EA Games

[DrMadnes]

Has anyone played an EA PC game in the last about 10 years that wasn't:
a) Filled with bugs
b) Deritive or
c) A dreadfull console port

I genuinly want to know because the latest EA game I have played has suffered from all three! Rather than being a general review of the game I want to instead walk you through my experience of the game, everything from installation to the gameplay itself. Here begins my review of Dead Space for the PC:

My first problem with dead space starts with the installation, now you would most games allow you to spesify the install location of the game? Not Dead Space. No, EA think they know better than this, of course the game should go into Program Files on my root device, nevermind that it's partitioned to only have enough space for the OS and nothing else! I want to keep all of my games on my faster RAID array but obviously this is totally unreasonable. After searching on the indernet I find that infact it DOES let you install to a custom location but because my RAID array is called "D:" (usually a CD drive) it didn't like it! Problem solved.

After the installation is complete I now try to start the game for the first time and am greeted an oh-so welcoming message informing me that because I'm not connected to the indernet I cannot activate the game online in order to play, wonderfull. DRM at its finest! I now have to mess around trying to get an internet connection, queue 20 mins of driver hunting for my wireless card. Joy.

Finally the game starts for the first time! Great! I can now play the game I payed £45 to play. Right? Nope Wrong Again! After sitting though an unskipable tital sequence (which you have to sit though EVERY TIME you start the game!) I discover that the mouse controlls are dreadfull. So bad that I simply can't play the game, the mouse is slow even on the highest sensivity settings and, even more worryingly, there is a second of lag when ever the mouse is moved... A full second. Seriously. In an ACTION SHOOTING GAME you move the mouse and can allmost count to one untill there is a response, this was so bad I thought (as any reasonable gamer might) "Well I have a non standard setup and a limited-run graphics card (there are only a few of my graphics card in existance) so it might be my fault?" Nope again, after googling for the problem I have discovered that this is the same for everyone who owns this game! How can they put this out to the public and claim it's finished!?

So moving on I to the game itself I tried to put up with the mouse problems, as infuriating as they are and here we find the huge list of gameplay issues:

1: The Over-The-Shoulder viewpoint is dire, words cannot express how bad it is. In a game which has no HUD at all to make the game more immersive you spend the entire game with half of your screen taken up by Issac's back. Seriously look:

If anything attacks you from the left you are pretty much fucked, you can't see them coming and with the shoddy controlls you can't aim properly. Oh, also if you walk into a wall the character doesn't stop, he keeps walking on the spot like he's Michael Jackson. One of the first 3rd perspn perspective games I ever played was tomb raider in 1996 and THAT didn't have this problem, seriously EA, it's not hard! If you're going to push for so much realism at least do a good job of it.

2: The plot: Imagine watching Event Horison if the protagonist was the marine from Doom and you're most of the way there. The whole thing seems ripped off from somewhere, which brings me to:

3: Most of the game mehcanics are ripped off from somewhere, we have bullet time from Max Payne and a physics gun from Half Life 2, also the dismemberment mechanic (the games major selling point) is pretty much the same as firing saw blades at zombies in HL2. Nice one, way to think out of the box.

Please don't buy this game, please! It's probably the worst game I have ever played. It's games like this which are making the video games industry homogeneous and indistinct. This will be the last EA game I ever buy. And because of the shoddy DRM I can't even return it. FUCK.

[Film11]

Interesting, thanks for the write-up!

The installation issue you mention is pretty dreadful, I know some games that it's affected more badly in the past however. Test Drive Unlimited for example would not save correctly in some cases if your My Docs folder was not in the default location!

Restrictive DRM is always bad. I think Dead Space was produced in the time where DRM was at it's worst. Since then it's become a bit less restrictive, with only a few games having really bizarre or faulty DRM. Batman: Arkham Asylum comes to mind. Excellent game, but they decided to put SecuROM on the Steam version... and not the retail version. Not exactly sure what went through the developers minds at that point, since it has three 'DRM hurdles': Steam, Games for Windows Live (CD-key) and SecuROM. Pretty excessive!

EA Games are unfortunately notorious for unskippable sequences, at least those involving the EA/Developers logo. Fortunately this can be bypassed most of the time by simply renaming a movies folder

I've not played Dead Space myself but have watched a playthrough of it. I believe the lack of HUD and third person perspective is an attempt by the developers to build more of a tense atmosphere as you've said. After all, your view is going to be restricted if you're wearing a mask like Isaac does. Pity about the mouse movement. Hard to believe a delay of literally one second can be on purpose... are you sure you aren't exaggerating?

From what I saw of the plot, it won't win any awards, apart from perhaps most predictable and/or generally bad. It was truly dire to be honest, nothing can be said to make up for it

Most game have 'ripped off' the idea of slowing movement down to some degree, whether it by 'adrenaline', 'bullet time' or indeed 'stasis'. It's a very cool and fun concept to use, and to simply refuse to use it as it's been in previous games would be pretty foolish. There's no denying how fun it is applying stasis to a monster and then ripping it's arms off a remotely controlled saw blade On the topic of decapitations, comparing it to HL2's saw blade area is a bit rough. Dead Space's whole idea is about severely limiting the enemies capabilities of attack by sawing off their legs to make them slower etc. You're severely disadvantaged if you don't use this game mechanic in Dead Space, whereas in HL2 the use of the saw blades is simply a fun little extra.

I'd say the game is pretty OK. Just look for it in a bargain bin, or perhaps wait for a Steam deal (like the one that occured over Christmas - something like £3!)

[DrMadnes]

I agree really, I probably was being a bit harsh. I'm just in a mood that I looked forwards to this for AGES (I love horror games) and then payed full price for it on the day it came out and it turns out to be awfull. Also the entire experience was coloured by my frustration with the mouse issues. I suspect some of the features, such as bullet time and real-time dismemberment, are genuinly fun to play, had I been given the chance to enjoy them. And I'll admit that the horror genre will rarely win awards for plot. But still, I stand by my review, this game couldn't have put more barriers infront of what really matters, the GAMEPLAY.

[boiled_elephant]

Really? Most people I've spoken to have cited the atmosphere, level design and audio as being its most important features. Gameplay has never been a big deal in horror games - c.f. Silent Hill, Alone In The Dark, Resident Evil. All had terrible gameplay but still worked.

Secondly, when writing reviews you should avoid unecessary superlatives and avoid being prescriptive. Saying things like "It's probably the worst game I have ever played." and "Please don't buy this game, please!" makes readers hate you for taking the subject matter fantastically seriously and for telling them what to think and do - even if you're otherwise making valid points.

Thirdly, play a game before you review it. Self-consciously bad reviewers like Ben Croshaw get away with playing five minutes of a game and assuming it's terrible because they're deliberately being bad reviewers for bad effect. If you're trying to genuinely assess a game's quality, play it long enough to know what it actually contains (Dead Space does not contain bullet time).

Fourthly, show awareness of your situation and context. There are about five people who read this forum (no, literally) and they check it about three times a year.

[tr00st]

Fourthly, show awareness of your situation and context. There are about five people who read this forum (no, literally) and they check it about three times a year.

Yep.

[Film11]

Yep.

You're a bad person, James.