Its time to don the EVGA suit once again and step into the boots of the most daring Engineer of the 26th century that the gaming industry has ever come to see. Isaac Clarke never had been the terrifying and heroic figure that Kratos and Marcus were , but still he had a style of doing things that made the genre a successful hit .
Dead Space was praised as one of the best horror games of the genre . Mostly because of the graphics and gameplay that was involved and the logical story theme behind all the gadgets and technology involved in the game . I mean Isaac is not a ex cop nor an ex marine , he is an engineer for God's sake . Now how does he become a hero , well he makes use of his engineering tools as weapons against the undead Necromorphs . And the introduction of Stasis and Gravity concepts simply made the game to be mind blowing in an extremely awesome level .
Dead Space 2 fell down a little bit in its story and gameplay . The dramatic and sudden changes which happens in the game is what made Dead Space the most famous game of all times. But DS2 was a little on the downside with its dramatic moments . But DS3 comes back with a huge panache and takes back the crown .
Once again you set off as the Engineer of all times , Isaac Clarke an expert in the destruction of Markers ( the one that is responsible for the creation of Necromorphs in the first place ) . Isaac is rudely pulled out of the apartment by Captain Robert Norton and Sergeant John Carver from last battalion of EarthGov . They explain that when Isaac had refused to do anything more with the markers his ex-girlfriend
Ellie Langford pitches in trying to destroy the marker and goes AWOL. So its upto Isaac now to find the girl he loves and save her from what he considered to be long gone ,The Marker and its group of supporters who go by the name of Unitologists .
Gameplay ::
Gameplay has always been the strength of Dark space . Be it the sudden resurrection of a corpse that you juts crossed over or the sudden moments where you are pulled off into a creature's layer or thrown headlong into space this game surely packs it with a punch and breathlessness , that it makes you feel the adrenaline Rush for Real. QTE moments may have gone stale with a lot of games using it nowadays but you can t complain when they make the game more movie like ;-) . And I have to say that DS was , is and will be praised always for the dramatic QTE events . I can never explain it in words . But if you really want to know you have to play the game to understand .
Stomp Baby ! :-
Stomping is another unique DS Melee . Although 3rd person shooters can get awkward with melee attacks some games have just got their own signature Melee attacks , Like Gears of War's Chainsaw Lancer for eg. In the same way , you will find stomping is very unique to Dead space . And its damn effective too. Bcos this is not a action game where you will be provided with the ammo in huge stashes where you can reload to full everytime and just start spraying .
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Limerick in internet about Stop |
Remember what i said, its a ' Survivor ' game. So there you go , you have to go in search of ammo scattered throughout the game world . And the best place to find them is inside Dead Necromorphs that you have just slaughtered. Its not enough to just kill them but give them an extra 2 stomps on their head to make sure they stay down there and don t jump up on you again .
And these guys are hard to kill when you simply shoot them at their trunks . Just slice of their limbs and they fall down and start crawling . Once they reach near you stomp the s**t out of those guys and save the bullets and also gaining the satisfaction of a good kill . And watch out for some guys as they start sprouting extra and more lethal limbs when you cut down one.
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Yet another Limerick in internet about Stop |
The new dodge is quite powerful and useful that makes Isaac look as if he is more fluid and flexible as of now . Bcos as DS fans wud know , running can be really irritating in this game especially when a Necromorph is coming for you .
Necromorphs ::
These guys sure have upgraded a lot now . I mean i remember these guys being easy to kill in the older gen games , but now these guys keep coming at you like waves after wave . My god . There are lot of enemies variety of Necromorphs in the game and i will just mention a few that if found challenging and irritated the crap out of me ,
1. Exploders ::
These are the ones that come with a huge explosive wrapped around its hand . It slowly drags the bomb and right when it nears you it will lift it and bang it on the ground and thereby making the load to blow and hurting you . My god the sounds that these guys emits are the worst I had ever heard. Just horrible . will make you want to rip your ears out . And scary too .Bcos most of the time these don t come alone as they are very vulnerable due to the slo movements when they carry the Bomb .
