I dunno, I just don't get it.

Does having an interesting combat system in theory mean that a game has interesting gameplay? Pokémon has an extremely fascinating combat system, but it makes awful use of it.

Does having some undeniably charming moments mean that a game has good story? Lots of games have those things, but fall flat on their storytelling.

Does being visually interesting mean that a virtual world feels lived in? Heh, just look at Hover.

I think Paper Mario 1 worked with its basic locales because they played to the strengths of what the franchise had already established. Goombas and Koopas having peaceful establishments was an interesting twist, it makes sense that a series focused around Stars (Star World, Power Stars, Starmen, Star Road... all that before Super Mario Galaxy) would have Star Spirits as deities, Bowser's immature personality implied through Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 64 was elaborated upon, making him a really likeable villain...

Thousand-Year Door throws that all out of the window in a certain overconfidence that its own storytelling is going to stand just as strong, but it just... doesn't land right?

I won't pretend I didn't like Vivian, but "I like this one character" is not a real reason for GOTY (game of thousand years) status.

BORN TO FUNNY
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410,757,864,530 GROWN MEN ATTRACTED TO A 16 YEAR OLD

It’s been a little past a year since the incredibly successful ’Dead Space Remake’ was released and because of that I replayed the original title to see how it has aged since the remake released. No surprise, it still holds up really well outside of the lackluster PC port. There are some quality of life things you may miss playing the original as well as slightly clunkier controls, but remains to be an overall great experience.

The easiest way to describe ’Dead Space’ is by referring to it as ’Resident Evil 4’... but in space. This may sound a bit unjust to compare it to a completely different franchise with completely different goals, but that is outright what the developers said when developing the game. This is also the most simple and broad way of looking at it though. ’Dead Space’ does a lot to feel like a massively unique title and most of that comes from its gameplay and the time period it came out in as big budget horror games weren’t doing so hot in the seventh generation. The biggest standout feature of the title’s gameplay is instead of precise aiming always going to the head, you have to dismember their limbs and they make this very clear. They tell you like five fucking times that you have to cut apart the necromorphs, the enemies you’ll mainly encounter. I can not tell if the game just feels the need to be a bit hand-holdy to remind people that shooting off the head is not the name of the game here or if this was some inside joke with the devs because it comes off as comical after the second time they remind you.

It may sound as if I’m already pretty negative on the game because of that, but no. I adore the gameplay loop. I love how it actively discourages you from shooting the heads off because if you do the necromorphs will just come running at you swinging their arms around rapidly which becomes much more difficult to handle. With this strong focus on legs and arms, it adds a strong dynamic of strategy and quick thinking in combat. I constantly found myself balancing which enemies I need to kill and worry about throughout the intense moments of the game and this always applied pressure to me. It becomes especially tense when you have to deal with multiple kinds of enemies at once which there are a good variety of. Something new I noticed on this playthrough compared to every other time I’ve played is that some enemies can sneak up behind you. When finishing a large encounter I would search around for supplies and sometimes there would be one last guy I didn’t notice and he’d come up behind me and strike. This scared me each time it happened and it's my first time ever really noticing it in this game, but it’s really cool. There are a few things to take note of when playing on PC though. If you consider yourself to be good with these kinds of behind the shoulder shooters such as ’Resident Evil 4’, ’The Evil Within’, ’The Last of Us’, etc. then I highly recommend choosing hard difficulty and playing with a controller. The reason I mention this is because using a mouse to aim at exact limbs can feel a bit busted in the sense that it's pretty difficult to miss your shots unless you’re intentionally trying to or are using the pulse rifle. The game feels balanced around a controller and I would recommend playing that way unless you want an easier experience or are new to this type of game.

