Dead Space: quite possibly one of the best new IPs from 2008. Was a dark, brooding, malevolent master-piece. Was so singularly successful in its execution that it has garnered immediate buy-in for anything that follows. Dead Space Ignition, Dead Space 2, and yes, even the somewhat deviant Dead Space 3.
Deviant because they are straying further from their horror-genre roots, against "expectations". To be honest, that is not necessarily a bad thing since you can only beat that shtick so many times.
I really enjoyed playing the game, blasting necromorphs in a more action-oriented mode. Weapon crafting is deep, and allows a lot of variance and encourages experimentation. The story made sense, and revealing ever so little more about the Marker artifacts, culminating in a final epic confrontation that is worthy of a third "trilogy" instalment. Of course, cannot go on without mentioning co-op, and the joy of sharing the experience with someone you know.
As for its misses, my personal gripes are relatively few; I think the first is that no one (other than Carver) seems to be affected by the Marker even though you are smack dab in the middle of a Marker world! I mean, Isaac sure, this is all old-hat for him so get that he has his shit together. Ellie, well .. ok she survived Titan station, but everyone else was fair game. Crazy is always fun! So I think that was a missed opportunity. The second lesser gripe is that optional content got fairly repetitive quick. The main campaign featured a lot of original set pieces and a changing environment that kept things fresh, but slogging through the optional quests actually got a little mindless and confusing. I do have one fun anecdote about this though: I was playing co-op with a friend who never played a Dead Space title before, this was his first. He was playing Carver, and we had a shit-tonne of fun playing through his side story. No spoilers, definitely worth a playthrough!
So yeah, not that bad all-told. A lot of what other people are rambling on about, like micro-transactions and such, I don't really find that big a deal. I did splurge on the resource-bot DLC, but was completely unnecessary. There is little to no struggle through the game for additional resources, and I found the option less intrusive than some. I concede on the "fourth-wall" argument, but [shrug] it's a game. Though I suppose that says it all.
Overall, enjoyed it - even as a Dead Space fanboy. Very curious to see where the IP goes from here.
