead I decided not to buy any more activation limited games.
If it drops to a tenner in price, then I’ll consider buying it, as that’s a fair price for a game you’re effectively only renting.
07/11/2008 at 21:13 Jahkaivah says:
@
Nahual
Yeah thats always bugged me:
One thing about stealth games and horror games is the key elements are your restriction of vision. So why are most titles in those genres third person?
07/11/2008 at 21:14 Jamie says:
“And they say the controls suck.” How do you mean? I was playing it on my pc 10 mins ago and didn’t have any problems.
07/11/2008 at 21:15 Pags says:
@Jahkaivah: Whether or not he has a decent sense of quality tends to get lost in the fact that primarily, his reviews are designed to entertain people, rather than inform. The whole comic ire thing means, more than most reviewers, he has to focus predominantly on the negatives of each game, often blowing them way out of proportion. In the same way that it’s unhelpful for reviewers to dwell too much on the positives of a game in which negatives exist, it’s exceedingly unhelpful to heed the advice of someone who focuses too strongly on the negatives when – as a lot of these comments have proven – there’s a great number of positives.
07/11/2008 at 21:16 solipsistnation says:
I can’t speak for the PC version, but it made a decent console game. Thinking about it, I suspect that if I’d played it on the PC I’d have found it restrictive, but I have different expectations for console games than for PC games. I play PC games because I want depth and exploration and detail– I play console games because I want something flashier and not too complicated that I can pick up if I have a few minutes and put down and come back to later.
07/11/2008 at 21:35 BeamSplashX says:
I watch Zero Punctuation for entertainment, not information. I can laugh at his Devil May Cry 4 review despite absolutely loving that game.
I thought the Spoony Experiment review of Dead Space was very fair and also quite funny, especially since it’s just him talking to the camera without any game footage in between.
07/11/2008 at 21:43 dadioflex says:
I don’t understand this comment system says:
“Yahtzee is dead wrong about this game. I had zero excitement for this game all during it development and only picked it up because of the ridiculously good reviews and because I was in the mood for another horror game.”
How can he be WRONG about an opinion?
I COULD say that your opinion of his opinion is WRONG.
It would be pointless and make as much sense as your assertion.
And overall he would have hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people see his OPINION and you would have a few of us drunken trolls on here see yours.
FWIW, I valued your opinion highly before I dismissed it as wrong.
07/11/2008 at 21:54 BarkingDog says:
I don’t know if it was just because my copy was of “dubious” provenance, but I had some pretty rubbish mouse lag. It was fairly annoying that I could only kill things if they appeared in my crosshairs and limped towards me like a frail pensioner. Fortunately, many (at least at the beginning) did so, but the zero-G bits are not as good I hoped (prey did it first and arguably better) and the bits when you go outside and there’s that stupid air timer on your back just annoyed me. Dismemberment was initially good for laughs, especially that remote-controlled saw blade, but that mouse lag and the same-ness eventually got to me. This game made me tired of dismemberment, something I didn’t think possible… So, “meh”. Thank god for fallout 3 and play.com!
07/11/2008 at 21:56 Dangerdad says:
The game isn’t just “jump out and scare you”. It does things which are very good. I walked up to a door, thinking there was screaming on the other side of the door, but it was something mechanical. The sounds are amazing that way. Sometimes you hear something that might be a monster, but it’s innocuous. It keeps you on the edge.
A great, great game. Far Cry 2 actually bored me (how do you make a hang glider boring?!?).
07/11/2008 at 22:04 MrMelons says:
Personally I don’t understand the hype of Fallout 3. I mean did i buy it? Sure i did because it looked pretty and i have fond memories of the two games before it. However after just getting done playing fable 2 I honestly felt limited in Fallout 3. Now i know you can run forever in this game and explore an entire world of devastation but short of killing bad guys, exploring buildings that after awhile seem to just blur together in the same monotonous dungeon crawling experience I feel like there isn’t much to do.
07/11/2008 at 22:04 discosauce says:
I’m about six hours into the PC version, and I absolutely love it. The POV took about a half hour to get used to, but after that it has not been an issue. While Yatzee may bitch about too much ammo and the weapons being overpowered, I wouldn’t know, as playing on hard mode seems to be the perfect horror-shooter setting. I am *always* low on ammo, the monsters are always difficult to kill, and the sight of more than one appearing at a time is enough to make me swear out loud every time. Overall I think Dead Space is a great game that accomplishes what it sets out to do. It is too bad that it hasn’t received more attention.
07/11/2008 at 22:06 MrMelons says:
Oops sorry. The above post was in protest to the hype fallout 3 is getting even though i felt it wasn’t innovative and that was a draw back noted about dead space.
07/11/2008 at 22:14 Jahkaivah says:
@ Pags
My point is, if Yahtzee says a game is good, its often or not well worth a buy.
If Yahtzee says a game is bad, it might be worth getting a second opinion, but he is rarely wrong about a negative part.
He’s never really blown the cons out of proportion (save the obvious exxgerations in his jokes). He just spends more time talking about them than with the positives.
Just apply a bit of logic when reading (90% of his criticism isn’t neccissarily something that is going to bother you, just cus he doesn’t spend much time with the positives of a game doesn’t mean they aren’t important, and if there is something good about the game he rarely misses it).
Thing is, I find about half of the games he reviews ultimately gets a “I like” reaction despite the criticism overhaul and the pros he mentions do tend the redeem the purchase.
I just don’t find he’s the grumpy reviewer who only likes two or three game that alot of people say he is.
07/11/2008 at 22:15 Chris R says:
For the love of Zeus, someone tell the publishers of Rise of the Argonauts to push back the release of that game past Christmas instead of rushing it out. PLEASE GOD! It could use the polish of another 3 months in production, and by Q1 or Q2 of 09, we’ll actually have the time to play Rise of the Argonauts!
