Dead Space 3 is not the horror game you most likely wanted. In fact, its best moments come when it ditches all pretense of creating an atmospheric horror experience and delves head first into the bombastic action that characterizes much of the adventure. The game's early hours have a sense of adventure and scale to them comparable to Uncharted or even Mass Effect, and move between shootouts and shipwrecks with admirable efficiency. But it's once the game slows down and starts doling out side quests and weapon parts that the cracks begin to show, and it ultimately becomes clear that Dead Space 3 is the weakest game in the spacefaring series.

What begins as a no-holds-barred action game, complete with shootouts in futuristic city streets and explosive space shuttle crashes, starts to take on a stuttery pacing about four hours in as it awkwardly attempts to mesh the horror that the series was once known for with its newfound penchant for high-action drama. This was a precarious balance that Dead Space 2 mostly nailed, but sadly it appears that well has since run dry at Visceral. So-called "atmospheric" sections of game are reduced to monster closet after monster closet to the extent that it almost becomes comical.

The game also has a penchant for distracting you with a bunch of Necromorph spawns in front of you, only to silently spawn another enemy behind you. As soon as you're done dealing with that first round of enemies - AHA! - the final Necromorph jumps you from behind. It's about as scary as playing the "Guess Who?" game, and it's a tactic that's repeated way too much in the early to mid sections of the game.

If the awkward mixture of high action and cheap scare attempts weren't enough to divide focus, Dead Space 3 also adds weapon crafting and resource gathering to the mix. As Isaac explroes the game's dark halls and snowy exteriors, he will come across parts and scavenge that can be combined at weapon benches to form new items and weapons. He can also modify existing weapons with salvage, effectively allowing players to mold their own guns. Like much of Dead Space 3, it's a neat idea in theory but it doesn't always work out.

For one thing, many of the guns from the last two games aren't really in this game anymore, or have to be built from parts and blueprints before they can be used. It's jarring to have stuff like the Pulse Rifle replaced with dinky submachine guns that function half as well as the old guns did and that have to be built from the ground up. It's also annoying that so many of the game's weapons start off so weak; since crafting and upgrading guns is now a central mechanic, all of the weapons start out weak and slow, and have to be upgraded to the point of being useful. And since you can graft pretty much any part of any gun onto any other gun, the weapons start to lose their identities. Gone is the distinctive arsenal of the first two games, replaced by a mushy blur of metal components.

Isaac can gather those components on a series of surprisingly robust side missions, another addition to the series. These missions are of generally high quality and typically feature small stories of their own. Some of them, like a trek through a 200-year-old booby-trapped ship, are more memorable than others, but they'll almost all end in Isaac being showered in sweet, sweet loot. Completing all of the side missions adds a solid 8 hours or more to the game's total runtime, which honestly makes the game feel a little bloated. The mechanics of Dead Space are great for a 10-15 hour adventure, but when you find yourself spending 20-plus hours with Isaac, it might be just a little too much.

Still, it's laudable that the game even bothers to throw so much optional content your way, and even more so that the developers managed to create so many small, compelling stories within the larger fiction of the game. In the end, it was worth the occasional dud of a mission to find out more about Isaac's universe and the creatures that threaten to tear it apart.

And if there's one area where Dead Space 3 really, truly excels, it's just that - the game does a fantastic job of creating a story that feels much bigger than Isaac and his struggles. Suddenly, there's a whole universe of planets, colonies, ships and characters out there rife for the exploring. It's an idea that EA has been trying to push with external fiction like comics and movies ever since the first game released, but it only hits home in Dead Space 3. This is a big, big piece of fiction, and it manages to expand itself in some downright fascinating ways over the course of the game. 

A relatable human drama plays out at the heart of Dead Space 3's story. Isaac may be broken in many ways, but he just wants to look out for the woman he loves, even when she isn't there for him anymore. He's a well-intentioned guy with a few serious problems, and his relationships with Elli, co-op partner John, and the rest of the cast disintegrate only to build themselves back up again with an admirable honesty. It's kind of weird to see a Dead Space game going for the heartstrings, but there's some pretty subtle drama underlying all of the action that really glues the story together in some of its slower moments.

But rest assured, that aforementioned action is still the biggest part of the game. Within the first hour of the game you will have broken into and subsequently escaped a crashing space shuttle, caused a freeway crash of epic proportions, engaged in a shootout atop a moving train, and killed a few dozen Necromorphs and Unitologists in the process. Admittedly, the first hour of the game is actually one of its strongest, but there are more than enough moments of adrenaline-pumping bombast sprinkled throughout the game to keep things mostly interesting. Things get especially fun once Isaac touches down on the ice planet Tau Volantis, a process which takes a surprisingly long time to play out given the focal point it has been for most of the game's marketing.

And while Dead Space 3 may stumble when it comes to balancing its disparate mechanics and moods, it's on the surest of footing when it comes to gameplay. The shooting in the Dead Space series has always been second to none, and that smooth aiming and intelligent mapping of controls returns in the third iteration. As stated earlier, some of the weapons can fire a bit weak at first, and this takes some of the oomph out of shooting in the early hours. But in terms of pure feel, that vague yet all-encompassing sense of control that separates the wheat from the chaff, Dead Space 3 has it in spades. Shooting stuff feels darn good in Dead Space 3, whether your victim is a mutated Necromorph's limb or a Unitologist soldier's skull. 

Then there's the co-op. Ever controversial, the feature was introduced at last year's E3 and boo'd by fans ever since. But in the context of Dead Space 3, which is hardly a frightening game whether you're playing alone or not, it all works out totally fine. Certain story beats will change subtly depending on whether or not two players are present, but by and by there's nothing here that necessitates playing through the already overlong campaign for a second time to see.

It's always nice to have a buddy at your back, especially in some of the game's tougher moments, but playing alone lends a sort of "one-man expedition" feel to the campaign that lends its own brand of fun to proceedings. In the end, the presence of a co-op mode hardly kills Dead Space 3. In fact, when faced with the bigger changes that the weapon crafting system brings about, the co-op is a complete and utter non-issue in this regard. Play the game alone or don't; either way, it's hardly what you might call a horror game.

Dead Space 3 is a veritable potpourri of gaming mechanics, and ultimately it's this lack of focus that makes it weaker than its predecessors. The weapon crafting system means that many individual guns lack identity, and the 20 hour runtime feels just a little too long for the mechanics that support it. That said, what Dead Space 3 loses in gameplay cohesion it gains in storytelling finesse and pule-pounding action. The game's story expands on the universe of Dead Space in some genuinely fascinating ways, and some of the early and late game setpieces will no doubt stand out as some of the most exciting moments of the year. It's just a shame that the game couldn't mesh its disparate ideas with a little more confidence; Dead Space 3 is still a must for series fans on the strength of its fiction alone, but it could have been much more.

Score: 8/10

This game was reviewed on the Playstation 3