I'm not terribly interested in Dead Space, but I am amused by the 5 million sales thing. You don't make a game so expensive that you have to sell more than you expect to sell to stay in business. That's basic business. Broadening appeal by sticking Multiplayer and Co-op in their costs money too. It'll be an interesting indictment of the AAA business model-namely, the creation of games is not about gambling, or about big IPs, or playing at expanding your IP as part of your business model, it's about art. And making the sort of thing you can sell to a customer who'll enjoy it, rather than being forced to try to get everyone to buy it because you refuse to budget and reign in spending.
Also, I thought, being the stand-up guy I am, I'd fact check this post below. Because it's wrong. It shows that they know nothing about Dead Space, but barely paid attention to the demo they played. Heck, I don't like the game much, but these are the worst criticisms I've heard... in the last hour (This is the internet, after all).
deviltry said:
Just tried the demo:
You barely walk because of snowstorm, but when you hold down LT you move at normal pace - okay, holding LT all the way inside, bad design.
Fair point. It's a bit boring that you can get through the slowdown of the blizzard with the run. It still emphasises the blizzard, and that it slows you down though, which is kind of the point. And I'd place money on that being a gameplay mechanic later on. See, Isaac can't shoot, or aim properly, while running. So if there's a battle, in the blizzard, with low visibility, where you're almost unable to walk whilst fighting, that's going to be difficult.
After first stomp on a crate I knew I would never stomp on more crates, boring and annoying and bad design.
"Bad Design". I don't think that means what you think that means. You repeat it often. "Bad design", doesn't mean "Not to my personal taste. Breaking crates? Staple of Dead Space. Staple of a whole bunch of games. It's not bad design, it's a design choice. Dead Space intends to ape survival horror, so it has crates which you break, in your search for ammunition. I know in my first playthrough (Got the first two in a steam sale a while ago), of Dead Space, I was constantly looking for crates, because I was running low on ammo, even though I was really careful with it.
Let's list some other "Bad Design".
-Legend of Zelda series.
-Crash Bandicoot Series.
-Mario Series (Bricks in his case, primarily vases in LoZ's case).
-Most Dungeon Crawlers.
-Half Life Series.
Crate smashing is a gaming staple. Resource hoarding is a horror staple. They both serve a purpose, and work fine. "I don't much like this." is not "Bad Design".
Suddenly music changed to cliche "horror is happening" and first enemy poped up. This didn't awaken any emotions in me, let alone made me scared, and like the first encounter should be the scarriest, bad horror design.
Indeed. Dead Space has this obnoxious violin music thing where suddenly shrieking fiddles announce something shambling and wrong this way comes. This is a well documented criticism of the series. Congratulations on noticing it at this late juncture.
Then I went in a side cave and even got attacked from behind while dead dude suddenly jumped on me. Neither did anything to me. I did not had any reaction. And stuff suddenly awakening should atleast startle. From behind is the scarriest poisition. Fail horror.
Congratulations. Your deadpan approach is immune to the shock scares. That doesn't make it "Fail Horror". Dead Space really only has two things going for it, horror wise. Gore and shock scares. Not the most developed horror concept ever. It has a nice atmosphere, but once you get the hang of the environment (Every vent will have a necromorph burst from it. If one vent is not burst from, you're coming back this way. It works on most people. It works especially well on me (Even when I know someone's behind me, if they grab my shoulders I jump like mad).
Shooting was meh. Atleast in Max Payne 3 or Rage you get some feedback, now just random limbs fall off - way less satisfying.
Considering the accuracy of everything else you said, I'm going to eat a kilo of salt before I take this at face value. Dead Space has what they call "Strategic Dismemberment"(Original promotional materials). If you shoot an enemy in their limbs and joints, you blow their limbs off. You choose to slow them down by aiming for the legs, or stop their big attacks by aiming for the arms. These cutting blows do some of the most damage. The weapons and most of the enemies are designed around cutting things off. Dead Space has always had feedback. It's never been random. So either they've changed it (I doubt it), or you're not paying much attention. This has some of the most feedback in a game. The weapons clearly animate their uses. Most of them fire at awkward rates, which further gives them heft. These aren't poorly designed weapons. It's interesting that you cite Rage, because it's weapons were rather boring. The death animations and impact effects were fun, sure, but not nearly as high impact as "Leg goes flying away spraying gore".
And I don't have anything against cutting off parts, I really enjoyed Blade Mode in MGR: Revengeance demo, it's just that Dead Space's combat is an example of bad and boring design.
We've covered why you're wrong when you say bad design, I'm going to poke a hole in "Boring" as well. I'm not a fan of Dead Space. I don't like jump scares. They don't satisfy me, but they do make me jump, because I react before I think. Which makes the game awkward and uncomfortable, and not engaging. But cutting off limbs to fight your enemies is not a boring mechanic. At the time, it was pretty unique, and it combines strategy with the action, and reinforces the idea that Isaac is an engineer, on a mining vessel(In the first game), using mostly jury-rigged equipment as his weaponry. That's clever design, which builds into the narrative, and adds more gore to their game, which is one of their big elements.
Then I climbed some ladder and yet again had to hold LT down to make my character move at normal pace - aand I quit.
Cool. Story. Bro.
Never really understood what made Dead Space fun to play. Boring and generic and boring and boring and boring. Just.. boring.
That's called pacing.
It's not scary. It's action is not very involving or gruesome or.. actionly.
Scary is different things to different people, but I'd say it is startling, to most people. That's where it gets it's horror label. Some people are harder to startle than others, and you seem to fit into this camp. You only played the demo, so claiming it's not very involving is a bit of a stretch. When you're trying to manage health and ammo, you get involved, and you end up having to take risks to conserve those. When I'm forced to get in close and melee enemies I've crippled, because I need ammo for the next boss, I'm thinking pretty hard about it. That for me, was the most scary thing about it. It's an accountant's nightmare.
Gruesome is everywhere. The enemies are the distorted remains of humans. Granted, once they're in that state it's not so bad, but when you see that stuff happen (Which happens numerous times), it's gruesome. Had you died, you would have seen gruesome. When you get jumped on? Gruesome. Now, gruesome isn't all that scary to me, but that doesn't make it not gruesome. And now gruesome doesn't look like a word to me anymore.
Really, what the fuck do you people see in Dead Space? Mediocre surroundings?
I'm going to quote the escapist for this one: "Oh no. Someone like something that I don't like."
To be fair, I'm no fan of Dead Space, and I don't like the games that much. I still can use my brain and see the appeal, and I can acknowledge the good bits. And heck, criticizing it is easy as pie. It's a pretty spectacular failure when only 1 of your criticisms holds up under criticism.
