The Remake on Steam - store.steampowered.com/app/1693980/Dead_Space/ The Original on GOG - gog.la/MakeUsWhole This was later than intended as I didn't get early access/had some irl stuff going on but Callisto Protocol will be out much quicker.
Nice and detailed review. I thought it was well done. Sorry, I don't know your gaming schedule, but do you have any plans to review "Wanted:Dead" or "Hogwarts Legacy"?
The thing I loved about things like the S.A.B. is that it made you feel like Isaac was outsmarting the necromorphs. His superpower is that he's smart enough to cheat.
@@karas3421 even the exploits like using the Pulse rifle mines and the Bench capacity upgrades to get infinite ammo feel like Isaac learning to exploit a weakness in CEC's equipment.
I think the funniest part of the remake was how they hid the Peng trophy this time. You have to go back through the Flight Deck after getting the Captain's RIG to get to the engines. At this point, you already have the Kinesis module and if you remember the original, probably go "Oh, I can get the Peng trophy super early now." Well, joke's on you, you get a crazed log from someone who has it and hid it elsewhere instead.
@@F4Wildcat Well its a good hiding place if you have the awareness of a turtle If you look around for resources its easy to spot instantly the original PENG was hidden away where you normally wouldnt spot it
yeah, I searched for it where the original hiding place was and gave up to search for it later, then found it by mistake and I was like "oh, that's a pretty weak hiding spot"
I saw Isaac trying to save Kendra as him having already lost so many people, and knowing that he had lost Nicole, wanting to save someone, ANYONE. DS2 even explores this with Ellie near the end, where his "final act" is to "save" Ellie as a way of redeeming himself.
Late to the party but only recently played the remake, and I think we need to remember it's a violent and sudden scene, neither Kendra nor Isaac are going to spend the time thinking about how should they behave, it's pure instinct of trying to save the other person from untold space monstrosity
@@PanCyfik not to mention that Clarke, in some form, knew that Kendra was right on what was going on regarding Nicole's status/hallucinations, but the Marker's dementia was still strong over him. Many people have already pointed out that developers really humanized Kendra. Honestly, I wished people would stop thinking that a new take of her is still the same "asshole" from the original. She ultimately regrets using Issac in the remake in some instances.
Also they are the only two human beings on a planet/ship filled to the brimg with alien monstrosities. Clinging in desperation to each other despite everything is the natural instinct. The entire cast consists who ill-fitting, hallucinating, duplicious, people who sticked together because they had to.
@@Nickname-ef9tvjust sucks Kendra was always selfish and was only in it for herself it would have been cool if she was like Finley from still wakes the deep and sacrificed herself or be helpful like her but she’s just a dick in both games
The "swearing when you're out of ammo" detail reminds me of the King Kong game. That game had an immersive system where you press a button and the player character calls out how much ammo he has left. "Three magazines on backup." "One magazine on backup" "It's ok, I have enough magazines." What was awesome is that his voice ramps up in intensity when you're in the midst of combat, and he gets even more intense as your ammo depletes more and more to the point where he's basically screaming "THREE BULLETS ON BACKUP" "ONE BULLET ON BACKUP"
that 2005 King Kong game is genuinely an underrated gem. It's probably the only video game adaptation ever that's actually held back by the fact that it was tied to a stupid forgettable movie. Adrian Brody counting your magazines and some of the game-specific Kong screams are forever etched into my brain
Not sure if this counts as the same thing, but DotA 2 also has this, if I remember correctly. If you try to use an ability but don't have enough mana, you get a normal "I'm out of mana" type line. Try a few more times and the line delivery becomes increasingly exasperated.
Whenever Isaac preps a stomp, my headcanon is that he partially activates his boot magnets and lets both gravity and strength do it’s thing. Edit: wtf so many likes
I always figured that his suit is a lot heavier than it looks. At first it may appear to just be some canvas with some protective plating, but these are outfits meant for incredibly dangerous and labor-intensive industrial environments, including the vacuum of space. With those massive boots especially, I can see Isaac being able to stomp hard enough to crush flesh and bone.
@@BababooeyGooey it cannon that the suit is heavy. In dead space 2 just before you get your suit, there’s a scale and if you put issac on it he weighs 195 and once he is wearing a suit it changes depending on the suit
I was only _slightly_ dissapointed that Hammond doesn't give you a health pack if you meet him in the bridge with low health, even if some might argue that takes away from the "survival horror" experience, it would be great if your interactions with others would change if certain conditions are met that aren't someone's death or a secondary objective being completed. And its kinda awkward that Isaac is just there one sneeze away from meeting space jesus and Hammond doesn't seem to care.
i agree, and maybe to preserve the survival horror experience it could be a health pack that doesnt give you much back, perhaps how much health you get back could be contextual depending on difficulty settings and/or how much health isaac has. It would make seeing other living people a huge relief!
It would be even better if Hammond goes into a locker and gets you a little of whatever you're short of, prioritizing Health > Ammo > Stasis > Credits. Low on health? Get a health pack. Is one of your weapons out of ammo? He hands you some ammo for that weapon. If your stasis is low, you get a stasis pack. If everything is fine, he gives you some credits or a superconductor - maybe a NICE one as a subtle reward to the player for performing well.
The if onlys we wished could've been. Like if you were able to thoroughly sweep the level, the room they're in looks slightly better, like the lighting, that med pack, access routes, etc. Hey, future devs, take note, then one up this one for us will ya?
On the part with Kendra, it's always been Isaac's character to be "that noble" Stross literally ripped out Ellie's Eye and was going to kill Isaac, even while Isaac is facing death he still tried to get Stross back. Yelling at him to stop, that he doesn't want to kill him. Of course he had to and it hurts him. Dead Space 3 as forgettable as Norton was. He just had ex-boyfriend tension but even then he wanted to not kill him. Dead Space 2 again had the doctor that had a knife to Isaac's throat but he still tried to reason with him. There are some characters that Isaac would rather let die or kill, but Kendra was literally the only human left. He literally said he didn't want anymore people to die. Kendra was just doing her job, be it being very bad. Isaac would more than likely be angry for killing Cross, but he didn't want to he alone when he escaped. That's just my thought on it, I think Gunner carries the Remake and it adds way more to his character. Also when he yells at the Hive Mind with the line "COME ON THEN! CAUSE THIS IS ALL I HAVE LEFT!" Kicks ass.
Isaac being tired of people dying I kind of get, but she just shot 2 people in cold blood. I always got the impression that Isaac saw Stross as a victim and a reflection of what could have happened to him. If he knew what a douche Stross was in the movie, he'd probably hate him too.
One thing I've seen pointed out is that there is a single line from Issac here in the remake where he is talking to Mercer I believe and says that "too many people have already died". One line, almost thrown in like an afterthought where the writers were proofreading the script and went "oh yeah, Issac's supposed to have this unshakeable belief that anyone, no matter how twisted they may act, is redeemable because they are human just like him. No one deserves to suffer becoming another corpse-making monstrosity, even if pure evil at heart, because it's the Marker's fault"
That bit "COME ON THEN! CAUSE THIS IS ALL I HAVE LEFT!" reminds me always of the ending of the original JAWS where Brody lies on the mast and is shooting at shark. "Smile you son of a btch"
Isaac is such a great protagonist. His feat list is as impressive as the fact that he comes across as a genuine every man who wants to do the right thing.
And Vulnerable as well. When you realize the impressive things he did on the Ishimura as a Civilian Engineer but in the end, he succumbs to the Marker Influence really sends home how out of dept he was.
Speaking as someone whose opinions on Dead Space have always been "vaguely positive," I'm a huge fan of Isaac and how much personality the games (1 and 2) give him purely through animation and sound effects. I'd prefer if he was less of a quippy action hero in DS2, but that game still gives Isaac an undercurrent of "panicking dad trying to act cool in front of the kids." Leon in RE4 quips because he's a cocky badass at his day job. Isaac in DS2 quips because he's trying to distract himself from the waking nightmare his life has become.
