Dead Space

Ok, here's another of my little gaming embarrassments,

I can not deal with scary games.

I think I did talk a little about this during my bioshock talks, but lets go again. I really can't deal with them. When your watching something scary that's not so bad, I mean you might jump a little but otherwise? It's just pretend.

When I play games I get really into them. It's not my character in their fighting monsters, that's me. So stuff that would normally only kinda creep you out makes me completely wig out. One thing that helps keep me out of that, and treating it like a game, is if I have a friend with me for the ride.

Tell me, did you think Dead Space was easy?

If so, you clearly did not do what me and my friend did.

He was the mouse, I was the keyboard. Imagine that for a moment, you can't control what direction your facing, only which way you step. We had to play on easy just to make it doable, cause you die when you stop working perfectly together.

Anyway, that's not actually what I wanted to discuss, I wanted to talk a little about Dead Space 2.

Looks great, I probably won't play it... But it looks great. But an interesting shift in narrative has taken place, where before the main character was silent... now he talks.

There's alot of complaining going on and you have to give it... if you suddenly change something people will complain. But I think alot of people are missing an important point. In a game that wants to have horror elements you need characters to relate to, and to express your fear along with. I think not having a talking character in the first game was a mistake.

If you want proof of what I'm talking about check out some gameplay of Dead Space: extraction. All the characters talk and I thought it was pretty good. My favourite bit is the first chapter when your a simple miner going completely insane.... When stuff first goes weird you don't know if people are turning into monsters or if you've gone insane and your just killing people now. That's interesting... and the easier way to pull it off is if the character talks.

(Of course, a legendary designer would find a way of getting that across with only visual clues... But that takes some serious above and beyond talent to pull off correctly)

Plus whenever there's a new voice in any game I find people complaining. What's the matter? Do you not like the concept of talking? Does an audible language offend you?