I’ve been a fan of Visceral since Dead Space first came out in 2008. Its combination of gritty atmospheric realism and absolutely glorious science fiction had me hooked, even if I couldn’t play too many hours in a day. (I’m something of a wuss.) As much as it had its faults I also am not afraid to admit I loved Dante’s Inferno in 2010. John Vickery’s portrayal of Satan gave me chills, and I loved the speed and power of the scythe combat. Not to mention it was the first hack and slash game to ever really give co-op a shot, with distinct characters. Dead Space Extraction was a fantastic couch game for the weekend, and when a true sequel came out in 2011, it did not disappoint.
Then, last year, Dead Space 3 came out. To be honest, I found it dull. Isaac and his romance issues felt a bit routine. The other NPCs for the most part felt pretty faceless and existed only as general archetypes of characters. I did not make it very far in the single player campaign when I borrowed it from a friend, and did not have enough interest to go find a let’s play. Then, one day a couple months ago, a humble bundle rolls around that makes me an offer I can’t refuse. One of the games in it is Dead Space 3 for Origin; it’s an amazing deal to begin with, and I wish now I could go back and donate more to all involved, because now I feel like I stole it. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here.
So I mention to my buddy Jean-Luc that I bought this bundle, and he says something along the lines of “oh, I've played through Dead Space 3’s single player campaign but it’d be cool to try the co-op, just to see what it was like.” I was generally apathetic about it, and it took me a couple weeks (very busy ones, but still…) to get the game installed and nail down a time for us to play it. Since he’d already played through as Isaac, he took Carver, which I had no problems with. I thought we’d play for a couple hours, feel like we were treading the same ground again, then get bored and not pick it up again the next night. Boy, was I wrong.
Almost immediately, the combat switched from a very slow, methodical pace to a fast, gunslinging tactical experience. We didn't have to carefully stop and check behind us every five feet, and we didn't need to clear the whole corridor by ourselves before moving on. We were covering each other’s six, as they might say, and doing not too bad a job of it. I didn't feel like I was doing as much damage as he was, partially because if I’m not mistaken the enemies have more hp in co-op, and partially because he was pretty much fully upgraded and making me look like, as they say, a little bitch.
Carver’s presence as a player character in his own right seemed fairly sparse, to start with. He had a couple extra lines, here and there: a bit more of his backstory became apparent from the beginning, so he did feel a bit more like his own man instead of just the faceless hardass. His custom armor designs and color schemes weren't a bad touch. But it wasn't really until we were out moving amongst the space stations (where the first co-op only mission is, but I’ll get there in a minute.) that the game started really feeling like a true cooperative process.
Our weapons were set up to cover each other’s weaknesses. We operated quickly and without too much discussion, joking and marveling at the beautiful scenery (Hot Damn, the Space portion of Dead Space is pretty.) Nothing ever snuck up on us. We passed jobs back and forth, and even got easily into the habit of launching oxygen tanks between each other whilst navigating the orbital flotsam. Dead Space 3 had become one of the most organic co-op experiences I’d ever played, and the most pleasant surprise of the whole year. I won’t go too deep into the progression of events, but a couple of my favorite sections:
As mentioned above, accessible only in co-op is an extra side mission set in one of the main four ships accessible with the various amusingly named shuttles. To me, it felt very similar to a previous side mission, just a standard romp through a standard infested space station, until about five minutes in, one of the NPC crew members says on the radio that he keeps hearing a rather haunting cry for help, and I say to Jean-Luc over the microphone “dude, what is he talking about?” and Jean-Luc exclaims “YOU HAVEN’T BEEN HEARING THAT?!” Apparently this whole time only Jean-Luc has been hearing the voice of carver’s son Dylan, amongst other minor hallucinations, and I’ve just straight had no notice of it. Absolutely an excellent touch in a horror game, a technique I’d love to see again. The rest of that section is great, but I recommend you find out what happens on your own. Or, well, with a friend.
Another great section of the game was when we’re rocketing towards the planet in our shuttle, and I need to pilot the ship while Jean-Luc mans the turret to clear our path. Bad stuff starts going down, and Jean-Luc is forced to take the wheel while I do some hasty (and ultimately futile) maintenance. Lastly, immediately after the ship crash lands on the planet there’s a great scene where the viewpoint switches to Carver while he slides down a snowy hill as a large necromorph chases after him. Right in the middle of this brush with death, for just a brief second you can see Isaac tumbling past, bouncing and flailing like a ragdoll.
“Did you see me just now? Was that supposed to happen?”
“Yeah man, that was hilarious.”
We’re just about halfway through the game, and I can’t wait to see what pandemonium we get ourselves into next. I've been assured the ending is Re-God-Damn-Diculous. (Although I don’t know if it can top the final boss of Revengeance.) I expected to be pretty bored, and while admittedly it’s definitely not nearly as terrifying as the original Dead Space, and still measurably less scary than DS2, our playthrough of Dead Space 3 has become one of the most fun couple of evenings I've had in the last couple years. It, (alongside a healthy dose of Warframe,) has rekindled my enjoyment of cooperative video gaming.
Whatever its faults (I’m not above taking an aside to rag on micro-transactions), I dare say Dead Space 3 has raised the bar in cooperative story experiences, and I look forward to Visceral’s next project with extreme optimism.
P.S. The Dead Space 3 art book is a work of beauty, and a must have for any collector. I’m very envious of Jean-Luc’s possession of a copy.
Part 2: Having now finished Dead Space 3, I've got a few additional comments about the game.
First off, there continued to be some generally great chatter between Isaac and Carver, especially right near the end. While there were some holes that could still have been filled, Carver really felt like his own dude by the end of the game.
Second, there's a section of the game where Carver is hallucinating inside his own head, similar to the end of DS2. While this is fantastic in terms of flavor, it's really frustrating to suddenly be split from my teammate after 10 hours spent completely together.
Third, I was assured correctly, the ending is Re-God-Damn-Doodle-Diculous. We played through Awakened as well, and the whole thing was just way over the top.
All in all, I had a fantastic time, and we'll be posting some video footage of our co-op shenanigans.