07/11/2008 at 22:17 Chis says:
I would take back my words and say “I’m convinced”, after reading the replies here.
But… EA? DRM? Forget it.
07/11/2008 at 22:25 Ray says:
I really enjoyed playing Dead Space. I figured I wouldn’t play it much seeing as it came out the same time as Far Cry but I ended up being unable to stop playing. Definately better than I would have expected from EA.
07/11/2008 at 22:36 The Unshaven says:
I’m definitely interested in Dead Space, as the SS2+Metroid comments have piqued my interest. However, I paid full release price for Bioshock and I’m only getting to that *now,* so in self-defence I’m going to hold off. (Yes, I have just reached the camera in Bioshock. I suck.)
If there was a demo, I’d be downloading it as we speak so as to inform a potential future purchase. The other benefit to holding off is that perhaps by the time I get around to it, the DRM stupidity will be patched away.
07/11/2008 at 22:47 Jonny Robson says:
This time of year is a complete nightmare. There are just too many games to play. It’s bad enough if you’re concentrating on one format, in this case PC, but if you factor in all of the consoles, you get Gears 2, Fable 2, LittleBigPlanet and loads more besides. It’s madness! I imagine Dead Space will pick up again in the new year when everyone has sat down and had a good long think about what they’ve been spending their money on. Or something.
07/11/2008 at 22:47 Pags says:
“90% of his criticism isn’t neccissarily something that is going to bother you”
Which begs the question, why spend so much time talking about it? Inevitable answer is, it’s funny. Not informative, but entertaining.
The point really is that, even with a pinch of salt, it’s difficult to use the Escapist reviews as a buyer’s guide because it isn’t intended to be that – unless Yahtzee is trying to limit the damage to our wallets, which admittedly isn’t unwelcome. I can’t talk for everyone else who watches his videos, but I always found them more enjoyable after you’ve actually played the game – he regularly references annoyances where you’d have to have played the game to really understand what he’s talking about. In which case you’ve either already bought the game, or have at least played it and made up your own mind about buying it. The Escapist is the thing you do after playing the game, not before.
07/11/2008 at 22:55 MetalCircus says:
Why do people acctually pay attention to Yahtzee? He’s a really, really bad Charlie Brooker rip-off and he even manages to steal a few of his metaphors/jokes (only one or two mind you)
The thing with mr brooker was that he was a funny misanthrope. Yahtzee’s just a miserable cunt.
07/11/2008 at 22:56 Angel Dust says:
Personally I think Dead Space is really good. Not great but very solid and lots of fun. Sure it’s completely uninspired,c ribbing elements from half a dozen mostly better games, but it brings all those elements together into a cohesive whole with nothing feeling tacked on. How could anyone not enjoy slow-mo and zero-g dismemberment? It also looks great, I love your suit design, and has some nice lite-RPG mechanics which I find to be much better than Bioshocks. Warning though: YOU MUST PLAY THIS GAME ON HARD to get that SS2 scrambling for resources feeling and if you’re experiencing mouse lag turn off v-sync if the game options and enable it form your graphic cards control panel.
I really don’t think innovation is the issue since Fallout 3 isn’t innovative in the slightest. I do like that game though but there is nothing new in it.
07/11/2008 at 23:01 MetalCircus says:
Originality tends to be overrated – labours of love that are slaved over for years can get completley glossed over if they aren’t innovative which is grossly unfair, because, thinking about it, for what they are, they’re enjoyable. For example Fallout 3 offers nothing new really, it’s just a fucking good experience. And that’s what matters, innit?
07/11/2008 at 23:07 subedii says:
Definitely the DRM for me I’m afraid. There’s plenty of other titles that I can get for that money. I ended up getting Fallout 3 instead of Dead Space as a result, and to be honest, I’m really happy with that decision.
07/11/2008 at 23:19 Nahual says:
Ok: MOUSE LAG SOLUTION HERE!
I know what you’re all talking about, I did experience mouse lag too.
For some incredibly weird, unexplainable reason it seems like the mouse speed is affected by the Vsync. So disable the in game Vsync in the graphic options.
The bad thing is that the games runs at much higher than 60 FPS you get on most LCD’s so the game turns into a teary mess, specially when there’s blinking lights.
You have to force the Vsync back in using your graphic card’s utilities. The instructions for ATI and nVidia vary, but if you’re reading thins I assume you know how to navigate your graphic driver’s control panel.
The other problem is the mouse is unbearably slow, but that’s easily fixable with the mouse sensibility slider (i had to take mine almost to the max before it became playable).
After that it actually plays better on the PC than on the Xbox, i would say.
07/11/2008 at 23:22 Mark says:
I’m boycotting EA after hearing about their apparent “we can revoke your license at any time for any reason” policy. Not even getting the console version of this bad boy. Hell, they might even have motivated me to take up piracy again, just to spite them, and I haven’t pirated a game I could buy since high school.
07/11/2008 at 23:29 mashakos says:
I returned it and got Far Cry 2 instead.
As a left handed gamer with a disability in my right hand, locking the control bindings effectively bans me from playing the game. I can’t tell you how good or bad it is since the developers in their infinite wisdom decided I’m not good enough for their little game.
Dead Space = Dead Port
07/11/2008 at 23:29 Erlam says:
“it’s exceedingly unhelpful to heed the advice of someone who focuses too strongly on the negatives when – as a lot of these comments have proven – there’s a great number of positives.”
Why? You can look at the back of the game box for positives — who’d buy a game because random dude on the internet makes vague descriptions of the art being ‘exceptionally well done,’ and only slathering praise on it. You can ask fanboys, the aforementioned box (well read, not ask), or check the games own forums for why they love the game. Reviewers SHOULD be crotchety and hate everything — I’d rather know why the game I’m looking at sucks. Knowing the controls are wonky might be a deal breaker for me; awful camera angles might be a deal breaker for me; a three hour game might be a deal breaker for me; terrible A.I. might be a deal breaker for me.
