Alright, I just put my iPod 4G down after an hour of playing...due to a particularly trippy and terrifying scene that I won't spoil here. Let me boil it down to this; I've always hated horror games. The narratives tend to be weak, the action is a mess, and all you get out of it is jumpscare after jumpscare. At least, that's what I had previously thought. To any sceptics of this game; rest assured, this game is a landmark for the iDevice. Even more so than Infinity Blade, if you ask me. What Infinity Blade was, was a game that had flashy graphics, and lacking...everything else. Now, Dead Space is a game that oozes style, a freakishly surreal atmosphere, and gameplay so fun, engaging and frantic that I feel like despite the torture I give myself with enduring the horrifying cutscenes, I can't stop playing. This is a very, very good thing. You play as an Engineer codenamed "Vandal", a character with a considerable amount of personality for a game with no cutscenes. He's been betrayed by a cult that fans of the original game and Dead Space 2 may very well be acquainted with, and shit hits the fan. When this happens, he's forced to A) Clear his name for being assosciated with the incident that sparked off everything, and B) Save as many people as possible. This is easier said than done. You're given a brief but comprehensive introduction to each of the beginning tools that you get at the beginning of the game, and from what I've seen, for each of the following ones, too. The tools you're given, such as the Plasma Cutter that slices enemies up in a small radius, and the Stasis blast, that slows/freezes enemies (N.O.V.A stole this concept from DS1) are fun to use and extremely useful for fighting the persistent and memorable Necromorphs. The Necromorphs come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from a mammoth Slasher that rushes at you with twin-bladed hands, and a tiny fetus-like Necromorph that tries to...well...rape you. The tools mentioned earlier each have their uses against these, eg; you can slice the blades off the Slasher to reduce his threat level, or even slice off his legs to slow him down considerably. In Combat, the possibilities of Dead Space are endless. Though the game never gives you too much of a sense of power, as even if you are able to master the combat system of the game, you may never get over the trippy, disorienting and downright terrifying hallucinations that occur every now and then. These will make sure that even the most hardened, action-oriented player can never rest easy. Overall, the game does a pretty damn good job of creating a helpless, bleak and despairing atmosphere, memorable characters, and frantic combat. This is the one iDevice game I will look back on, maybe even more so than Infinity Blade and Rage, and say "This is the game that brought console quality to the iDevices." Because there's much more to console quality than just the graphics, and Dead Space by EA delivers on all fronts. A must-have for ANY iDevice owner.
Any problems playing it on your iPod? I have a 3GS, and I know that it'll run on it, but I'm worried about screen size, etc. This is one of the few times I wish I had an iPad, but there's not much I can do about that. I think, despite the fact that I know it'll eventually drop in price, that I'll probably be biting on this tonight. This is one of the few franchises that managed to hook me, and I'm a sucker for anything related. Just want to make sure I'm not going to feel ripped off by shelling out $7 on an iPhone game (which, I believe, will be the most I've paid for one, the current contender being ~$5 for a handful of games.) Makes me glad, though, that I've held off on picking up Infinity Blade.
Not a single problem from me so far. Controls work wonderfully, and the minimalistic UI means that you'll always know what's going on on-screen. The problem with many games and the "thumb inteference" problem is that there's already too much clutter on-screen. Thankfully, Dead Space has virtually NO buttons except for the pause button. In other words, every action has an intuitively mapped control using gestures. It all works very well. Though...I guess if there's one thing I had troubles with, and just to let you know in advance, I think the only way to put your weapon down is to break into a run. This hasn't been a problem for me, since you can start and stop a run in less than a second, but if there's a way around this it would make the game perfect for me. So yeah, no problems on an iPod. I also didn't emphasize who f*cking awesome the graphics are in the game, but I think that right now that's a given.
Looks great, but will wait a bit on this. I had loved Dead Space on 360, but was stuck on the asteroid field (what a stupid pain in the a** for a game when it was difficult enough fighting the aliens). Finally got past this over the weekend so now plan on finishing the game. Then it'll be off to this (since it takes place between the two console games) before I get DS2.
To be fair, though, the game doesn't feature Isaac as its main protagonist and is more of a side-story if anything. You won't get your DS1 game spoiled by the occurences here, by the looks of what I've played so far. It just re-enforces background themes in the first game...though I haven't beaten it yet. Still, there appears to be nothing here that would ruin the first game for you.
Just to let you know, that asteroid field bit is probably one of the hardest sequences in the game. I think there's only one or two others that gave me more problems. So you should be able to finish up the game fairly quickly (although you're only about 1/3 of the way through.) But man, what a ride you have a head of you. But yeah, now I need to figure out if I want to try and finish off this game before starting DS2, or play both concurrently...
Looks great, and from the positive impressions, I'll be buying the the second it hits the UK app store. Question - are there any parts with cool physics like floating in zero gravity and moving object around?
Ok, that's good. I'm not expecting there to be any zero gravity parts (like in the DS2 demo), but it would be so awesome if there are.
Played the game for abit, It's ap-so-luteley-amazing! GET IT! Working on the gameplay video now, unfortunateley I couldn't find a good brightness setting on the camera, and the brightness of the game varies constantly! Still, I'll upload the video soon!
Some day. I have enough games though, that I'm trying to get through a few of them before I buy any more - especially one that expensive. Dead Space is an exception to that rule, given how much I love the franchise. But I'll probably pick up IB eventually - it sounds like something I'd like to play.
Haven't we all?? could this outsell Infinity Blade?? Wish the icon was a bit better though - no need for it to say Dead Space lol
While the price tag was expected since a lot of people seems to like this game for consoles (personally I have no interest for sci-fi shooters like this, especially ones trying to label themselves as "horror" games), but a $9.99 with IAP, and no universal support? At least CoD Zombies IAP were extra maps, whereas this one went the route of Com2Us and decided to dish out IAPs in the forms of upgrades an powerups? Right guess they expect people to buy the same game twice, then buy IAPs for each. Lol.
While waiting for the video, enjoy these Retina-iPod Touch 4 screenshots. Runs at a perfect framerate!
