<p>Dead Space 3 is the game we&#8217;ve all been waiting for, yet sadly &#8211; for me at least &#8211; it&#8217;s not the game I wanted. If you&#8217;ve ever read my reviews or articles you&#8217;ll know I&#8217;m a massive horror game fan and I often recount the tale of how I stumbled upon the original Dead Space&#8217;s eerie marketing campaign &#8220;No Known Survivors&#8221; and consumed it all with utter glee. I was lucky at that point as the resultant game didn&#8217;t disappoint: it was tense, atmospheric and gave lessons to the industry in how to make a successful, contemporary survival horror. To a certain extent, Dead Space 2 was equally as fantastic &#8211; although it definitely took us into more ridiculous territory with seemingly every set piece culminating in an explosion. It had a decent horror/action blend which also caught many of us out with its occasional tongue-in-cheek dark humour moments whereby you&#8217;d find yourself winding up in a B-Movie-esque spooky futuristic nursing home staring at blood-stained teddy bears and messed up drawings. Fast forward another year and we arrive at the wholly uninspired Dead Space 3, a game so distinctly &#8220;middle-of-the-road&#8221; it would consistantly cause pile-ups on the A3 if metaphors could actually exist… as cars.</p>
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<p>First and foremost, the game has proudly dropped the needless online multiplayer aspects introduced in Dead Space 2 in favour of heavily supporting a two-player Co-Op campaign. This singlehandedly cripples the main appeal of the game in two ways: 1) No horror game is ever as tense and unnerving if you&#8217;re playing with somebody else, <b>especially</b> if you both have customizable weapons and armour 2) You would never really want to play a co-op horror game with a stranger online, as they could easily show up, curb-stomp your toes and then dissapear having caused complete mayhem. The Co-Op is arguably still appealing to the casual gamer as it heightens the action/adventure aspects of the game as opposed to the horror elements. Some content can only be accessed when playing as a twosome and therefore the completists amongst us will appreciate this as a way to play, although when flying solo you&#8217;ll notice that your partner in crime often takes a different path to yourself allowing you that room to breathe and enjoy.</p>
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<p>The narrative of Dead Space 3 primarily serves its purpose as our heroic protagonist Isaac Clarke stumbles once more stumbles into the breach of love, loss and crazy religious Marker-loving Unitoligist mayhem. Yes, that&#8217;s right folks, for the first time in the franchises history you&#8217;ll be fighting both human and Necromorph alien at the same time in a quest to rid the world of the evil, black monolith loving, war-raging opposition. You really have to feel for Isaac, not only has he had to endure 3 games worth of torture, anguish and schitzophernia but now he has to suffer the wrath of poor scriptwriting, whittling him down to the most one-dimensional, faceless front-man you can ever expect to play. Silent Hill 2&#8217;s James was a man oozing with dislikable qualities from the off and yet for all those flaws he ultimately sticks in my mind as far more of a hero than Isaac Clarke. The Unitoligists support a new, dastardly villain and against Isaac&#8217;s will he must participate in this war with a gang of generic side-kicks that I dub &#8220;the resistance&#8221;. Usual fare.</p>
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<p>So far this review is coming across wholly negative &#8211; and that shouldn&#8217;t be the case. The only negative aspect about Dead Space 3 is it&#8217;s absolute averageness; it&#8217;s the most 6/10 game I&#8217;ve ever played. It does nothing new to push the boundaries of sci-fi survival horror and yet it doesn&#8217;t do anything to drop them either. Had this been the first time we&#8217;d seen Isaac in action then maybe I&#8217;d have an altogether different opinion, yet for the third game of such a high-quality series it really deserves better. The graphics are as stunning as usual &#8211; with rustic, dystopian corridors and baron planets creating the perfect, haunting setting for a game of this calibre and facial recognition animation is absolutely top notch. The Necromorphs are their usual disgusting selves, gurgling and garbling with their multiple limbs &#8211; and for once I genuinely feel they&#8217;re as powerful as ever with rapid movement and multiple swarm attacks &#8211; however the shock value ultimately isn&#8217;t there as these are the same creatures we&#8217;ve been fighting for 3 games now.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.explosion.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Dead-Space-3-coop.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-23206" alt="Dead-Space-3-coop" src="http://www.explosion.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Dead-Space-3-coop-1024x576.jpg" width="600" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>In conclusion Dead Space 3 is more of the same, and I assume for most fans of the series this is no bad thing. Those looking for scares, some creative storytelling and an interesting story to be told &#8211; then you&#8217;re probably going to be disappointed. It&#8217;s a solid game, don&#8217;t get me wrong, but it&#8217;s lack of bravery and opting to focus on Co-Op play really makes this the worst of the 3 games so far. Weapon customisation is enough to add layers of replayability, as you can spice up your Isaac&#8217;s inventory with some crazy looking ammunition that renders you a one-man army, however there just isn&#8217;t enough in this package to make it the groundbreaking title it could have been. In Space, no one should keep having love interests&#8230;</p>

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