The different types of weapons at your disposal is one of the most memorable aspects to this title and one of reasons this game sticks out so much in comparison to its peers. There are your more default weapons such as the plasma cutter being your standard pistol, the pulse rifle being your assault rifle, and the flamethrower which speaks for itself, but the other major weapons you come across are very unique. The line gun is a wide, short range weapon with much higher damage likely to cut off the enemies limbs in one go. The ripper shoots out a saw blade that will cut anything in its way apart, but also has a high chance of you taking hits because of how close you need to be to enemies to use it. The force gun doesn’t do an insane amount of damage, but will push any enemy to fall over onto the ground giving you time and space. Then last, but not least, the contact beam, that has a charge attack, but has the highest damage out of any. Now, I didn’t really want to explain in a bullet point style, but I feel it's such an important aspect of ’Dead Space’ and its personality. These aren’t even all the weapons are capable of as each tool has an alternate fire that does something different from the normal fire. These weapons fucking rock and all feel well balanced around having strong risk/reward choices as well as having large variety between them. Although, I will admit the plasma cutter is a little overpowered, but due to limited ammo and how interesting the other weapons are, there is still a motivation to use the other weapons. These aren’t the only things in your toolkit though. There is also a stasis module which you can use to slow down enemies for some time as well as a kinesis module for throwing items at enemies. The amount of options given to you can help the game feel a lot more varied than it actually is since the combat situations tend to always be “They’re ambushing you. Take care of it!”. The variety of your equipment does a good job disguising that. Oh and my personal favorite weapons that I focus on using are the plasma cutter, pulse rifle, force gun, and contact beam (my beloved <3).

The upgrade system in the game is quite decent as well. You have to make difficult choices with weapons since to get certain upgrades, you’ll have to put your power nodes into a slot that does nothing to be able to get to the one you want. This makes getting upgrades feel like they really mean something. This isn’t the only thing to worry about though as those same power nodes are used on locked doors that contain a shit ton of supplies as well as audio logs. It can lead to some immensely tough choices that you’ll need to figure out. Power nodes are also a pretty rare item.. well sort of. You can purchase power nodes at the shop similar to ammo and health. They aren’t super cheap, costing ten thousand credits, but I wish it wasn’t just an item that you could save up money for and buy a bundle of. I feel it removes a bit of the incentive to explore looking for these items when you could just purchase them instead.

The pacing is a bit all over the place. There are short moments where you get to catch your breath and solve a puzzle which are usually simplistic, but there’s enough variety to them to never get old. There are also sections with zero gravity that are pretty neat. The biggest issue with the pacing is that in the first half of the game they will put you in these short moments of dread and atmosphere and rip it away every single time with a necromorph bursting through a vent. This feels as if they lacked confidence in their atmosphere. That's quite a shame because these short moments are really well done. They just don’t let them breathe enough. This is most apparent at the beginning of the game where you have around five to ten minutes of gameplay and already crazy shit happens. I think the intention was to throw the player off into an intense situation similar to how the village section in ’Resident Evil 4’ worked, but it didn't reach that high at all. The back half of the game is much better since they don’t really attempt to apply dread and focus on non stop pressure and intense combat. I wish they pushed more with the slow burn moments, but the pacing does feel improved in the second half since it feels less confused on what it’s doing.

I enjoy aspects of the story for ’Dead Space’, but there are parts of it that are incredibly flawed specifically with the characters. Let’s talk about the big one for a second, Isaac Clarke. Isaac is a silent protagonist, but isn’t really a successful one. They attempt to make him an actual character with motives so he isn’t fully a self insert as there are established traits and motives that define him, but it feels half-assed and boring in a way. He never shows any emotion except for one moment at the very end of the game that is admittedly well done. The main goal he has is to find and hopefully save his girlfriend, Nicole. It’s a simple motive for a character, but not a bad one. The issue is you never learn too much about Nicole and she is just a boring character. I think it’s okay in a narrative like this if one of the characters were boring, but the other was really lifting their weight. For example, James Sunderland from ’Silent Hill 2’. You never really learn anything about his wife until the very end of the game, but you spend a large amount of time with James. You really get to understand his motivation and I felt that pushed me a lot more than having two people I quite honestly don’t care about. There are other major characters that are well done, specifically being Dr. Kyne and Dr. Mercer. Hammond and Kendra are okay, but how antagonistic they are towards each other while in the situation they’re in can feel comical at times. Every other aspect of the story is decent though, learning about the USG Ishimura’s history and slowly figuring out what’s going on is satisfying. I found most things to be compelling and I enjoyed the text and audio logs around the world. ’Dead Space’ has a neat narrative, but is simply held back by the two characters the game seemingly wanted you to care about the most.

