“Dead Space” is kind of the also-ran of franchises these days. It’s not bad, it’s just…well…basically you’re playing the best late ’80s “Alien” ripoff never made. That isn’t helped by some brain-breakingly dumb moments in the first game, like the fact that an engineer exclusively armed with cutting tools is told he needs to build a thermite bomb to cut through something. Similarly, the level design was pretty terrible: it’s hard to be scared by events that are obviously going to happen just by looking at the map. Gee, around this next corner is a big room, and the object I need is right there? I wonder if there’s going to be some enemies there!
To be fair, the second game worked really hard to avoid stuff like that, and put in some major and welcome tweaks to the overall gameplay and design, but it was still just trying too hard to be scary and instead came off as…well…the sequel to the greatest late ’80s “Alien” ripoff never made.
According to Kotaku, though, get ready for them to try even harder, because EA has some grand plans for this franchise, which include:
- The obligatory “Dead Space 3”, which will apparently take place on an ice planet and be the last game to star Isaac. Apparently there won’t be any “spooky” blackness in this game: instead there will be white-out snowstorms. Which, honestly, is actually pretty cool. If they ditch the darkness entirely and go for a more open level design, that could be an amazing game.
- An “Uncharted-style” action game, which will basically be “Dead Space 4”. So, third person, lots of guns, “cinematic angles”, and quicktime events. And this isn’t going to come off exactly like “Resident Evil meets SyFy Channel All Over Again”…how, precisely?
- A first-person shooter, which, provided they don’t turn it into “Doom 3’s” unofficial sequel, might actually be a good idea.
- A space sim where you fly ships, that is otherwise like “Dead Space”. We’re…not really sure how you make that work.
In short, expect a whole lot of “Dead Space” in your face over the next few years. Which, hey, it could be worse: at least they’re not trying to turn it into “Modern Warfare”.
[ via Kotaku ]