Preview: Dead Space 3

Today, thanks to Speeder, I got to play through the Dead Space 3 demo on the XBox 360.. I freaking love the first two games, so you can imagine my anticipation for this third installment set to hit stores around February 5th. If you've never played the Dead Space games before, picture Alien but with LOTS of zombie-like aliens. These games are downright frightening but I absolutely love them for it. I highly suggest playing through them before playing Dead Space 3 as all the games have a great ongoing storyline. 
The demo was pretty basic. It didn't give away much as far as what this installment plans for the progression of the story, but it did show a few new details to the game. It opens with a scene of Isaac Clarke (the main character of the series) waking up in a crash site upon a snowy planet. You quickly find yourself wandering in a blizzard to find shelter with little more than your plasma cutter and RIG suit. You continue to wander and encounter Necromorphs, a large necromorph creature, and new human adversaries. You also get to see the new version of the work bench and the new weapon crafting system. That's right, you can now construct customized weapons with parts you find. The system seems a little confusing right now, but I have a feeling that it will become clearer in the full version of the game. I hope this is true because there is a lot of potential for this system to be great and really useful, or overly complicated and frustrating.You can also still upgrade your suits and weapons like in the previous games.
The enemies and controls seem about the same as before. The necromorphs move and pop out of nowhere the same way as they have before: when you least expect it. I'm sure that there have been upgrades to the AI and the boss fights, but it's hard to tell with just this tidbit of game play. The controls are just how I remember them. Everything is assigned to the same buttons as the previous games, so I barely needed to read the little hints that kept popping up.Some may disagree with me, but I find it nice to already know the controls to a game. It is a good and easy way to tie a game series together and make it easier on gamers who want to play all the games in the series. 

All in all, I am very excited for this next installment of the Dead Space series. I love the scares and disturbing imagery the past games have given me, and the storyline compels me to keep playing them despite how creeped out I become. Hopefully, Dead Space 3 will live up to it's predecessors. And on a side note, now I must go off and play them again. With the lights out.

The Walking Dead: The Game. Seriously, PLAY THIS GAME.

So suddenly it's January, 2013. Which means that time has once again gotten away from me and I've been neglecting our humble little blog here. But no time to lament over that now! I have a very good game that I must talk about now, having just finished playing it in it's entirety.

Let me begin by saying that I now understand why The Walking Dead game has won Game of the Year 2012 from so many different sources. I've been gaming for a long time, but I can't remember the last time a game got so deeply into my head. The Walking Dead is a point-and-click style game, which means that you have a 3rd person view of the world and can move your character around to interact with items and other characters in the world. Almost everything you do results in the storyline changing based upon your decisions in what actions to take and how you interact with other characters. Seems fairly easy right? Wrong. This game forces you to make very tough, emotionally-intense decisions. AND you have a very limited time to select what you say or do in most cases. For example, you might be forced to take sides when two characters are arguing with each other. If you agree with one, you alienate the other and that could very well screw you over in some way later on in the game. It made me feel so overwhelmed and depressed at one point that I actually had to take a break from playing it for several days. I can't remember the last time a game was intense enough to make me stop playing it. But despite the intensity, the story is well crafted and provides good replay value. I found that right after I made a decision, I wanted to go back the next time I play through it and choose another option, just to see what would happen differently. When Speeder and I have discussed our games with each other, we have found our experiences are very unique. Of course, we found there were certain story progressions that don't change no matter what you choose, but we also found that both of our gaming experiences were very different from one another. Again, great replay value here.  

Lee Everett

The story itself is enthralling (and reminds me a lot of the pace of the graphic novels), but the characters also draw you into the game. You play as Lee Everett, a man who seems like a good person but has a clouded past. You also come across a little girl named Clementine who becomes another central figure in the storyline. There are many more people who you encounter in your attempt to escape the walking corpses littering the Georgia countryside, and the characters are written in such a great, human way that you end up getting really attached to most of them. But very early on, you learn that much like the Walking Dead graphic novels, you never know when someone's time might be up. I don't want to give too much away in this review, but the truth is that a lot of these characters aren't going to make it to the end of the game. And yet even knowing that, I still got attached to new people who came along as the story progressed. One of the aspects of a game that really draws me in and keeps me playing are characters that grow on you as well as characters who you grow to dislike, and this game has great character development on both sides.
 The graphics of The Walking Dead are beautiful even though the cel-shading style of animation may not be as realistic as other styles. This art style does remind me a lot of the comics though, and I can always appreciate when a development team pays attention to the source material and carries aesthetic details over to the game they make. The animations are smooth for the most part, and the facial expressions and body movements of the characters work well. The only problem I encountered was occasionally having a pause during certain action scenes, and I believe this was due partially to our XBox's disc drive. Other than that, the game ran great.

Like the title of the post says: PLAY THIS GAME. It may be an intensely emotional zombie-filled ride but it's definitely a game that should be played once through. I feel like many people may shy away from it because it is not as action heavy as a lot of other zombie games out there, but that does not stop it from being a truly excellent game. PLAY IT.


Aaaand coming up soon: Dead Space 3, Aliens:Colonial Marines and our Borderlands 2 cos-play.