Jimquisition: Dead Space - The Best New IP This Generation?

[Saviordd1]

Eh, no. Sorry Dead Space is good but its not the best in new IP.

 

[Chaos Marine]

I too love the Dead Space games but I can't play the third because of Origin. I simply will not inflict malware on my computer like that. =\

 

[Superbun]

I'm not really a fan of the horror genre in any medium, so I'm probably not the best person to judge, but here's my two cents:

I've been sort-of watching the Dead Space franchise with a sense of passive disinterest for a while now, a feeling that can be summarised as "That's an interesting little game that does a few unique things and has a cult following, but it's not really my kind of thing" and I've also watched with mild displeasure as the sequels seemed to drift away from horror towards straight-up action.

For me, without a shadow of a doubt the best new IP of this generation has to go to Mass Effect. First thought on anyone's mind as soon as Mass Effect is brought up is the ending controversy, which the Extended Cut DLC nicely solved IMHO, but just the sheer fact that that the endings caused such massive, universal fan outcry across the entire gaming community shows how universally loved the franchise is, think about it, just how many moments and choices are ingrained into our collective gaming psyches, Ashley or Kaiden, who did you leave behind? Who died on your first run of The Collector Base? The death of Mordin Solus, these are just a few that I can think of off the top of my head. The Mass Effect franchise contains one of the most well-crafted Sci-Fi universes in gaming, populated with some of gaming's most well-loved characters.
While this may sound like another over-blown love-letter to an EA franchise, I'm don't think the games are without criticism, ME1 falls signifcantly short of its successsors in terms of gameplay and graphics, And I still think the shift to Thermal Clips in ME2&3 was a dumb move.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Dead Space is an amazing IP, one which I have come to love very dearly, and it makes me sad that EA isn't willing to continue to support it unless this game sells 5 million. I mean... Jesus, that's setting the bar a little high considering this game has less than half the marketing of the second one. *sigh*

 

[Edl01]

My experience with deadspace -
-Buys game
-Plays 6 hours
-Goes back the next day and finds that my save game has suddenly dissapeared
-Rages
-Starts new game
-Plays back up to the point that I quit the first time
-Goes back a week later to find my save has dissapeared on my again
-Trades game in.

Infamous is by far my favorite new IP of this generation.

 

[CaptainKoala]

Very well laid out case, but strictly in terms of IP and the game universe, I'd say that Mass Effect is the best of this generation, I'm kind of inclined to say in all of gaming but that's quite ambitious and I'm sure there's something out there that I can't think of right now that would give it a run for its money.

 

[Superbun]

My experience with deadspace -
-Buys game
-Plays 6 hours
-Goes back the next day and finds that my save game has suddenly dissapeared
-Rages
-Starts new game
-Plays back up to the point that I quit the first time
-Goes back a week later to find my save has dissapeared on my again
-Trades game in.

Infamous is by far my favorite new IP of this generation.

"I had a bad experience with this game, therefore it sucks" - You, Just then

 

[Dana22]

Success of the core game will serve as a justification of the shady practices.

 

[Edl01]

My experience with deadspace -
-Buys game
-Plays 6 hours
-Goes back the next day and finds that my save game has suddenly dissapeared
-Rages
-Starts new game
-Plays back up to the point that I quit the first time
-Goes back a week later to find my save has dissapeared on my again
-Trades game in.

Infamous is by far my favorite new IP of this generation.

"I had a bad experience with this game, therefore it sucks" - You, Just then

I would like you to please point out where I said it sucks. I simply pointed out that I had a bad experience with the game and as such did not play it.
In fact the claim that I was willing to play it a second time after my first save file was deleted suggests that I quite liked the game.

 

[Mr_Terrific]

Monster closets and jump scares...

Actually, I like DS. It's a great IP. It's just not as great as...

Uncharted
Mass Effect
Dragon Age
Bioshock
Assassin's Creed
Batman: Arkham series
Resistance
Demon/Dark Souls
Portal
Little Big Planet
Rockband

All of those come to mind before Dead Space. Now, some of those franchises might have had a shitty game sandwiched between better games in the franchise but we're talking about the IP and not the franchise, so DAO is better than DS. Dead Space 3 would have to have a tiny head giving midget hop out of the case and take care of things for me to ignore Mass Effect or Uncharted.

Lastly, the gen isn't done. If the rest of The Last of Us looks is as outstanding as the first 30 mins, then it might end up king of this gen...or at the very least, make Dead Space obsolete.