The presentation is fucking phenomenal. I was curious how it would hold up here, especially since the remake is one of the best looking games from 2023, but the original still looks great! The art direction is amazing and although the Ishimura is heavily criticized for not looking lived in enough, I still find the industrial spaceship look to be fantastic. The outside of the Ishimura is also very memorable with the design being reminiscent of a rib cage. This also becomes a common theme you progress with such as every suit upgrade adding more elements to the suit that resemble the rib cage. The lighting is extraordinary as well as all the animations. The most obvious part that sticks out though is how well designed the UI is. All aspects such as your ammo count and health are in the actual world which makes it a very immersive experience. They even tied in a way point to make sense in the world although it’s not really needed considering it’s quite a linear game. It even takes the ’Resident Evil 4’ route where the crosshair is an actual laser coming out of the gun. The type of laser that comes out is changed depending on what weapon you’re using which is really sick. This game also avoids using cutscenes for most of the runtime and lets everything be played which also helps the immersion since a lot of the games from this time would have pre-rendered cutscenes locked at 30fps that are very noticeable compared to the gameplay (for example: ’Resident Evil 5’). It also just fits the feeling of ’Dead Space’ so much more.

The sound design carries the game’s atmosphere by a ton. While walking through the world you’ll hear whispers and the sound of something moving in the vents. It’s really difficult to describe in detail because it’s something that’s hard to appreciate until you really experience it. The soundtrack is fine. It’s pretty standard and what you’d expect from a game like this which is a bit disappointing compared to the sound design and presentation of the game, but it isn’t a deal breaker or anything.

One last thing I should mention is this PC port is absolutely fucking busted. The ragdoll physics can be an absolute mess at times as well as you can be blocked by one of the first doors in the game not allowing you to progress. The mouse movement is tied to framerate so if you get inconsistent frames then your movement overall will be different which sucks, but there are fixes for all these issues. The first one being that you should turn off v-sync in the game and use your graphics card’s control panel to lock the game at 60fps. If you find the mouse controls to be a bit off as well then I recommend using the mouse fix with this link. >>> https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/840-dead-space-mouse-fix/ <<< I know some don’t like using mods in games for a first time, but this is simply something that should’ve been fixed years ago so it’s our only resort.

’Dead Space’ is a game I have plenty of issues with, but still really enjoy. The highs that the game reaches click with me in particular so I can move past the issues with pacing and the characters since it does connect with me. The combat, sound design, and overall feel of the game is unique and special. If you’re a fan of horror games then it is definitely worth giving this a try. It’s far from perfect, but still remains to be a fun game at the very least.

Seems like Capcom learned from their mistakes after making Justice for All and didn't want the trilogy to end on a sour note. And it worked.

Trials and Tribulations delves more into the backstory of already known characters and gives Mia her deserved screentime. The connection between the 'story-important' cases is well executed and help to establish an interesting main villain over the course of the game.

Unfortunately the two filler cases (3-2 and 3-3) being back-to-back hurts the story's pacing and their self-contained narratives aren't as intriguing as the main plot going on in the background. At least the wait is worth it, as the final case is widely regarded as one of the best cases in the series - for good reasons.

people like to throw around the word "pretentious" when talking about things that they don't like, but i don't think that they Actually know what it means. when we, as people, describe something as pretentious, we mean that it is attempting to peacock as though it is more intelligent or significant than it actually is.

well, buddy, look no further than this game for that definition. a game whose gameplay is worse in nearly every way than its predecessors, one that makes grand gesticulations towards the ideas of "racism" and "american exceptionalism" only to fall flat on its face every step of the way, and possessive of a "twist" so meaningless in the context of the plot that acts merely as a smokescreen to quickly make its escape as it hopes players will walk away unable to remember anything else about the game.

if there were a poll online for "The Most Pretentious Game of All Time", i would bet money on the collective reddit-esque hive mind of "gamers" choosing something like Braid. well Bioshock Infinite, you've got my vote, friendo!