I’d love to see a reimagining of DS 2 and 3. Like, I love how faithful this remake is, and DS2 is amazing, but I think if this team really went ham on turning the sprawl into a more open world like they did with the ishimura and fleshed out character motivations more (remember when you got kidnapped by the cult for no reason and then they all got killed in 5 seconds anyway?) they could have something amazing on their hands. Mainly I just want them to further flesh out Isaac’s place in his world, where he himself is just a normal guy, and that’s all that he wants to be. He’s traumatized, he’s tired, but he still feels that he has a duty to help people however he can, but because of his reputation after surviving the ishimura and getting his brain filled with marker blueprints he doesn’t even get to be a normal survivor like everyone else anymore. Some people think he’s a savior sent from the heavens to strike down the necromorph hoard and destroy the marker, others think he’s an unwilling prophet, a vessel sent to unlock the secrets of convergence, while others think he’s simply a tool or a weapon to turn against their enemies, or a threat that they themselves need to crush to survive. I love the archetype of the ordinary person who accidentally becomes a super hero and absolutely hates it but just keeps on going for the good of everyone else and I think Isaac embodies that perfectly. Plus you get to do fun moments where that protagonist briefly allows themselves to revel in their achievements. It’s incredibly cathartic for a character like Isaac to FINALLY get to show some pride in a big accomplishment, like surviving a boss fight or something.
I loved that bit in old DS where Mercer ends up shouting as the crowd abandons him as the situation deteriorates, for all his cultist supervillainy, that one moment where he comes off as desperate and pitiful gives a special something to his gleeful descent into marker madness.
@@Dmol8 Nope. Instead he gets annoyed that a tentacle grabs him because he tought the marker assured he would live. Mercer is 100 times better in the DS remake, but the moment of him being abandoned was unfortunately removed.
@@Danarogon no mercer is garbage in the remake, hes way more one note and cartoony, giving him that stupid medical tool that can do freeze stasis just so he can do a marvel tier villain monologue and then later the whole hostage situation where isaac only finally reacts once temple's head is paste, even though theres like a good time between mercer slowly bringing up the gun to temples head making his intentions clear
@@battleax10 so its okay for Mercer to do his villain monologues behind glass? and you realixe that Isaac is trying to distract Mercer in that scene from shooting Temple until the stasis wears off but physiccally cant do anything but talk to him, which doesn't work on this deluded motherfucker.
The devs said that the Necromorphs, slashers in particular, have a few modes of locomotion and they randomly go into each one so it might just be a case of Mandalore being insanely 'unlucky' for not seeing the sprinting jump slash as often as others. Also turns out that Slashers are the ones that still have killed the most players. For the characters, it sucks that the delivery of the characters isn't on par with the original. It feels like in the Remake they're written more like actual people but in the Original they deliver their lines more like actual people. So on paper these characters are less one-note but the original just had some REALLY solid performances of characters losing their shit that's hard to forget. Also I feel like Kendra is much more likable as a character in this one, just is very dedicated to her job and not trusting people that have been influenced by the Marker. As for Isaac reaching out for her I think it's a case of one of Isaac's biggest points that he just wants to help humans survive. Barring Dead Space 3, the only human I remember him actively harming in the games are Tideman and Stross and they literally gave him no other option at that point so at least it's nice to see that he still has that love for life while making Necromorph bone soup.
Not surprising that they kill the most players, they're the enemy you fight the most in the early levels, where new players are still getting used to the controls and the peculiarities of Dead Space's combat system. Plus dying to slashers seems much more of a common occurance now with how much the remake likes to spawn a slasher behind you in every other combat encounter.
IDK I felt the new voice actors sound more like actual people, professionals, whereas the OG felt more like people in a movie. Both are valid approaches and I prefer many of the OG performances. "U-S-GEEE Ishimura". However I think people IRL tend to be more cool, monotone, and matter of fact in technical settings.
@@forrestpenrod2294 I dunno. I have only played through the first few chapters so far, so I have not seen everything yet. But Kendra in particular to me feels less like someone who is a stressful life or death situation, and more like someone who is mildly concerned because she and her co-workers are having a bad day. The Kendra in the original may have been an abrasive b***h, but her reactions felt more believable and appropriate.
Yeah. Killing people is just such a done thing in media and video games in general it can throw you for a loop when you have a character like Isaac NOT do that. But it makes perfect sense, Isaac is not a professional killer, he's not a sadist or a murderer, he's an engineer, a normal guy. Most people are not inured to seeing other people die violently, let alone participating in it.
Yeah I feel it's just a very human thing to try to save someone from the giant fuckoff flesh monster. Like he wasn't thinking about it, there was just a fuckin terrifying monster and she was reaching out, so he did too cause she wasn't the big scary fucking monster.
I found it funny how Slashers were usually portrayed as relentless overpowering creatures that didn't stop attacking until their targets were ripped to pieces yet Chen just stabbed Hammond and just casually stood there for a while like he was thinking "Alright, now what?"
I actually felt the same way with Chen's death in the beginning. The necromorph stabs him and just kinda drags him again the wall. It's not slow, per se, but unhurried.
@@KaNoMikoProductions Necromorphs are not that sentient. Their brains are as good as a cockroaches so they only know their purpose is to make a buncha corpses for more necromorphs. That's all they know so it's like an animal that has prey in its mouth. It's going to use whatever it has in it's surroundings to kill the prey completely in the mouth like smashing to a nearby tree. The necromorphs are the same so after they killed the supposed target. What else are they meant to do?
Yeah, having not yet played the remake myself and this but being in the original game this is my first time seeing the scene. My first impression was immediately assuming they were going to make a subtle insinuation that a bit of Chen is still in there. That he couldn't control the urge to kill Hammond but once Necrochens attack landed Hammond was essentially dead allowing, just short enough, him to regain some semblance of self control and shake the lesser of import instinct to brutalize and destroy the body. In truth though, I believe, the slow death was just a necessary action to make it so Hammond has a "self sacrificing and cooler death. But all of this has made me wonder if any bit of humanity remains in a necromorph. In one way it's kind of against lore and over done for the monsters to have a shadow of themselves left inside but on the other hand.. it is a terrifying idea, to have some part of the victim know how twisted and horrifying it has become and be unable to stop itself from just shredding it's former colleagues, partners, and friends with it's own two... Bone blade arms. A bit like the half life zombies, screaming in backwards agony for death or help while tearing into it's fellow man.
My biggest issue with the remake is some of the slasher behavior they removed. In the original if you shot their head off, they would flail their arms around wildly, and if you tried spamming melee they would eventually use their blades to block your attacks. I have not seen either of these behaviors in the remake. I still love it though don’t get me wrong.
I noticed the head thing did could occur but only once in a blue moon. It seems a lot of their more frenzied behaviors have a really low chance of happening.
@@shawklan27 At least they added tons of new details that are fantastic. My favourite feature is definitely the "Intensity Director" makes backtracking much more enjoyable and scary.
@@MandaloreGaming I think having behaviors tied to chances adds a nice bit of unpredictability to the monsters, though maybe crazy behaviors like that should be a little more frequent and varied.
Being an engineer was also a reason why I liked Alien: Isolation's Amanda Ripley. It made sense that she'd technobabble a solution and as a player I can excuse why the quest objectives are glowing, heh. I love the idea that Issac being voice acted and griping about shitty tools and having alt takes based on how damaged he is.
Griping about his tools when he needs them to work seems so very much like an engineer thing to do. My dad's degree was in engineering and when his cordless impactor doesn't work, a machine at the mill isn't working, or he's trying to fix something wrong with his car you can hear him swearing at the manufacturers over how they designed it. That's honestly how I learned most of my swear words.
I mean everyone of us would curse that equipment failure in this situation, but the cherry on top is how he goes out of his way to insult the manufacturer specifically. That’s the engineer part
I'm glad to see more people lately are appreciating Gunner Wright's work as Isaac. He's been one of my favorite voice actors ever since Dead Space 2, and I always felt he never got the recognition he truly deserved.
I took Isaac reaching for Kendra as him being so done with everything hes gone through and just wanting to escape the constant visceral bloodshed and death that he had to endure throughout the entire game, he didnt really care about what Kendra did in the face of what they went through and wanted to cling to any sort of actual human life that was left.
My thoughts too. Moreso see it as him just being tired of the constant losses. Plus it makes his line right after about having nothing left make more sense
He has a line after Kendra dies and when he faces off against the Hivemind, about how he now has nothing left to lose. I think that line heavily informs why he reached for her - he's fucking terrified, and for all her sins, she's still another, mostly sane human being.
The best part of "cursing when his weapon is out of ammo" is that it doesn't happen when you are alone. I tested it out earlier, and despite being out of ammo [even none to reload with], he didn't swear. I was confused, then when I rewatched the video, I saw that you were showing scenes EXCLUSIVELY when you were shooting at a still alive enemy. Of course Isaac wouldn't swear he's out of ammo if no ones around to hurt him!
Having the Ripper secondary fire now ricochet around is the most Dead Space addition I've ever seen. In fact, its such an obvious add to the Ripper, that I have to wonder how Visceral themselves never thought of it. Of course the gun of OSHA's worst nightmare would have a ricochet secondary fire. Also, I hadn't realized that Dr. Kyne had the same voice actor as Joshua Graham from New Vegas. It makes absolutely no sense to replace him in that case. He's utterly perfect at playing religious, but still intelligent characters.