 

[GloatingSwine]

This is one reason I cannot have the least bit of respect for Visceral

They have out-right STATED that they don't give a shit about the PC ports and that they ACTIVELY neuter them because they don't want any one platform (The PC) to have a "superior experience"

It's a load of fucking crap

Or they can't be arsed to cater to PC fatties who will just pirate the game anyway?

It isn't survival horror, or even remotely horror. It's "OH LOOK, A SCARY THING IN A CUPBOARD! HERE IT IS JUMPING OUT AT YOU!"

Dishonored is the best new IP of this generation XD

Survival "Horror" is an odd thing. The thing is, it's not really about "horror", it's about tension, the player needs to be in a mental state where they actively dread meeting enemies because no matter what happens in a fight they haven't really won, because they've had to spend a limited resource to do it. In the best survival horror games you're actively thinking "do I spend bullets or risk health to run past this monster". Dead Space doesn't do that unless you play really suboptimally carrying all the crap weapons that never pay for themselves in ammo, so unless you're bad at the game the tension only persists when you're heavily outnumbered. There may also be too much combat, and too much mandatory combat (in RE/SH you can frequently avoid most of the enemies, again sheparding your limited pools of ammo and health), it becomes routine and you become a practised rekiller of the shambling dead (until the invincible one, then it's tense again). In the very best survival horror game of all (still Project Zero/Fatal Frame) the tension and tradeoff between ammo and safety is even embodied by the combat itself, because to do the most damage you have to hit just before the enemy hits you, meaning that even in combat the tension isn't broken, you're always safeguarding a limited resource.

Ironically, the closest to traditional horror in a game, Silent Hill 2, which draws horror from its themes and the dark places inside its characters, isn't tense most of the time because the combat is easy once you get the pipe and can poke enemies from beyond their attack range, risking no health and spending no bullets.

 

[ResonanceSD]

This is one reason I cannot have the least bit of respect for Visceral

They have out-right STATED that they don't give a shit about the PC ports and that they ACTIVELY neuter them because they don't want any one platform (The PC) to have a "superior experience"

It's a load of fucking crap

Or they can't be arsed to cater to PC fatties who will just pirate the game anyway?

PC 'fatties' as you so delightfully call us, will only pirate the game, as TotalBiscuit said in this video if the value proposition is so low that it's not worth buying the game.

You know, if the horror elements were neutered by microtransactions

if the game itself was a straight console port

if the franchise has nosedived so far from the original that it's barely worth the name.

You know, if those things happen.

Dead Space, a horror game? Hahahaha, next thing you tell me that the residentevil movies are pure horror, eh Jim?

Interesting how you added "pure" horror to the RE movies, but not Dead Space. That basically set me up to talk about how nobody say "pure" anything with regards to the former.

When you telegraph your own argumentative flaw, it becomes too easy for me.

Have you seen that TB video btw?

 

[jovack22]

Dead space really was a great IP.

Atmosphere remains great throughout... weapons/controls/gameplay etc etc is great.
Story is great, levels are varied and inspired (i.e. school after comm array after scientology church after.... etc and NOT just grey hallway after brown hallway)

Some people criticize the game for not being scary... I would hope that grown adults would get used to the jump scares after a while and not soil themselves or have mental trauma.... however, the jump scares do well to give suspense to the game and urgency, which is something people cannot argue.

I never played the multiplayer... strictly talking about single, and I for one can guarantee i am not buying any microtransactions after i get the core game.

 

[Trishbot]

Resident Evil has them. Silent Hill has them. Nearly every great horror movie ever made has them.

Okay, ignoring the rest of your post, I take issue with this part.

Resident Evil is a MUCH more of a action series than a horror series, it's hardly all that scary, and the early games only coast by on the low, LOW standards of the PS1 generation of consoles which was the first generation where horror was even possible.

The Silent Hills that are worth a crap have between none and VERY few jump-scares, and when you go several hours without a single jump scare it will make that one jumpscare all the more satisfying. Only the newer, shittier Silent Hills really embraced jump-scares, and they were worse for it.

And nearly every great horror movie ever made? That's just false.

Are you SERIOUSLY telling me that the traditional Resident Evil games "coasted by on the low standards of PS1 consoles"? The remake on Gamecube preserved the essence of the game, upped the presentation, and it was JUST as scary and thrilling as any other horror game has EVER been. Resident Evil was NEVER an "action" game until RE4, and even that's debatable. The creator of Resident Evil himself rejected pure action and, when he saw the original version of RE4 getting too action-driven, he turned it into a brand new IP entirely called Devil May Cry.

Silent Hill 1, also a PS1-era game, has plenty of jump scares (the glass room and the body in the locker immediately spring to mind), as does Silent Hill 2 (the bathroom door, the lying figure under the car, the hangman scream, Pyramid Head in EVERY appearance, the bug room, etc.) Silent Hill 3 has its share too. ALL of them do. Trust me; I played those games religiously.

