The third installment is a flawed Dead Space game, not comparable to Dead Space 1/2. It being action oriented isnt a problem by itself.
2 players can incentive each other to try multiple playthroughs, as of before ive only played the regular difficulties from the old dead space games.
i've been overly critical for the past few years. This time, im giving it a fair look over all game modes. I wanted to do the DLC, but for that price? its completely out of question.
Should point out i have Mass effect and Dead Space 2 dlc, the second actually quite important, the Planet cracker. It appears, all local saves end up in the same folder. Even if Dead Space 2 was saved on another account.
It was a Normal playthrough and modes are the regular New game+, Classic, Pure Survival, Hardcore. Retro Mode kinda.
-Story-
It has never been as true as it is now, that Dead Space picks lore over storytelling. You are certainly in for a treat, and an obvious reason why Visceral avoids writing dialogue. It all starts with the market killer and creator himself Isaac clearly over the imminent end of the world, instead taking his breakup pretty badly. He gets persuated, to reunite and help Ellie from the last person that wants him to reconcile with his ex. This man's name is Robert Norton, he is a very confused man, its hard to say what he believes in when it comes to save his life and Ellie. The only thing we know for sure is that he wants to end this love triangle has soon as possible, and that is called priorities. You soon meet the unitologist leader, Elton John, as any good unitologist they are back to refusing to understand reality. I would criticise these villains, if it weren't for the similarities with Scientology
Carver (player 2), a mercenary, joins you on your quest to understand this mysterious codex. Along the way he reveals to have conscious. Pretty standard, but the lore itself is has good as ever
Also, Ellie went through some BIG changes i should say, she has grown bigger...something else. Because here, probably due to higher number of characters and dialogue. She is relegated between some sort of scientist and a princess in need of rescue. Before, it was safe to say, people like Ellie didn't survive by chance. I'm not to concern over her fake relation with Norton, maybe she used him, who cares, she needed help saving the world, and he is a laughing stock of a man any way.
-Level design-
Repetitive, many areas are suspiciously similar. Not counting the ones that are 100% recycled for side missions. I joke that Ellie survives Tau Volantis by taking the magical elevator over to the shuttle.These ships are considerably older and closer to real life ships and submarines, which isn't a great look either.
-Engine Limitations-
Dead Space 3 uses the old visceral engine. On an amusing turn of events, its charming how Dead Space succeeds in looking good despite engine limitations. For one it can be enjoyed at 60fps on integrated graphics cards. And the result. Almost everything that's not the level itself being just 2D textures, is easily forgotten with lighting, particles and snow effects. Its a good looking game for 2013. The only issue is that it wasn't made for this game, it wasn't made for open areas, as those areas are just as tiny as anything else. i can't even hold that many bodies on screen, and so most of them will immediately vanish.
-1º play-through co op (medium)-
this is going to be a constant issue, so i might just address it now. Neither level design or cutscenes work strictly for one or two players. Same cutscenes are altered, but overall is hard to reconstruct cutscenes and scripted events for both cases. Its seems to be hinting that EA changed their course early in development.
immediately i started on the wrong foot. As save points were removed, and i didn't pay enough attention over the difference between checkpoint, a save, and an inventory save.It seems silly, but trust me, it's a rite of passage.
if that is completely new to the series, what isn't, is the incapability of communicating how to play the game to the player. There's a likelihood, if you are new to the series, that you will be playing it wrong until the game requires more from you. This time more noticeable than ever, because more factors in. Hordes are faster, which in culmination of your initial weapon, poor initial stasis power, the ridiculous amount of ammo, teach the player how to spray and prey.
Dead Space 3 still brings some intense encounters like surviving against 3 or more Regenerators. But more often than not is humorously over the top. Theres more than one type of similarly enemies, its the first i see 2 different enemies that take over a host body. One of them is almost purely scripted, the other does have a pretty cool grab. Why?
The new cover system is not a necessity. The roll however, saved me from many deaths, those high frames are the best. this time there's 2 weapons per character, with alternate fire. Works fine for co op and new weapons. Hopefully one of the players is well equipped.
Some side missions are co op only, you will miss some character development otherwise. Even though Carver will speak like a changed man regardless later in game.
I decided not to cheese my normal playthrough, though you can easily make OP weapons. The weapons themselves are adjusted to a fair difficulty, without going for DLC, but if you do want to have some fun, Visceral was sneaky enough to give you enough rations so you don't have to pay microtransactions.
This was not my ideal Dead Space 3.
- (Pure survival) (co op)-
Pure Survival is A OK. It removes items, well...99%. There's only resources.No upgrade chips, weapon parts, nothing...you want, you build
It still ain't my ideal Dead Space 3, because the ratio is wrong. It still gives you tons of scrap metal, meaning a never ending source of universal ammo.At Least it's closer to its survival horror roots. it will also help you upgrade stasis early and grab stasis coating. Let me tell you, Stasis coating is insane. But stasis is the way to play. to make it even easier, i also traded rations for MK weapon parts. The kind that sends necromorphs back to the moon.
-3º play through (classic)-
The solitary experience, best at showcasing the lack of effort.There might be small changes of the overall atmosphere, but it's hardly Dead Space classic.
The mechanic of smashing bodies for items returns, except bodies constantly disappear. There are circuits locked in co op only areas. Atleast they remembered to leave the loot outside the mission of grilly and bursinov. Classic forces pre built templates, weaker and much more awkward to use than Dead Space. So here, is where you use Dead Space 2 Planet Cracker. The bench itself is the same, they just blocked the create a weapon option. Only 2 weapons instead of 4.These things are nothing more than a reminder you are playing the wrong game. The best thing here, is the ability to pick everything with telekinesis, making grabbing dismembered limbs an hassle, but a clear win for me as i prefer to have more intractable objects
- (Hardcore)-
It deletes the save whenever you die, ive tried it twice, im afraid its asking too much for my skill level. absolutely garbage either way. I was going to use cheat engine for quick save and load, but out of frustration, i decided to just test the engine. Crashed it a few times, especially if you spawn even more enemies. Fell through the world. There isn't much to explore, since players need to hit a trigger to generate other parts of the level
-Retro-
Isnt a mode. Its fmv styled filter and frame cuts on enemies. looks like nothing i have ever seen. the playable character is the only model to have full animation, possibly to avoid an awkward game play experience for third person. this means, Isaac is also the only one not missing animation during cut scenes (made in-game engine). The closest i can compare it terms of animation are old PC games like Doom, Duke Nukem. With the exception of Retro mode not having any 2D sprites. Its likely that you couldn't any way due to physics and dismemberment.