Saying ‘overly’ negative reviews are useless is hardly the way to think about this. If you were buying a car, would you listen to the salesguy, or your friend who bought a Honda and hates it? Who would provide more valuable info to you?
07/11/2008 at 23:30 shon says:
I find I have enough trouble finding the time to play the games I own. Just recently I added Spore, Fallout 3 and Left4Dead to that list. Dead Space looked nice but I had to *not* buy something.
07/11/2008 at 23:32 Nahual says:
@Dangerdad
Oh, it’s not that i don’t think the atmosphere is bad, but, well, third person for scary games just doesn’t work for me, I played alone, at night, by myself, lights low (i can’t turn them off cause the monitor starts to hurt my eyes), with headphones, you know, my S.T.A.L.K.E.R. dungeon setup.
Nothing.
It startled me a few times, yes. When a bunch of enemies showed up at once I did get some adrenaline rushing, yes. But it’s just not scary. I was actually trying to figure out what the voices were saying, usually things like emergency maintenance.
Of course, it might be just me. I don’t hate third person games or anything, but there has never been one that manages anything other than spook me a few times, rather than make me turn it off, turn the lights on, take a deep breath, and go watch Scrubs instead, like quite a few FPS have.
07/11/2008 at 23:33 dust says:
Looking forward to play Dead Space as I traded it in for that abomination Fable 2.
Yes I know this is a PC oriented place of opinion making so I’ll just add that I’m also enjoying the Left 4 Dead demo and Red Alert 3, coop is too much fun.
07/11/2008 at 23:35 Pags says:
@Erlam: I don’t know if you noticed, but I mentioned that it’s also unhelpful if someone focuses entirely on the positives as well. My point was that balance is necessary, and the Escapist shuns that balance in favour of entertainment. But seeing as it seems you selectively read reviews to find negatives, it would seem you selectively read comments too!
I also cannot believe you resorted to a car analogy. Shame on you.
07/11/2008 at 23:50 undead dolphin hacker says:
86% is “really good but not great?” I thought it was taboo to enable the 7-9 scale in New Games Journalism.
Also, Dead Space may as well be System Shock 3 in the same way that STALKER was Fallout 3 for awhile in there.
08/11/2008 at 00:07 Larington says:
Theres just too much being released atm plus the fact I ought to be doing uni work.
Gah!
08/11/2008 at 00:45 Grey_Ghost says:
I just finished Far Cry 2 the other day (hardcore mode), and Dead Space was way more fun and took much longer to finish. Dead Space is a really good game, the best console port I’ve ever played. Hell, the only console port I’ve actually liked.
Neither Far Cry 2 or Dead Space really offer a significant reason to replay them, but it seems more and more games don’t nowadays. I really hope Ubisoft releases the SDK for Far Cry 2, otherwise the game will just die.
I truly recommend people on the fence about getting Dead Space go ahead and try it, it really is a good one.
08/11/2008 at 00:46 Rhalle says:
Zombies….Space Marines…cinematic fps shooting….in space no one can hear you scr…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Sorry I dozed off there. Did someone mention creativity, along with new setting, story and gameplay mechanics?
No?
Well, sorry, gotta go play either a WWII shooter or modern gunplay simulator on my XboX.
Later.
08/11/2008 at 00:50 Gap Gen says:
So far (act 2) it could try to be scarier. As it is, you expect most rooms to be full of monsters coming up behind you.
That said, the kick-the-baby animation is the finest thing to come out of gaming this year.
08/11/2008 at 00:53 qrter says:
I agree with Pags here – I’m genuinely amazed when people seem to take Yahtzee’s reviews seriously. His first intention does seem to be entertainment, not informing. And there’s nothing wrong with that, mind you, he makes me laugh. It’s not just a review.
That said, Erlam is also right in a way, because it is quite clear that this is the case, so you can take that into account, same as you’d normally read/watch a couple of reviews per game to get a feeling of what the truth might be (or at least the truth as it applies to you personally as a gamer).
I also quite like reviewers to have a negative slant, but Yahtzee needs the negative slant to make jokes and create his pieces, so then the negative slant begins to slant all over the place until it becomes a steep drop down.
(However, that car analogy is fundamentally unfair, Erlam, as it’s clearly not about negative vs. positive but about advice-from-unknown-person vs. advice-from-wellknown-person – Yahtzee may be a personal friend of yours, for most of us, he isn’t.)
08/11/2008 at 01:05 jalf says:
Call me shallow, but the reason I just didn’t get caught up in the hype was…. the helmet. It looks ridiculous. It just *screams* “we don’t have any proper artists, and we don’t have a clue about the art direction we want. We just went with something the programmers thought looked cool”. (And yes, I’m a programmer. That’s why I can’t stand programmer art :p)
I might have checked it out anyway, if the PC hadn’t been flooded with awesome games at the moment, but… I just don’t have time for games that don’t deliver on all fronts right now. :D
08/11/2008 at 01:48 Jahkaivah says:
@ Metal Circus
So… Yahtzee is a Charlie Brooker rip-off, but thats ok since originality is overrated? :P
08/11/2008 at 01:51 internisus says:
Dead Space is one of my most satisfying purchases ever. Yes, on the PC. I don’t know why everyone is saying that there is no innovation; the ability to toggle the orientation of your primary weapon’s line of fire between horizontal and vertical is surprisingly smart, and this is the feature that makes strategic dismemberment a lot more interesting than a simple alternative to the tired head-shot.
But the real reason I love the game is its sound and visual design. As someone mentioned, the first time you step into a corridor near the ship’s outer hull where the wall has gotten mangled and torn up is just breathtaking. I spent so long looking at the view that I didn’t leave myself enough time to get back inside before my air ran out.
