Just finished playing the game, and when it was revealed that it was in fact NOT SS3, i was actually quite surprised. The whole time through, i was getting a pretty heavy SS2 vibe, and could not quite explain why. (The whispers of "Make us whole again" in the earlier chapters a vibe of the Many, anyone?) A little bit of Wiki'ing revealed that SS3 was in development at Redwood Shores, by the Godfather team, as of 2006. Fast forward to 2007, and the Godfather team at Redwood Shores announces Dead Space. You can take a look see here and here for your own curiosity: http://www.joystiq.com/2006/08/07/ea-does-give-a-sh-t-about-system-shock-3-says-pc-gamer-uk/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_shock_3#System_Shock_3 I can only suppose that they changed the IP due to the development and release of Bioshock, to prevent any correlations by people who don't remember the original SS1 & 2 and called it "Bioshock in outer space" or something ridiculous. Dead Space is a freaking amazing game, and i love every minute of it. Knowing that at one point in its development it was the child of one of my favorite series's only makes the game that little bit more savory. [Edited by - rian carnarvon on October 27, 2008 9:40:44 PM]

That's a pretty tasty rumour and I had bitten into it myself, but I'm not so sure it's accurate. Dead Space is much better on its own as a franchise than it would be as a "System Shock" game, although the Shocklike roots run extremely deep.

I hope they give those guys a whack at making an actual SS3 though.

Hm, i never knew it was a widespread rumor. I was just putting two and two together, as the odds of having the same team work on two IP's that are quite similar in terms of the "space-survival-horror" element at the same time seemed unlikely at best.

Presuming that they canceled the SS3 project in favor of Dead Space, it seems likely that a good portion of the groundwork that was done for it would have been adopted rather than just getting thrown in the trash, thus explaining the "Extremely deep shocklike roots" as you succinctly put it.

Its like the fetus that survived to be born, but has some teeth and bone matter sticking out of its neck: reminding those who look closely that it ate something to live.

Completely agree that the game is awesome on its own, however. It is really nice to see EA do something original for a change, Dead Space is good enough that i can forgive them for the cluster* that was spore.

Since the comparisons with System Shock, I've been very interested in this game. I was planning on getting the pc version, but then people started complaining about the controls. So now it's no longer easy to choose between pc and xbox :) If you played it on pc, would you care to comment on the controls?

So what's the big deal?

Most games rely on frameworks and engines developed from previous projects. Most teams rely on people who came from similar projects. That's normal, and good for the industry. Starting from scratch with novice programmers for every project would be a foolish thing to do.

They canceled one game, and used the same engine for a similar game. It is quite common to simply gut another game and build a new game from the remains. People who worked on the canceled game were moved over to the new game because they have relevant experience both in the genera and on the engine. I see no issues with that.

I recently heard it was "Resident Evil 4 in space".

Any true to that?

Quote:Original post by Kwizatz
I recently heard it was "Resident Evil 4 in space".

Any true to that?

There are enough differences to where that isn't an entirely accurate sum of the game. Resident Evil 4 didn't have a very cohesively menacing environment whereas in Dead Space the environment is always out to get you and is very creepy. They completely nailed the abandoned ship full of creepy death feeling in this one. So in essence, Dead Space is much more immersive than RE4 was.

There are similarities such as the third person view, shooting in first person, stores/upgrade locations scattered throughout the game. But Dead Space has a much greater focus on keeping you there with it. This also means, in this case, that the game is much more linear than RE4 was. If you don't like linear games, Dead Space isn't the game for you.

All in all Dead Space is amazing and I think anyone that likes (sci-fi) survival horror should give it a whirl. Just remember to play it alone at night with the lights out and your 5.1 surround sound up all the way.

Quote:Original post by Koen
Since the comparisons with System Shock, I've been very interested in this game. I was planning on getting the pc version, but then people started complaining about the controls. So now it's no longer easy to choose between pc and xbox :) If you played it on pc, would you care to comment on the controls?

I've only played it on the 360, sadly. Friend bought it and his 360 is at my house, so it was a better idea than buying it again. I have been hearing that all round its better to just plug a gamepad into your PC though, the controls were ported that badly.

Quote:Original post by binchawpz
All in all Dead Space is amazing and I think anyone that likes (sci-fi) survival horror should give it a whirl. Just remember to play it alone at night with the lights out and your 5.1 surround sound up all the way.

I was once doing this with another game, and then, completely unexpectedly, my cat jumped up onto my lap.

I do not recommend the experience.