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?
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@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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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?!?).
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.
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.
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.
@ 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.
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!
I would take back my words and say “I’m convinced”, after reading the replies here.
But… EA? DRM? Forget it.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
“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?
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.
@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.
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.
@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.
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.
Theres just too much being released atm plus the fact I ought to be doing uni work.
Gah!
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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
@ Metal Circus
So… Yahtzee is a Charlie Brooker rip-off, but thats ok since originality is overrated? :P
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
@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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
@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.
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?
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.
Trilby’s Notes in particular is a good piece of horror adventure gaming, I’d say.
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
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.
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.
What do you mean like RE4 BUT a good game? RE4 was a good game..