Not to mention that Joshua is just as nuts as Kyne (which you would, uh, sort of expect given Caesar burned him alive and threw him into the Grand Canyon) but he's so charismatic he manages to get people on his side regardless. That's exactly how new Kyne could easily have worked. He's a devout Unitologist, but also a highly intelligent scientist that's able to rely upon the scientific method and Occam's Razor when faced with the situation rather than the others who double down on their faith and deny any wrongdoing. Have him be clearly unstable, but also intelligent and charismatic. Yes he might seem as likely to stab you as save you, but have him give a compelling argument regardless in a situation where you have no choice but to trust him. The thing about Unitology is that it's much more of an aggressively open cult than most modern religions (all religions are cults, some are simply more obviously exploitative than other's). It's like a combination of Catholicism with Scientology. You can be an intelligent individual who's fairly self-aware but the Unitologist network will have identified a certain trait that makes you susceptible to indoctrination to, like Kyne and his wife (his desire for convergence being motivated by seeing her again). Kyne is starting to see the crack's in what he was taught precisely because that targeted indoctrination isn't holding up between the reality he is observing and the scientist in him being objective about those observations instead of the outright denial. It also show's that the Unitologist's themselves aren't all monstrously delusional zealot's who will kill anyone that gets in their way a la Dead Space 3. Some of them will wake up when confronted by the truth, and be horrified by the reality of the situation. This would certainly have worked better into the new Isaac backstory as he would go from innate hatred of all Unitologist's to understanding that some of them can change. This also set's him up for being more trusting at the beginning of Dead Space 2, and then subsequently betrayed by Unitology yet again. It's why I like the new Mercer as Mandalore described him here. Mercer is also a scientist, but he had the complete opposite reaction to Kyne, rather than struggling against what is happening he understands that Unitologist dogma is wrong and that this is completely beyond the comprehension of Unitology, but that the Brethren Moon's (he's unaware of what exactly they are but understands some controlling force exists behind the markers with the intent for convergence to occur) have already effectively won. This drives him mad and drives him towards accepting the outcome Kyne is so terrified of. It's a duality that seems far more weighted in Mercer's favour here.
I like to think of the upgrades being Isaac using that big engineer brain to hack in some unauthorized upgrades to better weaponize the tools at his disposal. There’s no practical reason to add melee blades to a plasma cutter, after all.
Not saying it can’t be, but I had a housemate who was an 8year phd practicing bowel doctor, We had some electricians in and they left holes in the plaster, This guy brought some paint and didn’t understand why the holes where still there after he painted over them So you can be a doctor and not intelligent
I bet the ricochets were a technology/budget thing (not enough time to get them working right). There's no way they didn't think of it. The original game was on Xbox 360, it didn't have a lot to work with by modern standards.
Kind of bummed that Mandy didn’t mention how the necromorphs can be surprisingly silent now. It used to be they’d scream like they were diving into a mosh pit the moment they spawned. In the remake they can go dead silent except for small little gurgles and the very quiet splat of their feet if they see a chance to sneak up on you.
The problem is that they’ve lost a lot of their personality with this and other changes. Yes they might be able to sneak up you more easily now but you don’t get that harassing disorienting panic when a bunch of them are screeching and running full pelt at you. They feel way more generic now.
I had a strange bug where a slasher's model didn't render in and I was locked in a room with a fully invisible, mostly silent necromorph and it was genuinely terrifying. I was eventually able to find it by using stasis and guesstimating where it's body was based off the particle effects, which would actually be a really interesting design for a new DS enemy.
A comment so on point and delightfully referential to the video it was made upon that even Ramesses II would have no choice but to command one of his slaves to give a like to.
On the topic of Isaac attempting to save Kendra, I never saw it as the games way (or Isaac's way) of trying to redeem her. The way I interpreted it was that Isaac is desperately trying not to lose the only other person left that he has contact with. The moment Kendra dies, Isaac truly is alone for the first time. At that point, I don't think he would care too much about Kendra's betrayal, he doesn't want to lose his only remaining colleague
Glad other people are pointing this out, it's so easy to be completely rational when you're just watching the game on your screen but it absolutely makes sense that isaac in that situation would try to save fucking joseph goebbels if that's the only person he had left.
@@swedneck Yeah I have to say, this might be the most I've disagreed with Mandalore in any of his reviews. A lot of that is admittedly down to rng, I'm happy to say my experience with the game was not at all diminished by issues with necromorph aggression that it seems he encountered. Though, his interpretation of the scene where Isaac tries to save Kendra is a little confusing to me
@@owainglyndwrlastprinceofwa2486 sorry but i gotta agree with mandalore, its really odd they went out of their way to attempt to "fix" kendra as a character, there was a interview where the writer said it was one of their goals, so to me it came off more as the writer trying to manipulate you the player to feel sympathetic towards kendra by having isaac attempting to save her, especially since they changed the scene to make it so there was a opportunity to save her, but in the original there was no chance even if isaac wanted to
@@battleax10 Kendra in the original was a shitty and poorly written character, trying to make her sympathetic isn’t some unreasonable thing. You can sympathize with someone but not forgive their actions, Isaac doesn’t suddenly forgive her. He’s tired of loosing people and while he doesn’t forgive her, she’s the last person he’s got left and he doesn’t wanna see anyone else die. This ain’t something the remake made up you realize? He literally does the same fucking thing in both DS2 and DS3 multiple times
The "that's the crew" line I just chopped up to her knowing but trying to play it off as if she didn't. She was probably the character going into the situation with the most information on the marker.
I know Kendra was in on what was going on, but even she cpuldn't velieve it to be fair. I remember after playing through the remake twice, when she reveals her deception to Isaac as she flies away in the shuttle, she says a few interesting things. She was briefed on the marker on Aegis VII and read the reports of mass hysteria, but even she couldn't believe it. She even said it was crazy that the report was real. I mean, think about it: If you were a government agent systems analyst and read a report dating back to *two hundred years* ago, stating that the government experimented with a seemingly magical artifact and buried it somewhere, you might be a little incredulous as well. Sure, a marker existed on Earth already but that relic definitely didn't cause the horror story that we saw there. As we all know, seeing is believing and even when having logs about the government's experiments from years ago, it's hard to believe there wasn't some other explanation. Obviously the system was sanctioned off as an illegal trespassing system so it was easy to come up with many other reasons. So in short, I don't think it's far-fetched to believe that Kendra was actually, genuinely surprised at this whole necromorph outbreak. You could even hear her digging extensively through the logs and figuring out what the crew learned about the necromorphs and feeding it to Isaac.
@@hussainqureshi9933You're not fat fingered, my sweet sweet supple brother, you are merely small phoned. Do not shame yourself this way! Your phalanges are fit, they are slim, they are vivacious. Digits so fine Michelangelo would have wept had he known not even his own hands, skilled as they are, could recreate such prime and infallible examples of fingerity. Remember this, always.
Really glad you addressed the MCC issue of a remake ending up undermining the style and art design of the original. Sometimes the restrictions of the medium forced people to make the most of it to the degree it comes across way better than modern teams being able to do whatever they want. Glad to see DSR finding that happy medium.
@@dillonwalker3359 If they wanted to respect the original art design, why are the necromorphs more space zombie here then ever? Even the mummified SCAF necros had more variety to the horrible body damage the change had on them. Every single slasher has the exact same body changes, and practically none of them even attempt to showoff just how twisted (literally with some of them) the necromorph could take things. The Necromorphs are one of the most iconic parts of Dead Space and are very memorable as monsters. In this? Not so much.
To be fair though, Californians probably think the Zip .22 could slaughter a whole city, so the metaphor kinda falls apart if you think about it to much...
@@darkpixel1128 State of California is notorious for it's strict and nonsensical firearm laws. Politically it is also a democrat stronghold, and has been so for decades.
I love the idea of the bouncing saw blade doing minimal damage to Isaac because a random blade flying off is EXACTLY what his engineer suit is made to protect against
To answer the question posed in the gameplay section about Slashers charging, often. Yes; They do it constantly in my playthrough also on hard. While they are noticeable less aggressive in some regards, I generally find that they only do the creep walk if they are far away or you have your back to them and AREN'T engaged in combat. I have found that when engaged with another Necromorphs, the ones behind you will speed up and the ones in front will often freak charge. They are really aggressive for me. You can come have some of it, if you'd like.