The aesthetic design is brilliant. I’m the kind of principled gamer who achieves significant arousal when exposed to a HUDless interface, and the way that they executed that here yields very original (for a videogame) sci-fi transparent floating displays. The health display and everything being integrated into Isaac’s suit is really cool and quite believable. The gothic influence on architecture and the suits that was hyped in some of the GT featurettes is actually quite awesome. The game is full of the kind of internal consistencies that create a sense of a detailed world–so much so that I am glad that we will be getting a sequel even though the game would have been just delightful as a one-off. I love getting to know this spaceship because it makes sense, and I would be very happy to see the game take off as a franchise if only to have more locations like this to explore and to directly learn more about what humanity is up to at this point in time.
Anyone who says that the only thing the game does to scare you is make monsters pop out of vents obviously isn’t playing with headphones. Dead Space is all about atmosphere, and atmosphere is the name of my game. There is an early corridor where the power goes out suddenly for about seven terrifying seconds–and nothing happens. The power just comes back on. This only happens the one time. I was in love from the very start after the initial crash scene because of the long, darkly droning two-note string. The whole game is filled with immersive moments like these–some scripted, some contextual, and some random–and so the game is really quite the intense place to be.
I don’t have any issues with the mouse, and my in-game vsync is on. The only place where the mouse is weird is in the menu screens; it twitches and jitters and is slow to respond. I don’t really care, though? Gameplay is fine. I bet it’s better than it would be on consoles since you can aim more precisely and turn much faster than you would be able to with an analog stick.
As for Yahtzee, I enjoyed him originally for what he was, but his attitude has worn on me. I still watch some of his reviews, but I’m starting to hate him for panning decent games. The fact is, most of his criticisms are subjective (with regard to Dead Space, I couldn’t disagree more on most of the points he makes) and actually pushing into the asinine. He’s just an entertaining troll at this point, and I feel sorry for anyone who actually watches his stuff for informative reviews.
ATTN: RPS. Stop plugging that insubstantial sassmouth and start announcing new videos by this guy instead: http://uk.youtube.com/user/kirithem
08/11/2008 at 01:58 Kadayi says:
@Jahkaivah
I’m not so sure about Yatzee tbh. He absolutely slaughtered The Witcher in his ‘review’ and did a real injustice to probably the best RPG that we’ve seen since in a long time.
08/11/2008 at 01:59 DigitalSignalX says:
I still have C&C3 and Sacred 2 in the shrink wrap, finished FC2 and about half way through Fallout. There’s just no time for Dead Space, and the next paycheck I bite in to feed the addiction will be for GTA. For sure on the “Must Play” list. . . eventually. I’m actually hoping StarCraft and Diablo get pushed back some because there is just *too much* PC crack on the shelves atm.
08/11/2008 at 02:03 Jahkaivah says:
Incidently I love it when Yahtzee points out a trait or criticises a mistake he makes in his own games.
I don’t really consider it Hypocrisy since its likely that he admits it was a mistake he will not repeat.
He sometime points it out. But often he doesn’t and some of them are so specific its hilarious.
(roughly quoted)
During his condemned 2 review: “I was interested untill I was hearing the words “evil dark cult” being thrown around”, kinda like Trilby’s Notes and 6 Days a Stranger?
During Super Mario Galaxy: “Mario decided to head into space in lure of innovation kinda like Jason did in Jason X” and John Defoe did in 7 Days a Stranger….
And in this review: “Just once I would like a ship that would look like somewhere I would actually want to live…. somewhere that isn’t covered in gunmetal grey” Does the word “Mephistopheles” ring a bell to you?
08/11/2008 at 02:06 Dracko says:
Wow, RPS has now reduced itself to taking Yahtzee’s bullshit seriously. I’d say this was unthinkable, but I’d be lying.
Saying Dead Space is derivative or lacking in ambition is purposefully not paying attention. What it does, in a market swamped by “concepts” but not even the most basic of proper game design fine tuning – I’m looking at you Far Cry 2 and BioShock – is set out to create a compelling experience told elegantly. It doesn’t matter if the story is no great revelation – and to be sure, I could imagine a few changes that might have benefited it – but it’s told very well without intruding on the core experience, which is solid in itself and its atmosphere is tone perfect.
That in itself, is pretty fucking ambitious in this day and age, I’d say.
So fuck this stupid hang-up on “innovation”. Game developers should go back to the drawing board and remember how to make a good game instead. Which Dead Space is. It isn’t burdened by presumptuous, pretentious bullshit. UbiSoft and Irrational can not make that claim.
I don’t see you tearing Valve a new one, is what I’m saying.
08/11/2008 at 02:08 Dracko says:
Also, yeah, Yahtzee can’t even listen to his own criticisms.
Hating shit for no real reason is not much of a job, I’d say. He shouldn’t be proud of it.
08/11/2008 at 02:08 Pags says:
@Kadayi: to be fair, most reviewers panned The Witcher because… well, there was quite a lot to pan. But does bring me back neatly to my point that focusing too closely on the negatives of a game can be damaging when there’s much to recommend.
And Jahkaivah, if there were ever any proof that Yahtzee’s ‘reviews’ were intended purely as entertainment, what you just quoted would surely be it.
08/11/2008 at 02:11 Dracko says:
And Dead Space is a much better successor to the Shock series than BioShock or System Shock 2 ever were.
You know what? This team should be allowed a stab at remaking System Shock.
P.S. What happened to the edit function?
08/11/2008 at 02:12 hydra9 says:
Thanks for your comments, internisus (and others). I will definitely be adding this to my ‘To Buy’ list.
As for Yahtzee, I quite enjoy his reviews, but don’t pay too much attention to his criticisms. And as far as I’m concerned, the best work he’s ever done is his first three ‘Chzo’ adventure games.