So they just make an appearance when you are fighting loads of enemies and don t have time to reload and attack them with precision . Serious deal breakers when you are already hurt bad and out of med packs . Really watch out for those shrieks.
2. Leapers ::
These guys are mean looking and fast as hell . They jump on you from somewhere , from walls , hiding places but most of the time you will see them charging you from front and which provide you with ample opportunity to take out their limbs and stop their lunges . Quite easy to take down but brutal when they jump on you and u have to mash the buttons to escape.
3. Lurker ::
Another most common enemy is this guy who is small , but at the same time provides a threat in some ways . Bcos he is sneaky as hell and keeps moving to random places that is just out of reach and attack you with long range attacks. The one guy you can t stomp dead. Again slice those tentacles and you are peach .
4. Twitchers ::
These guys are advanced form of the slashers but due to the stasis modules that are available in the men before they transform they have a mutation that makes them to move damn fast . Very hard to get a track on them and unless you use a stasis shot on them you can never kill of this guy . And when you die from his hands it would be awesome to look :D
5. Pukers ::
Ahhh !! the one i hate the most . Man this guy makes my skin crawl .Like his name he pukes some kind of green gobbly stuff on us that kinda makes it difficult for us to move . really hard to kill too as his limbs are not that defined for us to get a clear shot . So you have to go with the body shot or head slice.
6. Stalkers ::
Man i love these guys .They are exactly like dinosaurs in the way they look and charge towards us . But wats so interesting about them is you won t find them lolling about like others . But you will find them hiding behind huge crates and peeping around them with a odd call :D . Sure funny to watch and when they do get to charge , time it right and slice their limbs off to make them slide to ur feet and then stomp them in their face .
7. Alien Necromorph ::
These guys are damn huge and they charge at you like a Rhino . They don t have any weak spots . Only way to take them out is to hit them with stasis and then blow the crap out of then with a pulse Rifle or Shotgun . Thank god , when you do come across them you will have a huge stasis plate on the ground that will make your stasis time more and provides you with infinite shots .
8. Feeder ::
My personal Worst enemy of this game is this one . Although when you meet them first they will be too damn easy to kill . One headshot and they are gone . No need for repeated shots in their limbs to severe them . But hell they pack a punch bcos unlike others they don t come in 2 -3 groups . The come at us like a group of 6-9 minimum . So you can imagine what that might be . And also they do come at us only in confined spaces .My god , with bad lighting and difficult but slow and steady aim , its too hard to place a headshot .My hint : use stasis when you are crowded too much and running out of ammo . Then melee them and break of their heads. DON'T GET TRAPPED IN A CORNER .
9. Waster ::
Another guy who packs a punch . These guys come at you in twos . But is damn difficult to kill them without getting hit atleast once from their maniacal swing of the ice picks they carry in hand . They are deadly and decrease your life like anything . So watch out when they start walking at you.
There are a lot of other ones that do make an appearance but they can be easily cut down . And for the rest there is always the stomp ;-)
Weapons and Upgrades ::
I have always loved the weapons in DS games. Bcos unlike other games this does not come with the traditional Assault Rifle , pistol and such .But taking into account that Isaac is an engineer the game makes use of the spare parts that are found scattered out in the place and makes use of Engineering tools to survive . The ever faithful Plasma Cutter returns as well , And unlike the DS2 this time you not only can customize your gun to have a secondary fire at your hand but now you will be able to craft your own weapons .
The Ever favorite bench can be used for this . You will find frames and pulse parts all over the space stations . The only disadvantage of this is that , there will be no unlocks of new weapons on its own . You have to find a new blueprint of it from some hidden corner which can be used then to build the particular weapon from the scavenged parts . Even then only the frames and locks won t be enough to craft your weapons but you need semiconductor , tungsten and electrodes which will be found scattered or inside boxes which can be stomp-ed . So although its a cool and new feature it will be pretty irritating and sometimes negligible . Bcos not many have the patience to scavenge and they just end up using the same gun again instead of trying new ones.
