An eGamer journalist looks at Dead Space 3's marketing, fan reception, his own opinion of the game, the micro-transactions, critical performance and, most importantly, the actual sales of the game to deduce that Dead Space 3 is where it went, or is going, wrong for the franchise.
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Instead, they made a watered down action game. But they didn't market the game as an action game, they marketed it as "The new face of horror". Instead, they should've marketed it as an action game, for what it really was, that would've attracted all of the action game fans and EA would've made its money. Instead they marketed a non-horror game to horror fans, and so no one bought it. Too bad EA, you're all incompetent greedy bastards anyway.
If DS were to remain like the first, NO ONE would play it and would score incredibly LOW, times have changed so some variety is needed. Dead Space 3 is a damn good game...very engaging and thrilling, IMO.
Yes, there is a greater emphasis on action and the general atmosphere doesn't feel nearly as isolated and desperate, but that's not BAD. Something is not bad simply because it is not something else. That's retarded.
The game has problems (mostly with pacing and the story/characters), but I actually really liked the action bits.
At the same time, though, I would probably be happier if they kept what was good about 3 and went back to horror through and through.
Great game until now! Even enjoyed the human enemies... it´s good to have more "basic" enemies... and just because it´s "basic", doesn´t mean it´s bad. I´m a little tired from the old set of necromorphs from the last two games... pretty much the same! Gets old eventually, you know...
But surely if you look at the sales figures, and the game's marketing and critical and fan reception, it clearly isn't doing too well, and these are issues we've got to address and talk about in games journalism. Would you rather want issues to be avoided, problems to be sugarcoated and publishers and developers to be praised at every turn?
There's no need to get sensitive or defensive, because if you like the game there's no force on the planet that has the right to take that away from you. But there's a lot more to Dead Space 3's issues than whether people like it or not.
Micro transactions can be "good" (will never be good) if they only offer it as an alternative for stupid gamers who want to unlock things faster without enjoying the game itself, and only by not affecting gameplay and be completely optional.
If they start to mess with online gameplay, making gamers pay money, or worse cutting content by many bits to be unlocked just by paying, then the industry will just burn itself to the ground. This is something that shouldn't have become a trend in the first place. I just don't understand why many people agree to pay for stuff that used to be a complete package when buying a game in the past.
What people are failing to see is that it was pretty much just like the first 2 games, its just we have become desensitised to the style and horror. Yes, it has human enemies, yes it has more human interactions, but Issac is alone for 90% of the game.
Tbh, it is the weakest of the 4 (Including DS: Extraction) I personally was not expecting such a weak story, undeveloped characters and a total change in Issac (Seriously he acted like stoned tween). The story was what brought this game down, DS has never been good at developing villians (You probably forgot there was one in 2 right?) but the one in this one was a joke e.g.
Main villian "I'm going to kill you Issac, and the marker will free us all!"
Issac: "NO! I'm going to kill you!, you're doing the wrong thing!"
Main villain: "No, YOU WILL DIE!"
Issac: "NO YOU" etc. etc.
Eh... its still a 7/10 in my books which isn't bad. But not what the series deserved. It was totally different to what I expected.
Just make a sequel to DS: Extraction please, I honeslty thought that was the best one, and had the best character developments.