Dead Space 3 accomplishes much, but spreads itself too thin to be truly memorable.
Playing as series protagonist Isaac Clarke, you're quickly immersed in the carnage from the outset and combat is immediately intuitive. As the story unfolds, you're led to an icy planet called Tau Volantis, reputed to be the source of the Markers, icons both worshipped as divine yet which are responsible for the Necromorphs that plague the series.
Whilst the core combat remains the same – shoot the limbs – you are now able to customise your weapons to almost any combination you want. Some can be buffed with stasis so that each shot slows enemies down, whilst a rocket launcher is always handy to have. Not every combination is effective however and generally, once you find something that works, you stick to it. There are a few new Necromorph incarnations, but generally they're familiar from previous games. There is a basic crouch and cover system for combat against human enemies, although this lacks any of the AI combat of the Mass Effect series.
You can also be joined in online-only Co-Op play by series newcomer John Carver, an angry soldier who has lost his family to the Marker threat, and this adds a new dimension to the gameplay as you team up to slaughter wave after wave of Necromorphs. In a shrewd move, item drops are unique to each player so there's no arguing over who gets to pick up what.
There are a couple of major problems here though: firstly Co-Op is only possible online, so there's no local two-player option, and secondly, some areas of the game are locked out unless playing in Co-Op, and thus related story logs, artefacts and achievements are unattainable. This is a major oversight by publishers EA and feels like yet another cheap way to force would-be players to buy their own copy of the game, rather than teaming up locally on one game and one device.
Scheming money-grabbing game design aside, the location environments are excellent. Prior to arriving on Tau Volantis, you explore a flotilla of desolate, seemingly abandoned spaceships orbiting the planet, which echoes the claustrophobic corridors of the USG Ishimura in the first game. Tau Volantis itself is an icy blizzard with enough weird and exotic entities dotting the landscape to create a feeling of isolation and loneliness, albeit the near constant tension of previous games feels strangely lacking at times.
Boss battles are infrequent and can be a lot of fun – one in particular will have you laughing both at the absurdity and the audacity of it – but overall they're not particularly challenging. Some simplistic puzzles appear here and there to add a small note of variety, but otherwise this is standard Dead Space-fare.
There are also a couple of different flavours on offer should the main game prove too easy. There are harder difficulty levels available via "Pure Survival" and "Classic" modes. Both are at a default difficulty of Hard, but in the former you can only create supplies from the Bench – enemies will not drop them for you as in the main game – and in the latter, only weapons from the previous Dead Space games are available. Given that their effectiveness is greatly reduced in this game, this will give you plenty of exercise.
The problems with Dead Space 3 are chiefly that it spreads itself too thin. There are 19 chapters – the longest in the series so far – and the game could've been much more concise. The Tau Volantis backstory could've been fleshed out a lot more, and the almost total lack of survivor encounters means there are few genuinely creepy moments. Rarely does the game build sustained tension to create feelings of unease. Even simple things like audio and video logs are much less numerous than in previous games, and this contributes to the lack of atmosphere. John Carver's angry soldier with family issues character has been done many times before, and other supporting characters aren't fleshed out enough to make you care that much. The irony is that the more you play the game, the less substance there seems to be to it.
Those complaints aside, Dead Space 3 is a victim of its own success. The original was a breath of fresh air in a saturated 3rd-person shooter genre, but there's only so much you can squeeze out of current gen hardware, and Dead Space 3 has reached that limit. It's got a lot to offer fans of the series, but this is unlikely to win over any new ones.