These games, however, didn't rely ONLY on jump scares. Neither does Dead Space. I've played nearly every horror game you can imagine, and Dead Space has plenty of really excellent jump scares, but it's got plenty more going on for it (DS1's suicide room and DS2's creepy bird sanctuary are standouts). But even the best horror games have had jump scares.

And, yes, nearly every timeless, widely regarded scary horror movie has jump scares in it at some point. Exorcist, Alien, The Thing, The Shining, Jacob's Ladder, Paranormal Activity, Halloween, Psycho, Jaws, Night of the Living Dead, Evil Dead, The Omen, American Werewolf in London, The Ring, Suspiria, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc. Again, not all RELY on them, but nearly all of them HAVE them.

 

[GloatingSwine]

PC 'fatties' as you so delightfully call us, will only pirate the game, as TotalBiscuit said in this video if the value proposition is so low that it's not worth buying the game.

If at any point in your decision making tree is "and therefore I will pirate the game, ensuring the developers receive nothing but I get to play it anyway", then why would they bother with you? This is exactly the attitude publicly expressed by PC gamers that make developers think the platform is bad for profitability or needs more always on DRM and freemium features than you can shake a dick at.

And that's not to mention the significant portion of the userbase who will just pirate the game anyway, when even stuff like Humble Indie Bundle gets something like 60% piracy rates (y'know that thing you can pay one cent for, that people massively pirate anyway because a huge proportion of PC users are such habitual scumbags*) you can't make the argument that "oh, PC gamers would pay if the port was good", they wouldn't.

You literally cannot make this argument, PC gamers don't, as it stands, deserve nice things. That's why everyone chased the tail of WoW for so long, because Blizzard figured out a way to extract money from PC players whilst everyone else was getting screwed by 90% piracy rates, and why the future of the platform is basically all about Free to Play because that locks them in to a system where you can tempt money out of them.

* And it's generally windows based traditional PC gamers that do, average payment for the Windows HIBs are lower than either Linux or Mac versions (presumably because the Linux users saved money on the OS and Mac users are loaded), which happens because PC gamers if they don't steal the thing outright will ensure that they screw over the people who made it by paying a single puny cent.

 

[Dead Seerius]

All this video has done is remind me that I really need to get around to playing Dead Space 2. I absolutely loved the first game, but I never got around to playing the second.
Because I've only played the first, I can't say it's the best IP of this gen, but Jim raises some great points and the series has definitely impressed me. Hopefully DS3 continues that streak of quality.

Still, damn micro transactions and damn EA's distasteful business practices.

 

[mjc0961]

You know, I bought Dead Space during the Steam Halloween sale last year because of the episode that mentioned how Dead Space is scary in the same kind of way that Doom 3 was scary (and unlike shit that relies only on cheap jump scares and thus doesn't even remotely scare me such as Slender, Doom 3 actually did scare me the first time I played it) because I thought it might be fun to play a game that actually messes with my head in that manner again.

Still haven't gotten around to actually playing it yet, though. But I think that it just moved up to the top of my "play next" list once I finish one of the games I'm already currently playing.

I have only started Dead Space and I like the creative HUD (or lack thereof), but I was really disappointed at how quickly we got attacked at the beginning. Ever heard of pacing Visceral? Even the much maligned Doom 3 paced itself really well at the start and gave you a good 10-15 minutes of gameplay before throwing the legions of hell at you (see also: Half-Life).

I don't think "Half-Life" and "paced itself really well" are allowed to exist in the same sentence without some form of negation. For example, "Half-Life did not pace itself really well." Four words: Overly long tram ride. When you have players ready to turn the game off out of boredom before the game has even fucking started, you're doing pacing horribly, horribly wrong.

Best IP this generation? Huh. No wonder EA is trying to find an excuse to kill it.

Nice one!

 

[BioRex]

Four words: Overly long tram ride. When you have players ready to turn the game off out of boredom before the game has even fucking started, you're doing pacing horribly, horribly wrong.

Your kidding right? That bit at the start?
Well if people can't get through that I wonder how they have the patience to wait for the game to load or for a movie to start, or for their elevator to arrive, etc...

 

[GloatingSwine]

Half Life does have loads of bits that go on far too long. You can tell which bits they are because they've been cut out of the Black Mesa rerelease.

 

[BioRex]

Half Life does have loads of bits that go on far too long. You can tell which bits they are because they've been cut out of the Black Mesa rerelease.

Fair enough, that track thing still seems like an odd thing to remember