Kendra established towards the end that Isaac and Cross are both full crazy thanks to the marker and, more importantly, you don't come back from that. IIRC she straight up says that once a marker changes the way you think, that's just how you are now. Seemed a little regretful, since she was also seeing her little brother on the cameras and realizing she's changed forever now but still had a job to do with burying the marker.
(SPOILERS) I like to think that Isaac reaching for Kendra is more him trying to save who is likely the last remaining human other than him. He's desperate to save someone, anyone, because every other time he's tried he has either just missed, had his hopes dashed when he sees that they're already dead, or watched them die right in front of him. There, as the hive mind is emerging, he is presented with one final survivor. Yes, she betrayed him and everyone he had come to the Ishimura with, yes she killed someone in cold blood, but she is still alive and they can escape together. His visceral reaction to her being turned to chunky salsa is that last attempt to successfully save someone being stripped from him one last time. And he was so close, too.
I mean it makes sense. I interpreted more as Isaac isn’t a killer. When he sees Mercer’s experiments on still living humans, he doesn’t kill them. Even though he would be totally justified to do it. They will die and become necromorphs but Isaac doesn’t want to be responsible for their deaths. So he leaves them alive to be turned into monsters later.
Isaac is consistently shown in the game - even in the original game - as being someone who wants to save people, to the point that he (can't) won't even willingly euthanize them as a game mechanic. So Isaac trying to save Kendra still makes sense because like it or not, she's still a living human being in the same shithole as everyone else. Isaac wants justice, not revenge, and he doesn't want her or anyone else dead. His one line to Kendra in the remake says it best: "Enough people have died!"
Is it weird I liked that moment? That even after everything she had done to him, he still wants to save the last person in the crew, or even the entire ishimura/planet? And when he fails, he gets up and yells and an eldritch horror "COME ON THEN. CAUSE THIS IS ALL I GOT LEFT!" just.. I dunno. It felt good.
9:45 about the "voice lines change depending on condition" the only other example I can't think of is PS4's Spider-Man, Peter's delivery changes depending on whether he's standing still or swinging around. I do love this kind of stuff, makes the dialogue feels much more immersive.
That's the only other example I could think of as well. Gotta be a lot of work to record everything twice, and it might not even be worth it in the grand scheme of things, but fuck it's just awesome. Edit: Luigi's Mansion had Luigi say "mario" in different tones and cadences depending on health, but that would be so much less work than entire dialogue lines.
In read dead redemption 2, they changed the dialoge on horseback depending how far the other npc are. Are they farer away, Arthur talks louder and shouts a bit.
a really og version of this is in Shadow of the Colossus, which funnily has almost no dialogue. How you call for your horse depends on how close he is and whether or not you’re fighting a colossus, low health, etc.
Fun fact, even the original has this design, but I noticed it’s more noticeable in the remake. It’s a good quality of life change that I didn’t think they’d work on.
The jump scare at the end of the original Dead Space 1 was scarier. Having the necromorph crouching behind the seat vs sitting in it significantly changed the impact.
I don't know what to think. I don't like how the final scare isn't as creepy and outright scary like the first game, but at the same time I am so thankful the remake made the final scare not as bad.
What about the secret ending? That didn't feel like "ah, jump scare" scary, but seeing someone that insane, especially someone like Isaac, is pretty horrifying
It took me far too long to realize what you meant because it goes by so quickly. I even thought maybe you meant 'transparency' as in, transparency behind the process but that didn't make sense because he's often very transparent that way. Only after watching it an embarrassing amount of times I realized the length of the scrolling name was too long and he didn't want to obscure it with the comment box lol He could have edited it any other way but this is a prime example of 'work smart not hard' lol
I think you hit the nail on the head about the pulse rifle. In a world where the only victory is in dismemberment, a regular gun would be terrible. I like that the pulse rifle just sucks and I feel like that plays into the themes of dead space so well.
I don't understand where the idea that it sucks in all cases comes from though. I always found that it had a good use when it came to hitting the large yellow balls of bosses. It made it so I didn't have to be AS precise with my aiming in tense boss fights or tentacle grabs.
I always bought and upgraded the pulse rifle in preparation for the Hivemind on Aegus VII. Ever since I mistakenly tried fighting it with ineffective weapons, that is. Here, in the remake, I basically carried it around for the exact same purpose, but it had its uses as a grenade launcher. Definitely not an entirely useless weapon. Especially when the pulse rifle's precise, narrow barrel works wonders against the yellow pods of the Leviathan and Hivemind.
I frequently go back to rewatch old reviews of his because of how great he is at assessing something in a concise and entertaining way. I can't think of a single reviewer of anything where I do that.
@@happyman3802 Because this man does not obey the USDA approved Formula of UA-cammeat: 1. Intro. Speed read "Sup everyone it's ya boy" as if we knew who you were in the first place. 2. Content. Repeat what you saw others with followers review last week. No writing required. 3. Outro. "Make sure to like and subscribe" as if anyone will remember your name by Tuesday.
That director thing made the remake both fun as hell and a pain in the ass at the same time. On my first playthrough 90% of the slashers I fought had a decent movement speed but always had their arms tucked in and pointed directly at me. Plasma Cutter rounds were almost deflecting off their arms due to the sharp angle, but as a trade off I was constantly getting Contact Beam ammo and fought the Hive Mind with over 100 rounds on hand
I see the part of Isaac reaching toward Kendra as pretty normal to be honest. He's been dealing with creatures that cause fear and panic and fighting for his life almost always alone for hours. Sure she double crossed him, but Isaac has seen the last of any humans within light years die around him and she was the only last living person alive. I could totally see someone reaching for the familiarity of another human when the last moving things around you are melting skin monsters that want you dead.
I think the writers were using Chen as a way to develop Hammond's character, rather than be something the player should care about. They might've been drawing from Event Horizon for it, since the leader in that is constantly dealing with the vision of a lost crewmate.
This is definitely the case. It's shown that Hammond cares a lot about keeping his crew safe, so him being torn up by losing crew member, and the marker taking advantage of that, makes a lot of sense.
@@SpecterVonBaren You don't tho, it gives enough for Hammond's character, Chen wasn't a character in the first game, just a first death. This is hands down an improvement, cause at least it gives more depth to a character (not Chen). If you need more than that, then you forgot you're playing a remake of a game about killing monster's on a ship. That or you just didn't pay attention
@@mattcubed9658 It would still be stronger if Chen was alive for a little bit longer, not for *his* character development, but for Hammond's. What I'm thinking of is that Chen gets separated from the group or something, and Hammond attempts to save him, but fails. As it currently happens, it doesn't really feel like Hammond did anything wrong, it's just that Chen got killed. If Hammond own failings lead to Chen's death, that would make his guilt later in the story much better, and make Hammond a stronger character. He'd go from being unable to move on from Chen's death -- which makes him seem kinda mopey -- to being unable to forget his own failure to protect someone, which would solidify his "Papa Bear" role, as Mandalore put it. Then, maybe reframe Hammond's death around him still having other people to protect. It'd make him similarly heroic as the original, while keeping his Chen arc.
9:45 games with different delivery based on conditions was done so well in Dirt Rally. yes. a rally game. the devs strapped the co-driver into a simulation chair and ran his lines while racing through different speeds, vibrations and road conditions. there's real fear in his voice.
They probably made necromorphs slower because they are harder to stager in this game, like in ds2 they will get staggered with one plasma cutter shot (don't recall how is it in ds1) but in remake you have to use something heavier, or use mele. I also feel like closer to the end of the game necromorphs getting more aggresive)
For what it's worth, I just started playing and ran into four separate dudes doing the run in my first 30 mins. It was so common I came back here to see if anyone else had mentioned it.
That's also one of the reasons why the Pulse Rifle feels so worthless in the Remake. It used to be great at staggering that it made up for it's weak damage.
I didn’t know the voiceover’s were different depending on how much health you have! That’s a great touch. The only other example of that that springs to mind is the Spider-Man PS4 game - if you’re standing still or walking, he delivers lines normally, but if you’re swinging through the city (which why wouldn’t you be) he delivers them like someone in the middle of heavy exercise! Always think that’s a really neat trick.
My interpretation of the ending(s) is that they both take at some point or another. The original ending + events of the game are what takes place first and the events of new game+ and alternate ending are what transpired in Isaac's mind after the fact. Essentially his mind being trapped inside the Ishimura and being corrupted by the marker driving him insane. It lines up with the books since they apparently found Isaac going crazy (I haven't personally read them, it's just what other people have told me). Also something I found during new game+ was on the gondola section where you meet up with 'Nicole,' you can access the security console on the other side where she was once you enable zero g and it replays a log of Isaac & Elizabeth Cross talking to each other (with Isaac thinking she's Nicole).
