Dead Space 3 – The Necromorph Moon

I normally don’t like leaving game reviews if I didn’t like a game, but I will say that yeah this game wasn’t for me. But there were a couple of things that made it enjoyable.

My friend told me the third Dead Space game was his favourite so I tried to keep an open mind, especially since I loved the second one, but I don’t think that really helped me get through it without some jarring moments in the story and gameplay.

After the events of the second game, Isaac is still having mental issues and that has driven him apart from Ellie as apparently, they started dating earlier after the Sprawl incident. Now another crazy Unitologist is on the loose to start another Convergence. So as I may have stated before, Unitology is the most outrageous fictional religious faction I’ve seen in a video game, they basically want us all to become Necromorphs and everything is consumed!

Now, Isaac goes to rescue Ellie and her team and they stumble upon an ice-covered planet said to be the Marker homeworld and want to use this opportunity to end the Necromorph threat once and for all.

So sounds simple enough right? Not really, and I’ll detail that in a moment.

The gameplay was the thing that vexed me the most throughout the game, it felt more action than horror. Now, there’s nothing wrong with adding more action to a horror game, but to me, there’s a certain way it has to be done to get it right. Like Village had more action in it than its predecessor but it wasn’t completely devoid of scary moments so I was okay with that.

This game on the other hand did not feel scary to me, and I swear to God the Necromorphs were like bullet sponges in this game, they took way more rounds of ammo than usual for me to dismember them. They were also larger in numbers too which made it less horrifying to me, even the ones that can regenerate limbs. I enjoyed how in the second game it was always tight dark quarters with just a few of them lurking around but this was just nuts.

Also fighting Unitology soldiers was something else that took away the horror element for me, and then there was that spider creature on Tau Volantis that I had to face three times before defeating it with harpoons. Did EA get bored and decide to keep reusing it? That thing was annoying.

But, there was another boss I beat that basically ate Isaac up and I had to kill three things inside its stomach for it to puke him back out. What’s weird is that the achievement for defeating it is “Intestinal Fortitude” described as defeating a Hive Mind but according to the wikis that’s not a Hive Mind, get your lore right EA!

Characters, I can’t say much, Isaac hasn’t changed, but what I’ve always liked about his character and these games is that he continues to suffer psychological struggles as you continue to play. Ellie, I’m glad they brought her back, but I liked her better in the last game. She got a new eye but her new boyfriend is an asshole, the love triangle felt really forced until his death, and for a moment I thought she died too, but I was proven wrong later.

Didn’t like Carver either, EA was pushing the co-op feature a lot in this game so they just inserted some random soldier like him, to make that happen.

I also feel like the game’s graphics have been downgraded from its predecessor, I was expecting them to be a little more modern, and some of the environment on Tau Volantis was cool like towards the end when you find the alien machine, which is responsible for preventing Convergence from starting on the planet’s moon.

I don’t have any specific moments from this game that stand out and the antagonist didn’t interest me enough to talk about him, but I really wish we could find out more about these aliens that this Rosetta comes from. The architecture was interesting there too. But once again, fighting Necromorphs that take forever to kill did feel like a killjoy to me, even on the lowest difficulty.

So the planet’s moon was one giant Necromorph right? This gives me GotG vibes, remember Ego? Anyway, the rule of thumb in Dead Space is to aim for the glowing parts, and the rule in any video game when you’re fighting a giant boss is to shoot its eyes and blind it. I wanted to enjoy the boss fights in this game, but it’s pretty hard to do so when you’re trying to hit their weak spot and bullet sponge Necromorphs get in the way!

So, what are some positive things? Well like I said, the alien city and structures towards the end of the game before Danik turns off the machine were interesting to look at and it makes me wish there was a spinoff game or a novel about them. There’s always going to be some background alien race (sometimes unnamed in this case) that tell a story in a way, that players will want to know more. Like that’s how I feel about the Jardaan which we will probably never get to learn more about either.

I also like the scavenger bot feature that allowed me to craft upgrades for weapons and my RIG, but I will admit I missed the time when all you needed was power nodes. I wish there was an inventory upgrade that allowed me to carry more than two weapons.

So with that being said, the story was okay but could have been better and the gameplay just didn’t cut it for me. For some people, they loved it, but for me, nah I tried to and whenever I give a negative review, I try to be constructive and not too harsh so there we go.

Based on what I heard after the game’s credits, the game does have the potency to generate a sequel but EA doesn’t seem to be interested in that.

👽Emily