08/11/2008 at 02:15 Dracko says:
Trilby’s Notes in particular is a good piece of horror adventure gaming, I’d say.
08/11/2008 at 02:24 Jahkaivah says:
Just noticed that I forgot the names of the Chzo mythos games, its 7 days a SKEPTIC and 6 Days a SACRIFICE, your not a stranger all the bloody time.
I feel I ought to point out that I have not played Dead Space yet, my post was referring to Yahtzee in general, not this specific review, I’ll be sure to give it a shot given how well you guys have complimented it.
Im also not saying that Yahtzee doesn’t completly cock
things up, I remeber he completly missed the appeal of EvE
08/11/2008 at 02:35 Pidesco says:
From all I saw on the game before release, it seemed like RE4(which struck me as a pretty awful, not scary, action game) in space.
It takes more than cool monster mutilation to make me buy a game. Even if the game had came out at another time in the year, I probably still wouldn’t have touched it. Maybe I’ll buy it used for less than five euros, someday.
On a completely different note, the majority of the games selling oodles right now weren’t innovative in any way, so I don’t think that’s Dead Space’s problem.
08/11/2008 at 03:01 Eschatos says:
It’s very much like RE4, but it’s still a very good game. If you don’t mind a lack of innovation, then you should at least rent it.
08/11/2008 at 03:26 Nick says:
What do you mean like RE4 BUT a good game? RE4 was a good game..
08/11/2008 at 04:49 Caiman says:
What gets me is this happens EVERY year. There’s a massive landslide of generally good to excellent games, and most people just can’t afford to buy them all (ESPECIALLY in our current economic climate). Of course, the suits take a look at the sales figures and nothing else, and declare the genre dead because it didn’t sell in droves.
Short story: the pre-Christmas period is not necessarily the best time of year to sell your game.
08/11/2008 at 05:13 spacedoubt says:
As a retailer I’ve found that the glut of games plus university exams have slowed sales of otherwise solid titles. Though it’s yet to be seen I think all of these games will have a long sale period even past xmas, particularly ones like Dead Space which seem to be being passed over initially.
08/11/2008 at 05:14 Radiant says:
Lovefilm! I didn’t know they rented games!
12.99 to rent 4 games that I can give back whenever I like.
This is a REVELATION.
I’m definitely going to pick Dead Space up then.
This is one of those games with ZERO longevity once it’s over [no multi player component basically]; I just didn’t want to buy it, finish it and then get stuck with it. I’ll stick it in the queue for next week.
Thanks mate I didn’t know they rented games!
08/11/2008 at 05:17 Radiant says:
I mean I still have Prey ffs.
08/11/2008 at 05:36 PaulMorel says:
It’s exactly as you said. I just blew $150 on Fallout 3, Dar Cry 2, and Left 4 Dead (which, so far, appears to be a fabulous investment). I really don’t have the time or money for mediocre games.
08/11/2008 at 06:03 MeestaNob! says:
I don’t want to add to the queue of people trying not to ruin the conversation with DRM babble, but I really have no choice as Dead Space was struck immediately off my ‘looks interesting’ list purely because of the DRM, and joins Spore and Red Alert 3 in the ‘Not Even From A Bargain Bin’ list.
I wouldn’t consider a console version either, as that merely encourages them to be dicks to honest people.
If they think about re-releasing these games later on without the anti piracy measures, I will give their titles due consideration as I would any other purchase and part with cash accordingly.
EA cost themselves $250 right there from an honest gamer, and pirates don’t pay for anything anyway so they don’t count and never will.
In other news:
> cmd_buysLeft4Dead = true
08/11/2008 at 06:11 GLOWi says:
It’s not probably a big consolation :), but in Czech republic is still 3rd (PC version, of course) in an all platforms chart in the biggest online shop.
I’m yet to buy it, I’ve heard a lot of complains concerning the hero’s head restricting the view and 4:3 monitors. And I have a 4:3 monitor. What’s your experience? Thanks
08/11/2008 at 06:50 The Apologist says:
Yep, too busy playing Far Cry 2 and Little Big Planet in time for L4D.
Sigh…
08/11/2008 at 06:53 redrain85 says:
This one of the few times where I find myself disagreeing quite strongly with Yahtzee.
Now, I do agree with some of his points. Dead Space is definitely an obvious pastiche of many iconic science-fiction pop culture properties. It liberally rips off The Thing, Event Horizon, Alien, System Shock 2, Resident Evil, and more. But the end result is so well done, I can’t really find fault with it. I know subconsciously that I shouldn’t be enjoying the game so much. But I do!
I’m about halfway through the game and I’m finding it’s not actually scary. As opposed to System Shock 2, which filled me with dread when I played it. But Dead Space is eerie and unsettling. And all the attention to detail: like seeing atmosphere venting into space, the muffled sound in a vacuum, seeing liquid and debris floating in Zero-G, the aformentioned moment where asteroid particles can rip you to pieces . . . the Dead Space team deserves some kind of award for this.
The PC version does unfortunately suffer a bit from “console port” syndrome. (The VSync issue, no in-game menu option to disable any joystick/gamepad so it doesn’t override the mouse, save game checkpoints, some hard-mapped keyboard controls.) For checkpoints, I can overlook that because it may actually have been an intentional design decision. Not being able to save whenever you like, does make the game more tense.
But the hard-mapped keys are inexcusable. Being able to completely customize keyboard controls has been a staple of PC gaming since, well, forever. This needs a patch, yesterday. On the other hand, I find the mouse control to be just fine as long as you turn VSync off. The game also runs extremely well on my setup. Dead Space was definitely optimized well for the PC. The load times are almost non-existent.
It’s funny, because early on when I was keeping my eye on Dead Space, the early previews didn’t look that compelling. I had written this off as a poor System Shock clone. Then, as I saw more previews, my interest grew. I waited until I heard from some fellow like-minded gamers before I bought it. Since their response was generally favorable, I bit the bullet.