@@Jak239JC Moreso that he's still on the ship (the escape shuttle) and reliving the nightmare over and over in his mind. Like I say, the alternate ending comes after the original one.
Dead Space mobile! 37:44. That takes me back- what a fantastic iOs game that was, with a properly developed if simple self-contained story. It even had a horde mode! I'd love to see that remade.
My only issue with Nicole is that they had an opportunity to make the twist reveal more impactful, but her voice direction and the way she's presented still seems very clearly "off" throughout the game. I would have loved for her to seem more personable and kind, in a way that makes Isaac's realization seem like it would be more of a surprise to him (despite players mostly all knowing what's going on). Just as an example, when on the shuttle to Aegis VII, it would have been REALLY cool to have Nicole show concern for Isaac as he appears to black out multiple times, or even seem to black out a few times herself. This actually would have worked especially well with the way the twist is altered with Cross' involvement, as the things they say back and forth to each other could come from a place of genuine care even if the marker is twisting what's being heard and seen. As it is, Nicole's increased presence just makes the truth seem even more obvious, missing an opportunity to make it all feel more subtle.
I read the blacking out on the shuttle as the Marker keeping Isaac and Cross from interacting too much, specifically so that it can keep the illusion up in close quarters Sure it can manipulate them, but there's only so much it can do when they're sitting right next to eachother. Much easier to handle when they're just basically passed out in their chairs
If my girlfriend started talking about how awesome a monolith cult is, I'd flatter myself to think I'd be able to notice something is off. Obviously Isaac's not totally lucid by this point anyways but it still felt a little too much like Nicole was winking at us the whole time
I thought it was cool actually, because as the player you go "man she is being really creepy," and find yourself thinking "dude, RUN!" while being forced to not only watch, but control Isaac as he helps this clearly sketchy "person". It shows more directly that he, too, is under the influence of the marker.
Thing is it makes sense for "Nicole" to be off. She's not really Nicole, IT is a figment of the Marker manipulating and exploiting a traumatized and fragile man's psyche. And because it's the construct of an eldritch race, It makes sense that it can't comprehend and then replicate the warmth of a human trying to comfort another human. And it doesn't need to ultimately, since Isaac himself is all too willing to believe a lie that staves away the awful truth that he knows deep down, and wants to keep buried.
The "doing multiple takes of VO for different levels of health" is cool. They did a similar thing in the new Spider-Man games, where they did multiple takes of VO depending on if Spider-Man/Miles were swinging and in combat. It's neat to hear Spidey sound exerted when talking during swinging sections.
Isaac actually does different voice lines for fatigue levels too, if you've been sprinting a lot. I'm surprised Mandy either wasn't aware or omitted it.
Unfortunately they didn't bother to mesh the ambient character audio with the voice acting. So now Isaac is basically silent until someone opens coms, at which point he immediately begins hamming it up for sympathy lol
I always thought it was really cool how the lines of the helmet showed what level tier the armor was in the original, but I guess the three lines is the iconic look. Strange that in the remake only the level 2 keeps that pervious idea while the rest all have three.
Good review! I appreciate you holding direction accountable for some questionable acting rather than just saying the actor was bad. Wish more reviewers understood that.
I have no way to play this game, so I’ve just been watching videos of it. I had no idea about Isaac cursing the corporation under his breath when his tools stop working, and I absolutely LOVE that little detail.
Man, to think I started watching Mandalore's videos with the og DS 1 review so so many years ago, makes me a little bit nostalgic. I remeber seeing the video on my feed thinking "A DS review huh? I haven't seen many people review it, I'll give it a go" and now its one of my favourite youtubers, I always wait for his next video with excitement and everytime I get the "MandaloreGaming has uplouded a new video" my day brightens. Also that "I miss Chen" at 33:43 had me laughing for minutes lmao
In regards to the necromorphs being a little more sluggish...what stands out to me is that there are more and different enemy types in this remake. All the standard morphs show up, but the quicker movement is present in different contexts. It could be something they changed to enforce a more nuanced enemy identity.
Yeah, the fact is before they were enemies with set hp, with limbs that had set hp. Now they have to be physically prevented from moving, so although they move slower, they don't get stun-locked.
“So let me get this straight… I’m in somewhere that I would not call the Ishimura. I’m seeing freaking Necromorphs. And…oh yeah! I’m talking to my dead wife!”
*Isaac screaming desperately while dangling above the Hivemind's mouth* *Record scratch, freeze frame* Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got into this situation.
It would work if it made them more aggressive if you're winning easily. But I've seen people mop the floor with them and they'd still waddle around for the most part, so I wonder what determines it. Also one thing I would have liked is if they would have not buffed the melee soo hard. You shouldn't be rewarded for going in to give a necromorph a hug when they can rip you apart, but they can be stun locked by the faster stomping, they should at least be limited to one stun per stomp/swing spam so they can slash at you, that way players aren't encouraged to just walk up to the unstasised necros and start stomping away while they keep flinching out of their attack animations, kind of disarms them a bit too hard as a competent threat.
I was really pleasantly surprised with how good the flamethrower was in the remake, I ended up falling back on it as ol' faithful VERY often. I did my first playthrough on hard, and plasma cutter ammo was super scarce, but for some reason the flamethrower is just obscenely ammo efficient, while still dealing really great damage. This is kind of a minor thing, but it was just fun as hell to use, and flamethrowers are usually awful in horror games imo.
That thing worked surprisingly well against the Guardians (and let me indulge in reenacting scenes from "The Thing"). And it also lets you give cadavers (I.E Infector food) a Viking funeral.
Dude dead space mobile was awesome and now that you mention it, would definitely want to see a remake for that. Two things that really stood out for me was the infinite ammo/overheating pulse rifle gun and on the final boss (don’t think a lot of people discovered this and I might be the only one) there is a sweet spot to anti gravity from the very top, all the way to very bottom instead of using anti gravity on a lot of platforms which was a pain. IIRC, there’s a platform above the door you enter and you got to find an angle until you see the bottom and use anti gravity and it just takes you to the bottom. Oh and one last thing that stood out was how in the end you’re actually a girl. Definitely a Metroid moment for me
I personally felt the whole Chen route they took with the remake was to show even Hammond wasn't safe from the Marker's influence so was kinda why I didn't mind the change too much
I can understand that, but it likely could have been much better done if you actually felt like some camaraderie was there between them beforehand. Hell have Chen and Hammond go on a mission together while Isaac is observing, have him help out, make him actually mean something to the player as well. Then when we see Chen's horrific reanimated corpse chasing Hammond through the ship we get a sense of horror and loss to empathize with Hammond himself. As it stands I think I much prefer the Hammond who ends up cornered by a Brute and goes out gun's blazing. Even when he knows he's going to die, he tells Isaac to save himself and Kendra while not giving up. New Hammond does have a sense of that, but I feel like it could have been better if he sort of snap's out of it at the last second, tells Isaac to finish the mission, and takes Chen out without destroying a key component they need but still ending up with him dying as a result. It also feels much less true to the setting than the first game. Hammond literally gets torn apart by the Brute while you watch, but the Chenmorph just stabs him and stands there without, you know, doing what Slashers do to literally everyone else. The Necromorph should have just torn him apart with no hesitation after he let his guard down.
@@AveSicarius Do we really have to see comraderie building between Hammond and his co workers? He obviously knew them because he doesn't ask for their files before the mission. I felt bad for Hammond because a coworker death affected him so much.
@@DemonLordSparda Not with Hammond, with the player, otherwise there is literally no reason to be emotionally invested. Any character buildup must be at least observed by the player, it's game writing 101. It's why we care about certain characters more than other's, and why the death of a beloved character in a well written game is so impactful. It would be far more meaningful to actually see Chen and Hammond together, have Chen interact with Isaac, and have him be useful, then have the rest of the side story unfold. You'd care more about this guy you liked being turned into a monster and hunting down another guy you liked than a random stranger chasing down someone who'd only said a few lines to him previously.
