This review contains spoilers
As I was finishing up the shiny, polished-up version of Isaac Clarke's worst day as an engineer, a scene I remembered from the original played out, albeit with a few minor differences. Our main character finally witnesses the full video message he received from his girlfriend Nichole, and at the very end, Isaac is forced to watch as she injects something into her body and slumps over, dead.
In the original, this was perhaps the only moment in Dead Space's story that impacted me in any way. Isaac Clarke, this mute protagonist only capable of communicating through yells and grunts and myriad displays of anger and fear, hangs his head in his hands as he helplessly watches the person he loves most take her life. His entire reality has collapsed around him as he came to terms with a truth he already knew. Without uttering a single word, that small animation portrayed grief...
Dead Space 2023 is, in many ways, the best case scenario for a remake of the original. It boasts one of the best looking worlds I've seen in a video game, an excellent meshing of the incredible art direction and the modern technology used to bring that vision to life. The clunky Zero-g movement is upgraded, and the weapons and combat are as visceral as ever. The story was fleshed out in mostly interesting ways, and Isaac isn't mute anymore and acts like a proper engineer, contributing to the plan to get off the Ishimura instead of just being a silent lackey. For all intents and purposes, it's the superior game to the original.
...during the same sequence I mentioned previously, I watched, in the remake, as Isaac continued his normal idle pose as he watched Nichole commit suicide, seemingly no change to his stature as he watched the life slip away from her. For all the effort the team made towards fleshing out Isaac as a proper character, giving him a voice and a slew of new animations, in the emotional climax of the game they inexplicably forgot this tiny animation, which had conveyed so much in the original. I got the impression that Isaac couldn't care less about what should be an earth-shattering revelation.
I sat my controller down as the credits rolled, largely very satisfied with the outcome of this remake. But that single scene at the end was stuck in my head. This small little animation that was so impactful to me back in 2008 wasn't even deemed worthy of carrying over to the remake. I scrolled through a comparison of the two versions of the scene on Youtube and found most people applauding the remade version as a complete improvement, nobody but me acknowledging this small, insignificant change. A thought struck me:
"Maybe this is why I can't get excited for remakes anymore."
In the original, this was perhaps the only moment in Dead Space's story that impacted me in any way. Isaac Clarke, this mute protagonist only capable of communicating through yells and grunts and myriad displays of anger and fear, hangs his head in his hands as he helplessly watches the person he loves most take her life. His entire reality has collapsed around him as he came to terms with a truth he already knew. Without uttering a single word, that small animation portrayed grief...
Dead Space 2023 is, in many ways, the best case scenario for a remake of the original. It boasts one of the best looking worlds I've seen in a video game, an excellent meshing of the incredible art direction and the modern technology used to bring that vision to life. The clunky Zero-g movement is upgraded, and the weapons and combat are as visceral as ever. The story was fleshed out in mostly interesting ways, and Isaac isn't mute anymore and acts like a proper engineer, contributing to the plan to get off the Ishimura instead of just being a silent lackey. For all intents and purposes, it's the superior game to the original.
...during the same sequence I mentioned previously, I watched, in the remake, as Isaac continued his normal idle pose as he watched Nichole commit suicide, seemingly no change to his stature as he watched the life slip away from her. For all the effort the team made towards fleshing out Isaac as a proper character, giving him a voice and a slew of new animations, in the emotional climax of the game they inexplicably forgot this tiny animation, which had conveyed so much in the original. I got the impression that Isaac couldn't care less about what should be an earth-shattering revelation.
I sat my controller down as the credits rolled, largely very satisfied with the outcome of this remake. But that single scene at the end was stuck in my head. This small little animation that was so impactful to me back in 2008 wasn't even deemed worthy of carrying over to the remake. I scrolled through a comparison of the two versions of the scene on Youtube and found most people applauding the remade version as a complete improvement, nobody but me acknowledging this small, insignificant change. A thought struck me:
"Maybe this is why I can't get excited for remakes anymore."
Reviewed on Apr 08, 2023