Well, Dead Space was down to like $6.50 through Steam. So I bought it anyway.

I'm at the part where you are going through the space station, exploring and shooting things. But I honestly can't tell if this is a good game or not.

The controls are sluggish, but... passable. I do have it on "easy," I should mention, and I picked "easy" because Ben mentioned the problems with ammo. There are quite a few "jump out of your seat" moments, which is good... but they are all Doom 3-style "oh, ha ha, you got me" moments. Or BioShock-style "playing dead" moments so far.

You can't save anywhere, which means I'll drop it the first time I am no longer having fun. The lack of save anywhere in ANY new games these days means that, honestly, modern-day gaming is probably not for me. This should be a longer post.

There's an upgrade tree, already. I kind of dislike those. You know what I would like? No game will ever do it, but I'd like a game that had an upgrade tree that wasn't completely sensible only in the world of video games. There was something on the screen about a "capacitor" from a "power node." I don't think anyone writing software for these companies, or at least designing these games, has any idea what electrical components are. I sure didn't until I started repairing arcade games. This should also be a longer post. "Modern-day games are shit because nobody making them has an even basic understanding of basic electronics."

So far Dead Space has not pissed me off so much that I gave it up. But eventually there's going to be a part where I played for 15 minutes and died, and nothing so far is so good that I want to replay it. They have me retracing my steps a lot in the first part, which has me passing a save station quite often. I don't have any faith at all that they are going to have save stations be so frequent.

ChainGangGuy wrote:ICJ, did you get what you needed here?

No. God, no. But more important, Gerrit, I got what I wanted.

ICJ, did you get what you needed here?

Dead Space was, like many FPSs, fun, until it wasn't. I like the part when you start out and you're going through spaceships explodin' peoples. Then when it gets "tricky" and you had to balance your ammo and strategize vs. your opponents to determine the best ammo strategy... it lost me.

If I want strategy, I'll play some other game. But when I fire up an FPS, I just want to explode people.

DO NOT MAKE ME SAVE AMMO. That's my main FPS rule. Wolf 3D made you save ammo, and save health, and save lives. I can forgive all that, because it was the very first one.

Any decent modern FPS has eliminated lives, health, and (other than deciding which one you want to use) ammo considerations.

Thanks, Gerrit. But Dead Space can fuck itself. I bought a better space game. I bought a Moon Patrol circuit board.

I have no cabinet to play it in. But I have the board. Do you hear? I have t- well, when it arrives in a few days.

Maybe I could try calling him. I only want you to have the answers you seek, ICJ.

Has Ben addressed your question yet? Seeing this is a public forum and anyone can chime in, I urge any Dead Space players to pitch in their two cents.

It's $19.99. Considering getting it from Steam. Did you like it?