Dracko said that Dead Space is more of a spiritual successor to SS2 than Bioshock, and I tend to agree. I’m having way more fun in Dead Space than I did in Bioshock. With the difficulty set to hard, I’m often running out of ammo and other resources and getting my ass kicked. Compared to Bioshock’s joke of a hard difficulty setting, where I had to make sure I hadn’t somehow accidentally enabled god mode.
It did piss me off to buy the game, in the sense that it means I’m supporting EA and their brain-dead customer and DRM policies. But what’s an honest gamer to do? Your options are: don’t buy it, pirate it, buy it, or buy it and pirate it. I chose the last option, and installed my DRM-free copy of Dead Space.
08/11/2008 at 07:13 JulianP says:
I most certainly take Yahtzee seriously. He hasn’t so far said a thing in any review which I wouldn’t have agreed with. The universal truth is that 90% of everything is crap. And that goes double for video games.
08/11/2008 at 08:27 malkav11 says:
Two basic issues – it’s competing with Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 for my overall time, especially on the PC (where the shitty DRM is also a problem), but if we move to console territory, it runs up against the latest Silent Hill game, which is a horror series I know and love and which consistently creeps me out in a way I don’t really expect Dead Space to manage. I want to play it, but it’s not going to be until after Christmas, I strongly suspect.
08/11/2008 at 08:43 Optimaximal says:
Sorry, but ‘optimisation’ and ‘loads quick off a HDD – a device that spins several hundred times faster than an optical disc drive’ are not one and the same. In a nutshell, any game that takes longer than 15-20 seconds to load a level/map these days is doing something wrong, especially in systems with > 1GB RAM.
(NB – Online games don’t count – it’s often the syncing with the server that takes time, not the map loading)
08/11/2008 at 09:23 Don says:
If it’s not getting the sales it should blame the marketing department’s usual lack of guts. It seems the received wisdom is that games should all be released in the few months before Christmas. Well there’s bound to be a few blockbusters in the deluge which doubtless reinforces the view, but a good(ish) game can get overlooked as everyone’s focusing on the headliners. If they had confidence in the game they’d punt it out at a quieter time when it would attract more attention.
Dead Space is something I’d have gone for if it had come out some other time, it may be a bit generic but seems to be well enough implemented. But it was obvious I’d have enough mercenaries/mutants/infected on my hands for the next few months so the space monsters will have to wait their turn. The turn into budget space monsters to be precise.
08/11/2008 at 09:29 thesombrerokid says:
i’ve played it, it was brilliant but i will never buy it (DRM)
BTW England != Britain, behavior like that tells me you’ve spent to long in New England (New England Washington, whats the differance ay?) GRRRRR!
08/11/2008 at 09:49 Larington says:
In a way, I think the games industry, its surrounding industries (Reviewers, et al) and most importantly the people who buy games (Consumers I suppose), should be wary of getting too hung up on innovation.
For one thing, there are plenty of films that aren’t exactly innovative in terms of cinematography or any of the technologies used to tell the story, but the story itself is so compelling that this doesn’t and shouldn’t matter. Kind of like how Anachronox used a rendering engine that even at release was a bit on the old side, but the masterful story telling more than made up for that imho.
Then again, I can play Deus Ex with no issues with the visuals, yet a fellow student on my course couldn’t get past the games old graphics.
Wiiiich makes me wonder why there isn’t a unified Rendering AND Gameplay Engine which can be updated incrementally even after a game has been released. (A system implemented in modules so that within the usual limits, you could unplug rendering module A23 V1.2 and plug in V1.4 with minimal effort, as opposed to the Unreal Engine way of doing things, which is to just develop a whole new graphics engine from scratch every few years, seems a bit wasteful to me).
08/11/2008 at 10:16 redrain85 says:
@Optimaximal:
That’s not what I meant. What I meant to say is that it’s optimized and load times are quick.
On my Athlon X2 6400+, Radeon 3870, 2GB RAM, Vista x64 SP1 system: the game runs smoothly at 1680×1050 with all graphics options maxed out, and with 4xAA and 8xAF applied. I’ve only encountered one noticeable slowdown, which was when I entered the hydroponics sections, which are massively open spaces filled with many structures and plants.
Now, having said that, why does a game like Thief: Deadly Shadows still take bloody forever to load each level? The game was designed to fit in 64MB on the Xbox, for crying out loud. It should absolutely scream on my current system with the faster processor and ample memory. Yet, it doesn’t. So having an HDD doesn’t automatically mean fast loading times.
08/11/2008 at 10:30 Tei says:
Now, having said that, why does a game like Thief: Deadly Shadows still take bloody forever to load each level?
New hardware is faster, but also provide new ways to do things. Old software will not use that new features, so can’t use the 100% of the new hardware.
Theres also sofware poorly coded. If you read one byte at a time, your app will be slow even on a cray. If you read 4096 bytes, it will be much faster. Is also about how something is programmed.
08/11/2008 at 10:45 redrain85 says:
Theres also sofware poorly coded.
Bingo. Thief: Deadly Shadows was poorly coded for the PC, leading to excessively long loading times. Even on a system built three years after its release, the game still runs like shit.
Therefore, optimizing the code of your port actually can and does make a difference.
08/11/2008 at 11:32 Radiant says:
When your finished working out what’s wrong with this we also need someone to fix the Large Hadron Collider.
I should hope it does!
How fast do you want your PC?
I mean what else are you planning to do with it?
08/11/2008 at 11:37 Radiant says:
But seriously reviews, the same as how ‘smooth’ something runs on your End Boss Level pc, are purely subjective.
It’s remarkable how people will attach themselves to a review because it agrees with their particular point of view rather then actually playing the game for themselves.