@@adamwatchesvideosontheinte6642 It's not about having to witness elements to make the story work, it's about you witnessing characters to gain some kind of attachment to them. What are you not getting about this? If both your friend and a random stranger died, which would make you more sad? In a fictional context there's a huge difference between seeing someone chased by a random zombie and someone being chased by the reanimated corpse of their best friend. This is more impactful to the observer when you have seen the relationship between those two prior to that horrific event. Hammond was clearly influenced by the death of his men in the first game, but he didn't keep harping on about it, he got the job done so he could protect the others. We don't see anywhere enough of Chen's character to have him be the focus of so much and have the player actually care about it, like Mandalore suggested, it would have been better to have Chen actually establish himself as a character if this is the route the wanted to go down. As it stands it's a random redshirt you don't care about chasing someone you might grow to care about, and it's frankly far less impactful than Hammond's story in the original. Hammond tried his best to get everyone out of there alive, he gets cornered by a Necromorph and unceremoniously torn apart, that's peak Dead Space. In the remake he's obsessed with a character you saw for two seconds, and that character is shoehorned into the plot in a manner that really doesn't elict the effect the writer was going for, not only that but It's not an issue with overwriting, it's an entirely empathetic context. The story making sense doesn't matter if you don't care about it at all, and this doesn't even make sense in the first place. Why is the Chenmorph chasing Hammond everywhere? Why does it just stand there staring at him when it finally catches up and attacks him? Why is Hammond's character made so weak in the remake? Why does he almost ruin everything for you when he sacrificed himself to kill Chen instead of the original plot where he sacrificed himself trying to save you? Ironically enough original Hammond is more true to how the writer was trying to portray him in this game. It would be much more impactful if Chen survived past the other redshirt and died afterwards, and more logical storywise if Hammond had to retrace his steps, he comes across the Chenmorph and manages to escape but is obviously spooked by the experience, the markers influence increases over Hammond and he begins to see Chen around just as Isaac sees Nicole, perhaps he even mistakes Isaac for him at one point, and then the story continues as before but on the Valor he ends up following what he believes is Chen after managing to control himself for long enough to help Isaac out, gets cornered by a Necromorph and comes to his senses but it's too late and he's unceremoniously torn apart. There you go, both the Necromorph and Hammond act true to form and it maintains a semblance of the impact of the original. I just don't feel anything compared to watching Hammond die in the original. It's just not as impactful as his death in the original or as true to Hammond's character as presented even in this game. There's no point in adding to the story if it doesn't elicit some response. The entire point of storytelling is to provoke an emotional response in the listener, in games the player, this clearly is insufficient in that regard.
And even without that it just shows he's a very caring leader. Of course he's going on n on about his soldier that just got turned into a living screaming knife rack. Both his deaths are perfectly befitting his character in their respective games, one is a blaze of glory n this one is putting his friend to rest
@@стрелок-ч7р shouldn't game devs be rewarded for doing good. The game is good so get it if you like it. Shouldn't hate on people for getting things they like man. That's just a bit fucked up.
@ScrilboBaggins He clearly made an argument from a point of integrity, not financial consumption, a concept a consooomer cattle drone like you will never understand. Consume product and don't ask questions then consume next product. Moooooo
Love the review. I personally really enjoyed the different approach on the characters and story. In particular with Kendra being made an actual character that I could emphasize with and understand instead of NAG-MASTER 5000. I agree with the Chen/Hammond stuff, it was bizarre how torn up Hammond was about Chen, how much focus there was on that aspect to develop Hammond but they chose not to actually make Chen a character.
I didn't see him mention it yet but another amazing detail is you can hit yourself with a normal door. Issac actually reacts and loses a smidgen of health
Red Dead Redemption 2 has distance-based line readings for conversations and even just NPC greetings. People will yell if you ride too far behind or ahead and quiet back down to normal volume when you get more comfortably nearby. There are even stealth readings for calling your horse while crouching or around enemies.
I think its a good thing the original has largely stood up over time, so if you don't like the remake you could just play the original. But it really seems like they're both "different, not worse" depending on your preference.
I completely agree. When the remake was announced I was highly skeptical because I had just replayed the original and it still looks and plays great. I’m glad that it looks like they did a really solid job but the original is my jam and nothing will change that.
To each their own, but I completely despise the narcissistic compulsion to alter beloved media in order to "update it for modern audiences", which is code for "I'm an egotistical activist type looking for things to change".
@@wholetyouinhere Honestly I feel like that doesnt apply as much to the Dead Space remake. It feels more like a faithful adaptation rather than a "modernized update". I would personally say the new Saints Row fits your description better, as it poorly phoned in a lot of stuff that ultimately ruined the whole game
I'll be fascinated to see your take on Callisto Protocol. I was okay on it at first and still think it has some interesting ideas, but it only soured more and more in retrospect and *especially* after the DS Remake.
@@anihilus2344 sadly with Callisto protocol being a massive commercial flop, it’s unlikely we might see a second game. It apparently had a 130 million dollar budget and hasn’t even made half of it back from what I’ve read.
@@boomerkobold3943 I mean, it wasn't a very good game. Just because someone's not giving infinite chances to that annoying mess doesn't make them a shill or a mindless consumer.
@@BE-fw1lr yeah, callisto is a brawler, with mediocre combat and bad balance issues. terrible enemy variety, and complete lack of exploration. overall, the only thing dead space inspired in it, is the presentation.
I think that one of my favorite things about the first dead space is that, with how the necromorphs shoot out somewhat slow projectiles or leap out at you if you don't lay down enough suppressing fire, it feels like there should be a dodge button like some of the resident evils, but there just isn't. You are slow and clunky and your only real advantage is that you can fight a lot better at a distance than they can and you have the tools to keep them there.
For me Issac reaching his hand out for Daniels is less redemption and more he’s sick of death. There’s so many dead aboard the ishimura all typically done when he was without any control over the situation (locked behind glass) and Daniels is the one and only person he can possibly save, regardless of all the damage she caused, he just wants someone to live.
@@Senator-Wary Yeah dude it's so stupid when human characters in horrific situations try to desperately cling to some sense of normalcy, so cringe lmfao
@@Senator-Wary He probably reached for her instinctively since she's the only person alive there. Isaac isn't a sociopath, even if she was a bitch when adrenaline kicks in its instincts and reflex that take over.
I actually really like the Hammond-Chen part of the story. Instead of telling how the Marker use a combination of necromorphs and hallucination to weaponize guilt, we as players are shown of the process. It is a clear indication that Hammond was under the influence of the marker, hallucinating a Chen necromorph being alive and Kellion being not destroyed. In the original, it seems that Hammond was not affected by the Marker at all, which seems to be a little bit odd given how everyone else was seeing things. It also explains perfectly why Hammond did not kill the Slasher in the pod before launching the pod even though he knew to cut off the limbs and he was armed with a pulse rifle. It also makes the necromorphs and whatever is controlling them a more calculated villain. The end goal of the Marker is making enough dead biomass, and it will maximize the efficiency by turning dead people into necromorphs and sending them against those close to them. This way the hallucination has a better chance of fooling the survivor for just long enough to be killed and added to the biomass pile. Hammond might be a brave security officer, but in the face of the Marker, he is just some biomass that needs collecting and Chen is the best tool for the collection. It happened to Hammond, but in the last moment of clarity Hammond destroyed himself and necromorphed Chen. However who knows how many times similar scenarios has happened in the colony and on Ishimura, and how many times the Marker actually succeed. It can make the outbreak even more scary than we first thought.
The audio lines changing based on health is an amazing touch of detail. I'm glad more studios are doing mostly faithful remakes; some changes work, some don't, but it's nice getting to enjoy new experiences in familiar settings.
The game definitely tracks weapon use and forces you to change up your loadout. By CH 3 I'm sitting pretty with a beastly plasma cutter and didn't notice the ammo count. When it ran out Isaac is genuinely weighing up hatred for zombies and CEC executives, I was right there with him. Like did you see the price of batteries these days. And they don't even have charger stations, you have to get them new. This corporate crap is literally murdering the working man
The first Rameses II reference caught me off guard. The second, mere minutes later, startled me. I had just watched Prince of Egypt when I saw this. Please keep out of my house, I have enough food for two (2) people and my dog is the one who gets the other portion.
I think you undersold the Ripper in this version. It was the surprise MVP for me. You can often take down 2 necromorphs with one use of primary fire, and as a bonus, if you rip and tear fast enough, you can even hit secondary fire and shoot that same blade for a chance at bonus hits.
you know that bit of the goosebumbs theme that rolls down the keys? you know how you hear it when the blue trail runs across Mandalore's logo? you know how he always syncs the two? he doesn't have to do that. he does that because he loves us.
Going from the Remake into DS2 for the first time since it launched, it's incredible how seamless it feels to play, and it's also a treat rediscovering how amazing DS2 is. They did a fantastic job on the Dead Space atmosphere/feel in the remake imo
I *KNEW* I couldn't be the only one thinking of A Plague Tale with those cello sounds; I loved the sense of danger and urgency they transmitted in the games whenever they played.
to be honest, i like isaacs effort to safe kendra, and his vocal response to her death, it shows to me that hes really just a good guy, and that even if kendra lied, he would try to safe her, cause they were one crew, it really just drives home my sypmathy for issac beeing a genuine good guy, who shows the other cheak when it mean hes able to safe someone.
