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Dead Space Highlights Disparity Between Plot and Gameplay
Gamasutra is running an opinion piece praising recent horror-action game Dead Space for its pacing and gameplay while simultaneously criticizing the plot and the attempts to scare the player. Quoting:
"What Dead Space is, is carefully and stylishly unoriginal. You'll love playing it, but when you aren't playing it, it's hard to say what's so great about it. It has some really great set pieces, some sweet effects, solid gameplay, an amazing interface and that's all. Anything and everything having to do with dialogue and story comes off as rote. ... You get the feeling the developer are trying very hard, though. When I see a dark shape in the distance, which turns and disappears, I don't get scared. I know he'll pop out of a vent later! Likewise, when I find a scientist who promptly slits her throat because of the horror, I just check for an item drop. None of the survivors ever surprise you and go hostile (which I think would have been a brilliant scare), so you never have to worry."
Don't know what FPS games you've been playing, but there have been some great ones or at least well fleshed out ones. Halo has a strong plot that I found interesting. The half life games as well. I'll give you that most FPSes have little plot, but most games of all genres are crap that should not be purchased or played.
Also, I have issues with saying final fantasy games have great plots. They seem to be nonsensical japanese poetry about an apocalypse revolving around androgenous bad guys with liberal translation errors and vagueness giving the impression there's more going on than there actually is.
As a scientist, I have to say I'm already poised with a knife to my throat in the event that that happens.
While I felt the story was not very interesting I felt the mythos of the story was. How the unitologists came to be, and their beliefs and the mausoleum ships. How the marker came to be on the colony, and how it seemingly aids the original science station into preventing the spread of the necromorhps and others to stop the spread. I like the semi dystopian future earth has, it has the height of technology but many live on dreary space ships like the ishimura just to get enough resources. All the log drops from the other engineer on the ishimura is the story the game should be, the story would be better if you were that other engineer and had audio log drops of the woman you are trying to save.
Sure a lot of this is just basic sci-fi or veiled criticism of scientology but combined with the entertaining gameplay and pretty and dreary scenery of the planetcracker and aegis 7 I feel like it is a great universe to play games in.
While I understand the points made in the article, I have to disagree with their conclusions about the "horror" elements, as well as their assertion that it is unoriginal.
I found the 3rd person aspect framing very unique, having your character near to the left. I also enjoyed the lack of a HUD, and found their solution of displaying the health of the character along his spine very creative. This technique created a far more immersive experience as you are always looking at your environment and not a radar screen or ammo count. Also, typical menu items like maps and inventory are displayed in front of your character in a holographic display. While this is a nice stylistic choice, it also changes the gameplay, as you are still in the game environment and thus not safe while using them (see: things can still kill you while you browse your inventory).
As for the horror, you will get as much out of this game as you can to put into it. Play it on a 32" tv with the lights on in stereo sound, and it's not so scary. Play with the lights off on a big display with 5.1 surround turned up, and it does a great job with ambient sounds to keep you on edge. Yes, you get used to things jumping out of vents, and thus you tend to be less surprised when something bursts out of one. But the level design, inventive game elements (zero gravity is good stuff), and amazing audio production make this a great title for fans of the genre. For me personally, this is the best survival horror title I have played since Resident Evil 4 (and that includes F.E.A.R).
My take on Dead Space is that it was made to be the most awesome homage-in-game-form to sci-fi horror ever. The two most obvious influences are the Alien series and Event Horizon, but it's also got a lot of Solaris (the original and remake), Sunshine, and virtually every other film in the genre.
The author of TFA basically admits up front that it succeeds at this. Is it possible that it could be even more awesome if it had a more original story? I guess, but then it wouldn't be the same kind of game.
It seems to me as if someone went to see Michael Bay's Transformers or Armageddon, and then complained that the giant robots should have had deeper and more believable motivation or that they saw Bruce Willis' tearful goodbye a mile away.
I like originality and interesting stories as much as (nearly) anyone, but I also think that it's OK for a game or movie to be fun without a lot of either of those things, as long as the execution is top-notch. It's one of the reasons I love The Criterion Collection - the same company releases films as disparate as Solaris (the original) and Armageddon, and they treat both equally in terms of additional content.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman