izigame.me

Dead Space used to be a pretty reputable survival horror franchise. It laid dormant ever since 2013 with 3’s mixed reception, until EA decided to do its own form of necromorphing on it, despite killing the former developers over 3’s sales. Other than the knowledge of that though, Motive Studios has crafted a very well-done remake of the first game. A knockoff Red Marker, this is not.
Dead Space, gameplay-wise, is essentially Dead Space 2 with the skin of the first game. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Not really. As well done as the atmosphere of the original game was, playing it after playing either of the sequels does feel a little bit slow in many areas, and without some added stuff from the sequels, can feel a little bit off kilter gameplay wise for the average person. Motive has done the frankly, smart move of putting 2’s mechanics into the structure of the first game, resulting in a smooth, if albeit much easier game in the process, due to so many of 2’s mechanics having been brought over into the remake. Some have even been enhanced, such as Kinesis in general being really powerful and fast now, that anything resembling a pole will one shot almost all enemies in one throw. Also, enemies will immediately drop loot if killed this way, which is a great quality of life update even the sequels didn’t have. There are also overall less insta-kill segments, so the Impossible run of only running one save with one death wiping it is not all that hard honestly.
It’s not just 2’s mechanics they brought in though, as the story now makes more references to 2 as a whole, with Unitology being more prominent from the start, with EarthGov being mentioned in this game’s story now. It’s a lot less subtle than the original though, and all of the information is dumped in the first playthrough rather then being given backstory logs about it in New Game+ in the original. While it is true that Isaac never talks in the original, it would be remiss to say he never thinks, he does have a journal of the objectives in each chapter (He is noted to be searching for Nicole in Medical the first time, he knew the Mining Deck crew and is shocked to hear they’re all dead, he wants Mercer dead, etc.), so he’s not completely without character. Here he seems to be more in line with what you’d expect from the sequels dialogue wise, so that shouldn’t be a huge problem for most people.
A lot of the changes to the story and characters, are for the better, and Isaac being voiced at the very least gives his character much more agency in the story, usually being the one that comes up with many of the ideas of getting the ship to function in some capacity. Mercer is now almost reaching supervillain levels of evil, but is just short of there, instead of being the pathetic person who could barely get anyone who wasn’t a Unitologist to listen to him in the original (but competent enough to make the Hunter among other things), and even then, that was stretching it. There are some things done to at least two other survivors aboard the Ishimura, and the changes to the characters overall is nothing too out there or jarring, for a modern remake, other than some odd changes to Hammond in general. New side quests are added to flesh out the storylines of Nicole, Mercer and even shed some light on who the Hunter was. At least one reward from doing this leads to a very broken Stasis mod that essentially makes it easy to kill Necromorphs, and with the added amounts of Stasis recharge stations, anything after this is almost a joke in difficulty. Attempts to fix some plot holes in the original are welcome, it is a marked improvement overall other than some minor things honestly.
The weapons have also been overhauled. Upgrades in general now reward something with every node invested, and now that the entire game is devoid of loading (not that shimmying through tight corners to hide loading every hour or so crap), security clearance replaces node rooms. Someone must have been pissed that there were just too many inaccessible loots in the original, so now they have you backtrack for it instead. The game is much more plentiful in resources now that every enemy body is lootable from a stomp.
The Plasma Cutter is still the king, but there are improvements to almost every weapon, with some slight downgrades to others. The Flamethrower is now a force to be reckoned with, easily being one of the best weapons, a stark contrast to being one of the worst ones in the original. The Ripper seems to almost have no range. The Contact Beam seems to have been nerfed overall for the most part. Pulse Rifle now has sounds that reflect its damage, but they didn’t have to do it like that. Force Gun is cool as it strips the flesh from Necromorphs, making them easy for a follow up shot or two from the Pulse Rifle, much like the Flamethrower. The Line Gun’s alt fire can be devastating if utilised in a certain way, holding objects to basically have a laser obliterate enemies if done right. There are also power parts that improve certain things, like higher alt fire damage, or other things too, which adds to the easiness of the game, but also adds some versatility to the weapons, at least in the Plasma Cutter’s case, making the playthrough with just the Plasma Cutter easier than usual.
Motive shows a clear reverence for the original in this remake, which is more obvious than some other modern ones honestly. They clearly understand the franchise as a whole, and given the changes to this first entry, it wouldn’t be out there for them to basically have the entire series redone. Although EA doesn’t seem to believe that, as the devs at Motive is now either working on Battlefield or that Iron Man game. Now you can say EA has necro’d a franchise they killed themselves and left it to starve once again. Still, it was nice to see an old dog with some new tricks again before he went back to sleep.