I took the change to Kendra at the very end of him just trying to save anyone for the Evil corpse eaters. The line he shouts at the eldritch abomination moments later reinforces this in my mind. All in all I think it is a good change
Finished my 1st playthrough and will tell you this. The weapons, while different in function compared to the original ones, are actually fun. Frostbite and the ambience do a genuinely good job. The story expansions are a step in the good way. Necromorphs are more persistent than ever (ESPECIALLY The Hunter). Making the game like Resident Evil and allowing you to backtrack was also a step in the right direction (not to mention adding side-quests). The only things I'd nitpick are Hammond not being played by Peter Mensah and lack of behaviors from the Necromorphs. Like them stalking the Ishimura in search of people they missed to kill or them piling corpses in one place like it was in the engine room in the original. Edit: Doing now a 2nd run to get the level 6 R.I.G. Oh and some scenes with the Infected Suit are hilarious. Especially in the Captain's nest with Hammond. Edit 2: If they remake DS2, they should add in the DS Mobile campaign and DS2 Severed DLC which was exclusive to the console version of DS2. Also remaster Extraction.
I really liked the backtracking aspect. There was just something really fun about completing the side missions and unlocking higher clearances doors and chests knowing that you risk more attacks by the necromorphs. Some of my most tense fights were in medical trying to get to the last few locked rooms.
my biggest issue gameplay wise was the fact that issac lost his injured animations from the first 3 games, if he was on yellow he'd start limping and if his rig was red he'd visibly struggle to walk because of his injuries
I do have to say, there's currently a save-ruining bug where batteries just disappear. The only known fix is loading back a save from before the battery would have spawned, which costs a LOT of progress. I remember having to redo all of medical and ch 2 twice because the last battery (the one in the hallway that explodes into the vacuum) just didn't spawn for both my first run (Hard difficulty) and second run (Easy mode, just to test the combat).
I think what we all need to accept is that motion capture is a tool that should be used SOMETIMES, not all the time. It's a big "can vs should" issue. When it works, it works. But to completely replace all traditional animation and voice acting is a moronic decision.
You can hear this voice change type of thing also in the new Spiderman game. While he swings and talks, he sounds more strained, but while stationary he'll talk more smooth, but i love that they did this in the DS remake
Honestly my biggest beef with the remake is the world state changes to Medical and Hydroponics don't happen, so the bodies that are ALL. OVER. the entrance of Medical don't Ominously Disappear as you're leaving the way you came in before you have any information on why or how the hell that might happen, they just... stay there. And you don't have the Hydroponics cases full of food, only for it all to visibly Be Consumed when the Leviathan goes aggro on you all and blocks off or fills out the new-to-you sections of Hydroponics with biomass on that second visit, it just... has a section where there's plenty of food, and then a section where there's not so much food, and a section that already has a snotwall right from the getgo. Also call me a moonbrain but I got MUCH more turned around in the zero-G sections of Hydroponics in the Remake's zG controls than I remember getting with the original's Flying Squirrel treatment--though NEW zero g sections were actually very good for me.
I'd say there's one thing the new Kendra does really, really well: Whenever Isaac is mentioning Nicole in calls/audio with her, you can TELL that she knows you're losing it but has to keep it under wraps. "N- Nicole's there? She's uhhhh quite the trooper, huh?" And then there's always just these knowing looks in some of the video calls, you can see it in her eyes. I think it was a really neat detail to have Kendra show. Isaac trying to save her is dumb af though, honestly it is the worst change in the whole game.
Do you not think his line where he faces off the Hivemind informs that choice, though? It suggested to me that despite all her sins, she's still a human being, and he's seen so much death and fucked up shit that he doesn't want to lose any more. Imagine that same scene if she reached for him and he slapped her hand away, or the like.
@@PowerfulSkeleton I think if I saw that amount of meat monsters I would wanna save even the worst person there is only so much death one can take even with a vendetta and it’s just a small change over all
@@Laneous14 She looks like she's an attractive 40-50 year old. Why do people who critique that change act like she suddenly looks like the crypt keeper?
@@PowerfulSkeleton no one has to be completely benevolent or a complete sadist. something better (and more true to her original character) would be her bargaining with Isaac that she can help him only to draw her weapon on him and then get eliminated by the hivemind.
One thing I love that this video shows is that, depending on Isaac's health, he does different takes on voice lines. So if he is injured he'll sound more hurt and out of breath. An amazing little detail
I think my biggest visual complaint(? honestly I'm not sure if I like it less or its just different) is the health bar. The border of where your current health ends feels more fuzzy and less defined and it was often hard for me to tell 'exactly' how much health I had. Admittedly this is pretty in-line with other survival horror games that make you squint at your health bar and go "I *think* I can take another hit without having to use a medkit? welp, guess there's only one way to find out", but it was kind of jarring after feeling like I was able to much more accurately tell how hurt I was in OG 1 and 2. Otherwise I very much consider the package as a whole to be a home run.
i felt like this was only an issue to a full health bar. because of the curvature, it makes knowing if it was full or 1-2 hits in harder. but i dont thing it is that problematic once it reaches 3/4th full.
When a game or movie is remade it’s really hard to not emphasize the negatives or any point that failed to heighten or maintain the same strengths as the original. My main concerns with the remake are mainly enemy aggressiveness, sound design and the changing of certain characters. That being said I’m really happy to hear the remake did so many things right and I’ll be happy to play it despite my inability to not be frustrated with certain aspects. Really looking forward to the RE4 Remake as well now with the Demo and gameplay reveals out. Great review as always
I had a bug where when you first reach the marker and have the cutscene with Mercer, he just straight up didn't spawn in. So Isaac was talking to nobody, and then a ghost broke the glass because the hunter didn't spawn in either. I was just wandering around in that room for a minute, wondering what the hell was going on.
Something similar happened to me the first time you run into Mercer and the Hunter. The Hunter disappeared inside the tank and then the glass is smashed open and nothing happens, had to reload a previous save to make it work. Thankfully that was the only bug I encountered in my playthrough.
A great review and a very honest one! I agree on Remake Dr. Kyne should’ve been more insane than he was and the problem with Remake Hammond. The review felt like a critical look into the remake from a longtime fan. Can’t wait for your honest take on the Callisto Protocol.
The Remake on Steam - store.steampowered.com/app/1693980/Dead_Space/
The Original on GOG - gog.la/MakeUsWhole
This was later than intended as I didn't get early access/had some irl stuff going on but Callisto Protocol will be out much quicker.
I beat the game last night at 4AM, watched your three reviews of the main series, slept, and woke up to this. Wtf
10:45 I'm dying send help
Oh, the original is on GOG, I might get it there
-sees it costs 105 bucks here in braziland-
NOOOOPE
Nice and detailed review. I thought it was well done. Sorry, I don't know your gaming schedule, but do you have any plans to review "Wanted:Dead" or "Hogwarts Legacy"?
@@Maioly I'm sorry dude, you guys in Brazil always get fucked over with video game prices.
The thing I loved about things like the S.A.B. is that it made you feel like Isaac was outsmarting the necromorphs. His superpower is that he's smart enough to cheat.
Putting a laser on a box and kinesis-ing it is 100000% an engineer move
Isaac's I made a thing moment
@@karas3421 even the exploits like using the Pulse rifle mines and the Bench capacity upgrades to get infinite ammo feel like Isaac learning to exploit a weakness in CEC's equipment.
Isaac's superpower is that he's an engineer.
Eat your heart out, Engineer Commander Shepard!
I think the funniest part of the remake was how they hid the Peng trophy this time. You have to go back through the Flight Deck after getting the Captain's RIG to get to the engines. At this point, you already have the Kinesis module and if you remember the original, probably go "Oh, I can get the Peng trophy super early now." Well, joke's on you, you get a crazed log from someone who has it and hid it elsewhere instead.
Its a shame tho how obvious the new hiding place is
@@durpson i dunno 2 of my friends bypassed it without knowing
@@F4Wildcat Well its a good hiding place if you have the awareness of a turtle
If you look around for resources its easy to spot instantly the original PENG was hidden away where you normally wouldnt spot it
@@durpson never said they were clever
yeah, I searched for it where the original hiding place was and gave up to search for it later, then found it by mistake and I was like "oh, that's a pretty weak hiding spot"
I saw Isaac trying to save Kendra as him having already lost so many people, and knowing that he had lost Nicole, wanting to save someone, ANYONE. DS2 even explores this with Ellie near the end, where his "final act" is to "save" Ellie as a way of redeeming himself.