08/11/2008 at 11:45 Monchberter says:
@ Larrington
There are game engines that are periodically upgraded in an ongoing fashion. Just look at Source. I know people are increasingly saying that it is looking tired, but Valve have managed to keep up with the pack in all but gigantic levels (FC2, Crysis) and destructible scenery.
TF2 i think is more impressive than Left 4 Dead in this respect, and that game is now just over a year old.
Valve released Source in a world of single cores and have bolted on all manner of gubbins to take advantage of multi’s. Problem is, it’ll need a root and branch. It only takes a look at FC2 to show what truly dedicated multicore engines can do.
08/11/2008 at 12:26 redrain85 says:
@Radiant:
If you’re trying to say that my setup is some kind of uber-rig and I’m trying to brag . . . hardly. The whole reason for pointing out the specs of my system, was precisely because it’s not top of the line any more. It wasn’t even cutting edge when I built it last year. A dual core Athlon and 3870 are considered middle of the road by today’s standards. I might have a better system than most, but there are also plenty of people with better systems than me.
And when I say it runs smoothly, I’m not exaggerating. I’m talking consistently solid framerates. (Except for the slowdown I mentioned in hydroponics.) Dial down the resolution to 1280×1024, and any relatively recent PC should be able to handle Dead Space with ease.
08/11/2008 at 12:37 KindredPhantom says:
Just too busy.
08/11/2008 at 12:50 x25killa says:
Very busy this month plus I’m waiting for game to be cheaper which will happen soon.
08/11/2008 at 13:12 toni says:
i didn’t like it and have to agree with yahtzee, that’s my reason. the game is just meh.
fO3 is meh. FC2 is average. L4D is awesome. the witcher is awesome and I even enjoyed ClearSky. DeadSpace annoyed me with its constant “look scary” and for me “tame” gore and forced 3rd person.
08/11/2008 at 13:19 Rain says:
@redrain85
Apart from the absolutely crappy ‘antialiasing’ that you can turn on in the options, antialiasing is not working in Dead Space. You can’t even force it, so no 4xAA.
Thats my main concern with the game the edge flickering is horrible.
08/11/2008 at 13:46 Chaz says:
Been playing it on the 360 and I’m really enjoying it so far. Yes it’s pretty derivative of the genre, but what it does it does very well. It might be a bit repetative but fortunately the shoot’em up action is very enjoyable, so I’m not too bothered by the repetition as it’s great fun blasting off monsters limbs with a variety of smart weapons. Besides that’s what I bought the game for, and I think it’s a bit unfair to deride a game that’s all about blasting monsters, as being repetative because all you do is blast monsters. It’s a bit like saying you’re finding a racing sim repetative because all you do is drive cars around a track over and over again.
The graphics are bloody nice and I think it’s got a great atmosphere. The only annoying part I’ve encountered thus far is a scene where you have to man a turret and shoot some asteriods. It was very frustrating to do on a console pad, would be a doddle with a mouse though I expect.
One of the reasons I bought Dead Space over some of the other AAA releases all vying for my cash, is that strange as it may seem, sci-fi horror shooters don’t come around that often, and I like a good monster blaster. Doom3 and Resi4 were the last games that came close to resembling this, and they came out years ago. The shoot’em up genre is awash with contemporary military sims and the like, so it’s nice to have a good sci-fi setting and some otherworldly things to shoot at for a change.
08/11/2008 at 13:54 Lemming says:
The main reason I haven’t played it is, yes, there are just too many good games out atm. But now you’ve mentioned the EA security thing, it may as well be that as well. They screwed up my Spore purchase royally.
08/11/2008 at 14:25 redrain85 says:
@Rain:
Crap, you’re right. When I took a close look in the game, I noticed that AA wasn’t being applied. And I have AA forced on. I’ve seen sitting further back from the screen using a wireless keyboard and mouse, so I couldn’t tell from a distance. I hope either EA or ATI/Nvidia comes up with some kind of fix.
I took a couple of shots from the start of the game to show how it looks, and what kind of framerate I’m getting. I took the shots while I had other junk running in the background, so it probably wasn’t performing quite as well as it could have been. Still, I was getting framerates consistently in the 40-50 FPS range.
Screenshot 1 @ 1680×1050
Screenshot 2 @ 1680×1050
08/11/2008 at 14:28 jalf says:
Does that mean video games are 180% crap?
08/11/2008 at 15:05 DazzeL says:
It’s just bad timing in my book. This is the sort of thing I would have snapped up a couple of months ago but now I’m too busy on RA3, Fallout 3 and soon Left4Dead and CoD:WaW.
Dead Space seems like a good game to me but not a stellar game and that, in this cluttered period for FPS’s, makes a vital difference.
08/11/2008 at 15:17 Rain says:
It is no antialiasing they just blur everything, awful.
Opening with AA
Opening without AA
Main Lab with AA Look at the description above the door.
Main Lab without AA
08/11/2008 at 15:39 Ian Kiigan says:
I really thought ZP needlessly stuck the boot in to a game that if anything deserves a bit more praise and attention.
Clearly the guy places a higher importance on storytelling than the vast majority of us would (for instance, the silly plot and characters of Resident Evil 4 in no way reduced my enjoyment of the game, so he gets very hung up on things that just aren’t such a problem.
Dead Space is fantastic, but it came out at the wrong time of year probably.
08/11/2008 at 16:42 Dogma says:
For me it’s the DRM of this title that’s preventing me from playing it. I really, really want to give it a try (I’ve always liked survival/horror game but don’t really have any since I’m a PC gamer first and foremost) but since there’s a “Five irrevokable installs and that’s it” config, I’m sadly going to have to pass. Very few games stay on my hard drive for long periods of time since I’m not exactly a gamer who has an incredible abundance of hard drive space who can install a game, play it through once or twice and then leave it on there for a long time before I pick it up again. I also upgrade/format mostly every year, so to have a game with such a limited life span isn’t in my best interest.