Forget EA´s naming convention, this is Hot Pursuit 2
On paper this is a progression. Bring the arcade like game play to a open world map, share it with other players. The may or may not take a small part in your solitary experience, both as racers and cops. Seems like a no brainier. But it never really grabbed me. What went wrong?
There has been other NFS titles with a well design open world, the online service is just a novelty. There's no real community. Ghost, inexperience with the genre, let alone open world racing games, stopped them from reaching what could have been their best game. There is very little incentive to drive towards objectives. options are limited and more often than not the easiest way to progress is to do the races themselves, and since i can travel instead of driving, I would rather do that than the slower assignments that offer more opportunities to explore and interact with players, but take way longer. Its ok to interact with another player during a race, attacking them for no reason other that finishing an assignment . Even being followed by a frustrating cop. Mostly i ignored the few players i came across. In any case bots fill in for a large gap, so maybe i just didnt see its full potential. If there ever was one, this game was released in a very poor state.
Everyone already knows it was locked at 30fps, Because 60fps wasn't very stable at the time. These days it's almost 100% beatable at 60fps, if not for one or two bugged races. It's not flawless. Physics become a little messed up, don't be surprised if the car hits the pavement so hard it leaves the playable area and into the void below. Spikes also seem to drop faster. I would also advise installing it on an SSD. There's this weird bug where if the map does not generate in time, it wont load anymore, the car just gets stuck in place forever. Some games need to come with instructions just to be played. Also...there might be some connection issues, first day playing, and my entirely lobby was moved around about 4 times in a row.

Second time playing, as long as there´s friends, there´s more opportunities to play this. Its worth it for a few hours of laughter. Im gonna be honest and this is just my opinion.
I dont understand the praise A Way Out gets...I get it a little. One aspect of this game should become the standard for co op narrative driven games. Both players have freedom within their respectively stories. Always visible to both players, both characters are integral to moving the plot foward. Its dynamic, does split screen if it has to, determines the space that each character deserves at certain plot point. It transitions nicely between two characters, keeping the flow of the action bits. essentially giving equal importance to both players, without having to play twice. See! i get it...but not really. i would never put it on a pedestal, To me, A Way Out is an unintentional comedy.
Too much of the dialogue is cheesy, some scenes are absolutely non nonsensical. Was i the only one nervously laughing when they took the rowing boat?
Game play, as you might expect isn't a fully fledged anything, the story exists first, the game play comes second. It is sort of an adventure game, with various action sequence that give the player limited control. Almost like a series of mini games.mini games come in large variety, both covering action games in general, and the bad action movies this is influenced by.the action comes in form of QTEs, stealth, driving, really really weak gun play... there's more. That's not to mention the actual mini games that are intractable items in the world of A Way Out. something that i wish would happen more often, why not play baseball, why cant we suspend disbelieve for a second, relax a bit with something out of character?
in-between those, its an adventure with a bit of intractable movie aspect, you choose a path that leads you to a different sequence, not at all changing the story, in that aspect its very linear,until the very end.

This is a tough one, i didn't think Crackdown was all that bad, until taken in consideration how long it took to make, who made it, or how unremarkable it is, made me question why i wasted time on this, even if by that point i wasn't hating the game play. It is, a decent low budget game, the kinds PS2 would have to offer. Its not the kind of game you would advertise. I might not even want or need to describe the game, its not the kind of game that leaves a long lasting impression, it is in fact a Saint Row 4/ Agents of Mayhem clone, more so than it is Crackdown. If the later SR titles where influenced by games like Crackdown, now they are the ones doing so, in fact they steal from it.
Crackdown, offers an open map, a mostly indestructible one. With simple story progression. Ya got your multiple bosses around the map, each boss has a similar type of mission until you do enough of those missions to confront them. The more bosses you take down the easiest the final objective will be.
as for how the game works, i could try and describe it, but i don't understand why it is what it is. For example, this is a frantic shooter, explosions, high wanted levels, multiple enemies...Did you know the missions are very objective centered? Like, you could just book it, and blow up whatever it wants you to.
The gunplay is done with aim lock. weapons, exist, i just went for the clear best ones...let's just say, there are weapons with toxic element on a game where most enemies are robots, some humans are immune to them as well.
idk, whether someone design the map, or they just placed roads and building. Im struggling to think of an interesting area. The vehicles are incredibly floaty and other than for trials, they aren't very useful. Their not even faster than jumping around. Terry Crews is in it, he recorded for 5 entire minutes and left the studio, they mixed his voice lower to everything else so i wouldn't notice, they also thought i wanted to play with characters that aren't Terry Crews. I dont hate this game, i dont even think i understand it well enough for that.