

Over roughly 15 hours it takes us through the usual spaceship corridors smeared with blood, several areas of free-flying extravehicular action in space, an icy, Hoth-like planet, and a different environment I won't spoil other than to say it's also coated in blood. It also benefits from more visual variety, as unlike the last two games, only the first half of Dead Space 3 takes place in space. There's little of the rehashing we saw in DS2, and (mercifully) no more dead girlfriend hallucinations. The story of the final battle with the Necromorphs isn't outstanding, but it's not half bad beyond a few cliches, and bolstered by good voice acting. Mercifully, there are no more dead girlfriend hallucinations. It's arguable that Dead Space games are best played with a gamepad, but for a shooter like this where precision counts, I'll always suffer through some inconveniences to use the mouse. Likewise, I still love the way all of the life-meter and power-level indicators are part of Isaac's RIG suit, and inventory and computer console menus appear in-game as holograms - though the mouse support for navigating them could certainly be a lot better. It's completely unnecessary and gratuitous, and perhaps that's why I enjoy them so much. Detail in the environments and in Isaac's suits (which are now purely cosmetic options) is great, and I'm particularly impressed at little touches like how each weapon performs a little unfolding animation when raised to firing position.

(See our in-depth Dead Space 3 Port Authority here.) But what it has, it uses very well to convey a dark and creepy style. Technically, Dead Space 3 isn't impressive - textures are low-resolution, and there's no hint of extra flashiness or physics-accelerated effects to make the PC version stand apart from the consoles beyond upping the resolution.

Each weapon performs a little unfolding animation when raised to firing position.