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Weapon Crafting in Bench |
Well from my end i Had loved the Pulse Rifle in DS2 , so that and the plasma cutter are my usual choice of weaponry . Very rarely i used the Seeker Rifle ( Sniper ). Upgrades of guns were not that much effective bcos most of it comes with a +1 and -1, like the upgrade circuit wud be like [ +1 Damage -1 Reload ] . I don t know why they came up with that terminology but the balancing you do with it can be fun /irritating .
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You have a option to save your own mod of weapon too . |
Suit and Ability Upgrades are available as a separate entity . And i had always loved the Suit upgrades . I mean Whenever you upgrade your Armour Isaac would get into the suit contraption and a weird light would come on and then he would step out it with a awesome BGM . Man i loved it .But this time they use it only when you change your suit :( . But again upgrades to your suit would be effective only when you reach the last end of the upgrade level . Until then you wont feel much of the effects .
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Scavenger Bots |
Another cool feature of this game is the Scavenger Bot . It does exactly what the name depicts . Its like a miniature Robo that is capable of collecting the ammo and other resources that are found scattered around the area where you deploy it and then returning it to a nearby bench where it will add up to your resources . The beauty of it is that it will even search and find boxes and stores that are well hidden . So if you get tired of scavenging again and again , you can deploy one of these babies and move on .
Graphics ::
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Isaac and Ellie |
The game had always looked best with its weird and scary surroundings but this time they have gone way over the top. The game looks absolutely breadth taking at some places that you will just stand and look around enjoying the beauty of the snow filled peaks and the sunrise that peaks out . CEO of Visceral games commented that they have not tried to partitioning the game experience of PC Gamers and Console Gamers . He said that the game should look the same irrespective of the system used to play it . He further went on to say that , that it is a fair thing to do for people who buy their game . Hats off to you guys for that . Bcos what with PC Crysis 2 & 3 looking much more better than the consoles and DMC looking much more better in Xbox than in PS3 , Console fans were a little disgruntled . But don t worry guys . this game plays fair and square .
The campaign is the longest I had ever played after a long time . And playing with medium difficulty setting is enough to frustrate you like as you get torn to pieces by the enemy . And the way Isaac dies at the hands of each enemy is unique and awesome to look . I tried dying with each new enemy that appeared just to see how it comes around . Especially the twitcher was the most awesome :D
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Moving in Zero Gravity |
When the game finally did end It felt like An action movie coming to a close . That was my real experience . Although I have to say that some fans complained that the inclusion of gun toting Necromorphs made the game a little more action generic than the horror genre that DS series was famous for , I have no qualms regarding it .Come on guys seriously , how long do u expect the game to be the same as the previous versions . Then how do you want a sequel to be if there is nothing new in it . Grow up !
Pro's ::
1. Once again be the enigmatic Engineer of the Space Station and Float in Gravity and and anti-gravity areas.
2. Stomp the Necromorphs to the very place from where they came from
3. Be amazed with the breathtaking graphics that a bizarre and cruel world can portray without any kind of strain on your GPU.
4. Excellent Long Single player Campaign that gives you the satisfaction of min 9 Hrs gameplay with a lot of side mission and Co-op mission to play .
5. Introducing for the first time Kinect Voice over technology which makes your game Experience much more sweeter .
Con's ::
1. Gun Crafting can be a little confusing and alien to new players.
2. Story was a little weak where everyone sacrifices themselves for the sake of humanity , A little Cliched.
3. Scavenging of ammo and med packs for your survival can be irritating but hell tats the concept of this game huh :D
Overall :: A must play game for all the Gamers and the fans of Dead Space Series . Hats off to Visceral Studios for providing us a wonderful and satisfying game which I feel is a first in this new Year .
Rating :: 9.5 /10
Regards
Ram