Buhbuhbuh it's EA, Joystiq! Though we'll save our most obnoxious we-told-you-sos for the more comprehensive metareview ... we did tell you so. Our E3 Game of Show has scooped up its first (and hopefully not last) set of review accolades, scoring 91% in the pages of Xbox World 360. The review reportedly suggests that EA could teach Capcom "a thing or three about survival horror," with Dead Space boasting ferocious foes that make others in the genre seem "decidedly average."
Oh, but there is one thing that worries us: the game's "film-worthy" script. Have they not been to the cinema recently? With rare exception, a poorly formatted paragraph describing a pair of voluptious breasts ramping a Porsche over an explosion would have to be dumbed down by a script doctor. Too arty.
Read a thing in the metro. Sounds very different to the shiny space shooter I had in mind. Space survival horror apparently. Weapons aren't guns, tools for your job, bits fall off enemy so they re-grow bigger nastier bits. Does look very nice too.
I'm going to pretend it's still a space shooter and try it anyway. Survival horror makes me think of Resident Evil 1 on the PS1 with crappy camera-angles and limited saves, the sole reason I've never revisited the genre.
I saw this in the metro too, I was expecting it to be meh since EA are publishing it but from the tiny amount I've seen it looks quite good. Apparently it doesn't have pause button though to "create immersion", I can't see that being anything but annoying.
I quite like the whole idea. I've always liked games where you don't get respite unless you search for it.
Picking up a pda/notebook/whatever in a corridor of a ship/base/other ideal location for nasty shit and then stand there reading it?
I wouldn't, If I was in that position I'd collect a few and then hole up to read them, far safer. (Or just go quite insane with fear and get dangerously drunk)
I'd say Aliens meets Resident Evil meets that Shadowgrounds, with good graphics and a bit of event horizon thrown in. Some people would hate that but I quite like the look of it.
HereComesPete wrote:I'd say Aliens meets Resident Evil meets that Shadowgrounds, with good graphics and a bit of event horizon thrown in. Some people would hate that but I quite like the look of it.
HereComesPete wrote:I've always liked games where you don't get respite unless you search for it.
I agree but not being able to pause is extreme. It's fair enough having limited save points or not being able to stand around in safety wherever you want, but pausing?
Although I'm willing to believe this until I see it myself.
To be fair, it can hardly be worse than Doom 3 (which was probably the closest to the last survival horror).
This lack of pause piques my ears though, but I can't see how a game would function without Esc to the in game menu to pause the fucker, if it's actually a lack of in-game pause, well, I hardly use it anyway so it's no loss.
buzzmong wrote:To be fair, it can hardly be worse than Doom 3 (which was probably the closest to the last survival horror).
This lack of pause piques my ears though, but I can't see how a game would function without Esc to the in game menu to pause the fucker, if it's actually a lack of in-game pause, well, I hardly use it anyway so it's no loss.
I'd assume like an MP game, you can hit escape, but it doesn't actually pause, just gives you a menu
Hmm, I'd like to try it, but unless saving is easy (not quick save, but say, via a menu) I can imagine it fucking me off by having to redo bits because I get called away/go get food/ go to lectures etc and it not pausing.
I do applaud the developers for trying something different in the immersion grounds though.
It doesn't matter how good the game is, if I can't pause it it's pointless me buying it. I barely play multiplayer games any more for that reason, and the only reason I can play MMONGs is because I can find a safe spot and hide, or at least not lose very much if I do come back and find myself dead (which happens fairly often). I wonder if they realise that not everybody who plays games can sit welded to their mouse for long periods of time (not that I wouldn't if I could).
Still, the game isn't released yet so I'm not going to get all internet rage about it when it might not even happen. Even that's assuming that I'd like the game in the first place.
buzzmong wrote:Hmm, I'd like to try it, but unless saving is easy (not quick save, but say, via a menu) I can imagine it fucking me off by having to redo bits because I get called away/go get food/ go to lectures etc and it not pausing.
I do applaud the developers for trying something different in the immersion grounds though.
Then you'd just end up using the save system as an awkward substitute pause function. I would guess the save system would also be restricted otherwise what's the point of doing away with pause if you can break immersion with saves.
Still stinks of concept over gameplay to me. I boo the developers for bad design.
spoodie wrote:
Then you'd just end up using the save system as an awkward substitute pause function. I would guess the save system would also be restricted otherwise what's the point of doing away with pause if you can break immersion with saves.
Still stinks of concept over gameplay to me. I boo the developers for bad design.
We don't actually know how this 'no pause' affects the game, or if it's merely a lack of a button to press to not die whilst answering the phone/taking a dump/whatever.
If it is un-pausable enough that exiting to the main screen by unloading your game is the only way, then they had best make that a quick and painless process or it'll break sales.
I have also read that it suffers from console controls, m&k are unresponsive and don't work well, leading some pc reviewers to play through with a 360 pad. How true this is I don't know, but if it is, that'll destroy the game for me far more than a weird pause system.
Dead Space scores 91% in first review