If the DRM was something more akin to the iTunes model people have been suggesting (IE, you can easily de-authorize previous installs to get new ones), I’d definitely look at picking this title up.
08/11/2008 at 16:51 Ravenger says:
I didn’t realise it had unmappaple controls. Being left handed I always use the cursor keys to move, so if you can’t remap the controls it’s a definite no-purchase for me even if they remove the DRM.
What on earth were EA thinking?
08/11/2008 at 16:54 Radiant says:
@redrain85
I’m just having some fun at your expense :)
But really your pc is the one my pc fights at the end of the dungeon.
It’s Ganon.
Your pc is Ganon.
08/11/2008 at 16:57 Deuteronomy says:
I swear to god if someone posts about DRM again I’m going to personally #$#@$ them up.
08/11/2008 at 20:03 The Unshaven says:
DRM. It shouldn’t be an issue because you don’t find it so?
Fair enough, I am caught in a tangled web of logic.
08/11/2008 at 21:19 DigitalSignalX says:
@rain: nice examples, I never knew turning off AA would make things look so much better, not just improve performance.
08/11/2008 at 23:50 Stranger says:
David says:
Call of Duty 5? :)
09/11/2008 at 01:06 Colthor says:
I mean, is it the fact it uses the EA standard DRM?
Yep.
Although I probably wouldn’t have bought it straight away because of Fallout 3 anyway.
09/11/2008 at 01:54 Digit says:
I dunno, a few people at work keep telling me about this. If it was akin to another System Shock 2, then potentially I would be interested. But SS2 had a certain kind of charm to it, and it’s visuals – this is something I’m finding more and more, which is that now that we can render real-time horrible gore and violence, I’m wanting it less. The concept of the game sounds interesting, but that’s about it.
09/11/2008 at 02:52 Tom says:
Buy it guys – it will surprise you and is thoroughly enjoyable
09/11/2008 at 07:41 Trithemius says:
I find it fun and even a wee bit scary. However I’m not really enamoured of “boss fights” (I tend to find them repetitive since I die until I adapt to the first change, then die until I adapt to the second change, then die unti I… you get the drift) and Fallout 3 has loomed large. Fun and scary though DeadSpace is it cannot really stack up to Fallout 3 for me.
09/11/2008 at 08:01 SuperNashwan says:
I found the controls not quite unplayable but bad enough that I, err, won’t be playing it what with the current glut of good games. The graphics engine seems superb, the sound design possibly better than anything before it, so it’s all the more jarring that the PC controls seem to have been programmed by someone who’s only ever played on a console. Never mind the vsync bug, there’s no autorun toggle, the interface controls have separate bindings to your WASD for no reason and it takes literally, without exaggeration, over a metre of desk space movement to turn the guy around with the mouse on max sensitivity. You can apparently change a settings.txt somewhere in your hidden Local Settings folder to get higher sensitivity than the slider allows for, but man, I can’t believe it got through QA like this. Is it really that hard to realise a mouse is more accurate than the ham-fisted analogue sticks on console pads?
09/11/2008 at 08:26 sinister agent says:
I’ve played it on the 360, and in short, as a horror it’s utterly terrible, but as an FPS it’s an unremarkable, but fun way to pass a few hours. It has some neat touches (particularly the weapons, which apart from the assault rifle are neatly varied and help set the game aside from the usual pistol-shotgun-sniper set), and some lousy ones (particularly the total lack of character or suspense and the clunky, slow and awkward controls), leaving it nestling around the ‘slightly above average’ mark. 80% would be generous.
Worth a look come the budget release, I’d say, but still not a front runner even then, unless you’re really desperate for an FPS. Which nobody is.
09/11/2008 at 08:32 sinister agent says:
What gets me is this happens EVERY year. There’s a massive landslide of generally good to excellent games, and most people just can’t afford to buy them all (ESPECIALLY in our current economic climate). Of course, the suits take a look at the sales figures and nothing else, and declare the genre dead because it didn’t sell in droves.
Short story: the pre-Christmas period is not necessarily the best time of year to sell your game.
This. Oh god, this. It’s bloody ridiculous. At the very least, you’d think someone would try releasing a big budget game early in the year, then re-releasing it for a tenner less around now – that way you’d have a big release out without all the competition, and when the competition did come, you’d cost significantly less, and the game would have a wider reputation.
09/11/2008 at 11:42 Rain says:
@DigitalSignalX
It’s not a problem with antialiasing in general its just an issue with Dead Space cause that is not antialiasing that they apply there. Thats just a blur-filter they use that’s also why it isn’t limited to the edges.
09/11/2008 at 14:26 Solario says:
I still say it’s a Unitology conspiracy, because of the game’s negative depiction of Scien-.. Unitology.
10/11/2008 at 12:51 maxmcg says:
I loved, loved Dead Space. I had Far Cry 2 bought at the time as well.
It was Dead Space that had me hooked for the entire weekend though. Couldn’t stop playing it.
10/11/2008 at 17:12 Cradok says:
I’m on chapter 10 of 12, and the game is still keeping me off balance, still surprising me. I love it.
10/11/2008 at 18:04 redrain85 says:
Uh oh. Here comes the attack of the crappy DLC.
Dead Space DLC
HorseSpace armor FTW!11/11/2008 at 21:46 Tom says:
Just finished it. Overall: superb.
12/11/2008 at 00:40 redrain85 says:
Edge says that Dead Space sold 470,000 copies across all three platforms in the U.S in its first month.
Reviews Liven Up Dead Space Sales
Sales are so-so, then. Shame.
12/11/2008 at 12:49 sera says:
I like to own my games, not rent them EA.
EA you have forever lost sales for your stupidity and are quickly becoming a joke. Keep this pace up and you will be left4dead.