Dead Space 3 (Xbox 360)
Certification:
Format:
Category: Adventure > Survival Horror
Released: 08/02/2013
At a Glance
Dead Space 3 sees Isaac travelling to the home planet of the Necromorphs with one sole purpose: to eradicate them completely. Well, and to save Ellie, who he had a whole relationship with between the last game and this one.
It's a sad fact that any horror series must face diminishing returns when it comes to serving us scares. The Necromorphs have been around for a few games now and they're not quite so pant-wettingly terrifying as they once were. Visceral's answer to this is to ramp up the action. While the horror certainly hasn't been thrown out of the airlock, the emphasis has shifted slightly towards faster, slicker action.
You'll even find yourself, on occasion, faced not with the gloomy guts of a spacecraft but with the frozen surface of an alien planet.
For the first time in a Dead Space title, you fight against other humans. As they have the ability to flank, take cover and coordinate with each other, it only made sense to give Isaac abilities as crouch, roll and evade to be able to keep up. Also new is the adaptive cover system. Pull out your gun behind a low wall, and Isaac will automatically crouch behind it.
Another addition is the ability to craft your own weapons. Where the last Dead Space game enabled you to augment what you had, ths one gives you the opportunity to build them from scratch - providing you've picked up the right parts.
There's also the option to play in co-op, with a second player taking on the role of Carver, Isaac's new ally. This mode might remove a little of the tension, but it opens up new possibilities for solving puzzles and blowing Necromorphs into tiny little pieces...
It's a sad fact that any horror series must face diminishing returns when it comes to serving us scares. The Necromorphs have been around for a few games now and they're not quite so pant-wettingly terrifying as they once were. Visceral's answer to this is to ramp up the action. While the horror certainly hasn't been thrown out of the airlock, the emphasis has shifted slightly towards faster, slicker action.
You'll even find yourself, on occasion, faced not with the gloomy guts of a spacecraft but with the frozen surface of an alien planet.
For the first time in a Dead Space title, you fight against other humans. As they have the ability to flank, take cover and coordinate with each other, it only made sense to give Isaac abilities as crouch, roll and evade to be able to keep up. Also new is the adaptive cover system. Pull out your gun behind a low wall, and Isaac will automatically crouch behind it.
Another addition is the ability to craft your own weapons. Where the last Dead Space game enabled you to augment what you had, ths one gives you the opportunity to build them from scratch - providing you've picked up the right parts.
There's also the option to play in co-op, with a second player taking on the role of Carver, Isaac's new ally. This mode might remove a little of the tension, but it opens up new possibilities for solving puzzles and blowing Necromorphs into tiny little pieces...