Dead Space 3, My impressions.

I have been playing through Dead Space 3 and I just wanted to do a short post about my thoughts and feelings on the game, bearing in mind that I'm still currently playing the game, at about the three-quarter mark so far, so I wont really touch on the story points in the game as I don't know how it ends. I will instead just be talking about the game-play and mechanics as well as new enemy types.

So whats new or changed in Dead Space 3, lets make a list and I'll go into more detail below:

Co-Op Gameplay,

Weapon Creation / Customisation,

Suits and Inventory,

Optional side missions,

New enemy types. 

Okay so one of the biggest changes to the game is the addition of Co-operative play, necromorph slaying aficionado Isaac Clarke can now be joined on his journey by soldier John Carver, now if your like me when you first heard about this you were not too happy about the idea of having a terrible AI running around getting in your way if you don't have someone to play with, but luckily Visceral games seem to have picked up on the negative feedback around Sheva's character in RE5, so when playing alone, you are alone. The game will then modify certain aspects of the game, from numbers of enemies, bosses and even cutscenes and dialog. On top of this the game does reward you for playing with a buddy in extra mission segments that cant be played alone and extra story about John's character and his struggle with the Markers Hallucinations. 

Weapon Creation and Customisation have had a major overhaul in this new addition to the series, with the introduction of a universal weapon system, the ability to actually build a weapon from scratch from parts, the old nodes system is now completely gone and has been replaced with upgrade circuits, on top of all this you can also now only carry two weapons as opposed to four.

This is what your new gun creation screen looks like

Now all these changes may at first seem very alien and not very intuitive, but when you get deeper into the weapon customisation you realise how good this new system actually is and allows for much more elaborate customisation, and is especially fun when playing with a friend and catering your weapons to compliment one another.

Also the ability to scavenge the environment for parts and then use them for various ends, this lends itself very well to DS3's survival aspect as you do end up in situations where you will have to decide between crafting yourself some more ammo or med-kits or an upgrade for your suit, and you will have to pick because you cannot afford them all. Also being able to scrap old weapons and parts for salvage is a nice touch which means you don't get sick of picking up multiples of the same object because it will still come in handy.

Lets talk a little about a few of the new enemies in Dead Space, the lovely fellow you can see above is whats known as a Waster and he has a little trick up his sleeve for Isaac, he retains the clothing of the host human in an attempt to fool unsuspecting victims, he also has a horrible habit of sprouting large spiked appendages from his waist or back in response to being shot at.

Above are the Feeders another new enemy type, these little nasties are formed when humans digest necromorph flesh, they are the only necromorph type encountered in Dead Space that dont Attack Isaac the moment he enters an area, they will actually scavenge around and go about their business as long as you dont disturb them, this makes your encounters with them all the more creepy, because ohh boy if you do disturb them they will swarm you at a moments notice and call for reinforcements. Plus just look at them, something about them is just nastier than regular necro's

Side missions in Dead Space have not been received all too well being referred to by many reviews as Backtracking and Time Wasting, I feel that this is really unfair on Visceral as all the Side Missions are in entirely separate areas and provide some unique spoils to be plundered. Yes you do have to walk back to get to them but that's the point are you willing to put in the extra time for extra loot, plus one of the best moments of the game so far has been within a side mission, and without spoiling to much it revolved around the creepy feeder enemies.

I'm not going to score this game because I am yet to complete it.

Just some stuff i have done over the past few days, work and for fun

quick photoshop of the guy u see in the background, took around 4 hours

the two pieces above are some work from my reef project

this is a render screenshot of a tree I created and textured in 3dsMax