Full of cliche and predictable "scares"
User Rating: 5.5 | Dead Space 3 PC
I found the cliches over saturating this game to such a degree that it's very hard to immerse into the story or the experience. It's important I guess to say that I played and replayed Dead Space (1) enough to say that it's a solid game - not for everyone, I guess, but what it does it does well. Dead Space 2 was a good sequel - with enough new things to make it a proper sequel, but true enough to the original to make you want to play it. Dead Space 3 tries too hard to connect the dots to the first two releases, but it also drop in a bit too many "scares" - necromorphs popping out all the time, with the same pomp and circumstance, which after a very short while I found myself turning off the volume (due to irritation) and by chapter 6 I was annoyed to no end. It was totally impossible to be creeped out by the ambience or to enjoy the eeriness (that was so much part of Dead Space 1) simply because the entire scare factor was centralized around the same elements - necromorphs constantly popping out from walls and ceilings, and the accompanying "baaam" sound effect (always the same) that came with it. I swear this point is of major importance because it indicates to me that the developers of the game don't give players enough credit, nor do they appreciate the subtle effects of a horror-action game. More often than not, it's a lot scarier to experience what is NOT happening than to be bombarded by cliched scares. There are other flaws in the game, not technical, in that sense the game is definitely an AAA title. But the over-all feel of the game is that it's a shooter at heart and in deed. Isaac is full of character contradictions, and that alone breaks the immersion, but that can be over-looked, but making Dead Space into a shooter simply makes into a rubberstamp experience that is not worth a buy unless you know it's what you're OK with. Rent it first.
