Dead Space 3 First impressions

Managed to grab myself an early access code for the demo last night and have spent a few hours with the single player so here's my impressions.

I must admit I've been quite skeptical of DS3 since it's announcement for two main reasons, For one DS2 was for me as close to perfection as I've seen from a survival horror. It looked blindingly good, played even better, had perfect audio atmosphere and constantly managed to keep you on your toes with it's unpredictable scares and moments of deep psychological stress. I couldn't see how it could be topped or improved upon at all.

Secondly EA have put such a huge emphasis on the co-op that I was rather concerned that the singleplayer experience had been lost along the way, I can't say if the co-op is good or not as I'm yet to try that part of the demo. What I can say though is that Visceral have somehow managed to make some large strides forward with the singleplayer, first up it just looks phenominal! It's easily up there with Halo 4 in the graphics race. The frozen landscape you start the game in is a beauty offering brutal weather effects along with the odd glimpse of some truly stunning vistas, its a wild departure from the claustraphobic corridors of the first two games and one that does threaten to ruin the atmosphere the series holds over you. Visceral has balanced this issue out though by upping the stakes, enemies lurk under the snow and occasionaly the odd corpse is more than it appears but the highlight is the fact that most of the stunning vistas a wrought with danger, from collapsing debris right up to the struggle to clamber through a vehicle as it begins to plummet over the edge.

As always the audio is top notch throughout, offering loud volumes for the most inconsequential things again keeping you on edge, The controls are still pretty much the same although a simple cover method has been added to the left trigger.

The other feature I got to try was the weapons bench, it used to just be used to upgrade armour and weapons but now you can pick up scrap items and loot to craft weapons of your own creation, the possibilities seem pretty endless and can result in some awesome weaponary.

You'll need it too as it seems that the necromorphs are now a tad harder to kiil than before and there's alot more variety in them too. One thing that really shocked me was the AI this time out. There was a moment where I took cover behind a container as a group of three necros attacked, I had two to the right and one to the left, I choose to take the left one first only to be shocked as he stood there jinking left to right avoiding my shots, meanwhile the other two looked like they were just sidestepping along the outer battlefield but to my suprise the moment they had nipped off the screen as my attention was tottally focused on the left one they charged, the next thing I knew there were two of them standing right behind me.

I won't give away anything story related but needless to say its as religously charged as always....

This has now become a day one for me and I really cannot wait for release

after the second one even if it was just a new story and was re packaged it was a day one for me lol

I also have this sat on my xbox but have not played it, all the cutscenes change depending on if you play single or co op as well which is a nice touch.

Switch does the demo have co op? if so wanna have a look at co op?

Yeah it does mate, I'll be on tonight if you fancy it

yeah defo iv got a Fifa singles and UT match but thats like 40 minutes of my night so will be on from 7 till late so will def get on some of this.

will also do the game on co op when its out with ya if ya fancy.

may even get DS2 back as i was only 1 or 2 achievments off 1000G in it the hardest difficulty playthrough where there are only 2 saves aloud in the entire game did me in and i had to leave it 4 hours of good play to get blown out an airlock by a exploding enemy was very annoying!

I have number 2 to play, so looking forward to giving it a bash

Just got in from work mate and the missus is out so I'll be on shortly

No Shoooowwwwww lol

I played around with the weapon customisation and that is going to be very intresting..... it literally looks like you can create anything.

i made a double barraled assult rifle, and a high rate firing plasma / flame thing! looks like a lot of work has gone into that.

I did pop on mate but then the missus called losses as a so I had to go pick her up, needless to say I am not impressed with her today, will deffo be on later bud

Reaper FWG wrote:I played around with the weapon customisation and that is going to be very intresting..... it literally looks like you can create anything.

And if you don't have the parts required, no worries as EA has you covered - this game is going to carry micro transactions so you can buy the resources you need if you can't be arsed to find them yourself. EA taking nickle and diming to a new level!

Oh, and if you have a Mass Effect 3 game save on your hard drive when you load this up it will detect it and unlock a Dead Space inspired version of Shepherds N7 armor. Not a bad touch tbh

The crazy thing is that some people will pay for those resources....

That armour looks awesome, each DS game has had a bonus armour of some sort that usually boosts your stats quite alot so its worth grabbing it if you can

Also for those that fancy this but have yet to play the previous games here's a story catch up trailer...

N7 Armour woop woop

Demo is now on the dashboard, give it a whirl

Killswitchmad wrote:Demo is now on the dashboard, give it a whirl

No chance


Does this micro transaction thing not take the piss a bit though? In a F2P game then its completely understandable but in a game you are paying up to £40 for, to the be asked to pay for in game kit is a bit of a joke. Unfortunately, someone somewhere will pay for it and EA will peddle it out in more of their titles.....