Late to the party but only recently played the remake, and I think we need to remember it's a violent and sudden scene, neither Kendra nor Isaac are going to spend the time thinking about how should they behave, it's pure instinct of trying to save the other person from untold space monstrosity
@@PanCyfik not to mention that Clarke, in some form, knew that Kendra was right on what was going on regarding Nicole's status/hallucinations, but the Marker's dementia was still strong over him. Many people have already pointed out that developers really humanized Kendra. Honestly, I wished people would stop thinking that a new take of her is still the same "asshole" from the original. She ultimately regrets using Issac in the remake in some instances.
@@SolidAvenger1290 I think Kyne and Cross would still consider her an asshole.
Also they are the only two human beings on a planet/ship filled to the brimg with alien monstrosities. Clinging in desperation to each other despite everything is the natural instinct. The entire cast consists who ill-fitting, hallucinating, duplicious, people who sticked together because they had to.
@@Nickname-ef9tvjust sucks Kendra was always selfish and was only in it for herself it would have been cool if she was like Finley from still wakes the deep and sacrificed herself or be helpful like her but she’s just a dick in both games
“Less space monster and more being drunk and remembering you have a pizza in the oven” I have a new favorite Mandy line
It's based off past experiences
@@MemeLordCthulhu we have all been there.
"Wriggling custard IED" or "prescribe a decade of Proactiv instantly" are surely a close seconds. XD
10:42
"Violin players goes into seizure when enemies shows up."
The "swearing when you're out of ammo" detail reminds me of the King Kong game. That game had an immersive system where you press a button and the player character calls out how much ammo he has left. "Three magazines on backup." "One magazine on backup" "It's ok, I have enough magazines."
What was awesome is that his voice ramps up in intensity when you're in the midst of combat, and he gets even more intense as your ammo depletes more and more to the point where he's basically screaming "THREE BULLETS ON BACKUP" "ONE BULLET ON BACKUP"
that 2005 King Kong game is genuinely an underrated gem. It's probably the only video game adaptation ever that's actually held back by the fact that it was tied to a stupid forgettable movie. Adrian Brody counting your magazines and some of the game-specific Kong screams are forever etched into my brain
Me with only the plasma cutter : “you guys run out of ammo?”
Not sure if this counts as the same thing, but DotA 2 also has this, if I remember correctly. If you try to use an ability but don't have enough mana, you get a normal "I'm out of mana" type line. Try a few more times and the line delivery becomes increasingly exasperated.
That sounds amazing. I wish more games did this.
@@folx2733 Forgettable movie? The bug valley scene of that movie is one of my all time favorites! The horror of that scene is wild
Whenever Isaac preps a stomp, my headcanon is that he partially activates his boot magnets and lets both gravity and strength do it’s thing.
Edit: wtf so many likes
I still wonder how he's so buff to break flesh and bone of necros? 😅
Definitely when he swings his arm and pulling necro limps with his bear hands
I always figured that his suit is a lot heavier than it looks. At first it may appear to just be some canvas with some protective plating, but these are outfits meant for incredibly dangerous and labor-intensive industrial environments, including the vacuum of space. With those massive boots especially, I can see Isaac being able to stomp hard enough to crush flesh and bone.
It’s not that hard to cave someone’s head in with combat boots. Now imagine issacs suit boots. There you go, there’s your answer.
@@BababooeyGooey it cannon that the suit is heavy. In dead space 2 just before you get your suit, there’s a scale and if you put issac on it he weighs 195 and once he is wearing a suit it changes depending on the suit
That would work and be logical I think.
I was only _slightly_ dissapointed that Hammond doesn't give you a health pack if you meet him in the bridge with low health, even if some might argue that takes away from the "survival horror" experience, it would be great if your interactions with others would change if certain conditions are met that aren't someone's death or a secondary objective being completed. And its kinda awkward that Isaac is just there one sneeze away from meeting space jesus and Hammond doesn't seem to care.
i agree, and maybe to preserve the survival horror experience it could be a health pack that doesnt give you much back, perhaps how much health you get back could be contextual depending on difficulty settings and/or how much health isaac has. It would make seeing other living people a huge relief!
!!!characters that don’t change/react to your actions make the world of a game feel dead
It would be even better if Hammond goes into a locker and gets you a little of whatever you're short of, prioritizing Health > Ammo > Stasis > Credits. Low on health? Get a health pack. Is one of your weapons out of ammo? He hands you some ammo for that weapon. If your stasis is low, you get a stasis pack. If everything is fine, he gives you some credits or a superconductor - maybe a NICE one as a subtle reward to the player for performing well.
The if onlys we wished could've been. Like if you were able to thoroughly sweep the level, the room they're in looks slightly better, like the lighting, that med pack, access routes, etc.
Hey, future devs, take note, then one up this one for us will ya?
Why would you need a health pack if your mini bosses have 90% less HP now?
On the part with Kendra, it's always been Isaac's character to be "that noble"
Stross literally ripped out Ellie's Eye and was going to kill Isaac, even while Isaac is facing death he still tried to get Stross back. Yelling at him to stop, that he doesn't want to kill him. Of course he had to and it hurts him.
Dead Space 3 as forgettable as Norton was. He just had ex-boyfriend tension but even then he wanted to not kill him.
Dead Space 2 again had the doctor that had a knife to Isaac's throat but he still tried to reason with him. There are some characters that Isaac would rather let die or kill, but Kendra was literally the only human left. He literally said he didn't want anymore people to die. Kendra was just doing her job, be it being very bad. Isaac would more than likely be angry for killing Cross, but he didn't want to he alone when he escaped.
That's just my thought on it, I think Gunner carries the Remake and it adds way more to his character.
Also when he yells at the Hive Mind with the line
"COME ON THEN! CAUSE THIS IS ALL I HAVE LEFT!"
Kicks ass.
Isaac being tired of people dying I kind of get, but she just shot 2 people in cold blood. I always got the impression that Isaac saw Stross as a victim and a reflection of what could have happened to him. If he knew what a douche Stross was in the movie, he'd probably hate him too.
@@Ironclad17 Yeah and why would Isaac want a cold blooded killer with him on the ship after? Seems dubious.
One thing I've seen pointed out is that there is a single line from Issac here in the remake where he is talking to Mercer I believe and says that "too many people have already died". One line, almost thrown in like an afterthought where the writers were proofreading the script and went "oh yeah, Issac's supposed to have this unshakeable belief that anyone, no matter how twisted they may act, is redeemable because they are human just like him. No one deserves to suffer becoming another corpse-making monstrosity, even if pure evil at heart, because it's the Marker's fault"
And in Dead Space 2 he unplugged a battery and whole section of the leftover living people got mauled by necromorphs
That bit "COME ON THEN! CAUSE THIS IS ALL I HAVE LEFT!" reminds me always of the ending of the original JAWS where Brody lies on the mast and is shooting at shark. "Smile you son of a btch"
Isaac is such a great protagonist. His feat list is as impressive as the fact that he comes across as a genuine every man who wants to do the right thing.
And Vulnerable as well. When you realize the impressive things he did on the Ishimura as a Civilian Engineer but in the end, he succumbs to the Marker Influence really sends home how out of dept he was.
Speaking as someone whose opinions on Dead Space have always been "vaguely positive," I'm a huge fan of Isaac and how much personality the games (1 and 2) give him purely through animation and sound effects.
I'd prefer if he was less of a quippy action hero in DS2, but that game still gives Isaac an undercurrent of "panicking dad trying to act cool in front of the kids."
Leon in RE4 quips because he's a cocky badass at his day job. Isaac in DS2 quips because he's trying to distract himself from the waking nightmare his life has become.
Is it just me or does Isaac sound like Tom Cruise on this remake?
I’d love to see a reimagining of DS 2 and 3. Like, I love how faithful this remake is, and DS2 is amazing, but I think if this team really went ham on turning the sprawl into a more open world like they did with the ishimura and fleshed out character motivations more (remember when you got kidnapped by the cult for no reason and then they all got killed in 5 seconds anyway?) they could have something amazing on their hands. Mainly I just want them to further flesh out Isaac’s place in his world, where he himself is just a normal guy, and that’s all that he wants to be. He’s traumatized, he’s tired, but he still feels that he has a duty to help people however he can, but because of his reputation after surviving the ishimura and getting his brain filled with marker blueprints he doesn’t even get to be a normal survivor like everyone else anymore. Some people think he’s a savior sent from the heavens to strike down the necromorph hoard and destroy the marker, others think he’s an unwilling prophet, a vessel sent to unlock the secrets of convergence, while others think he’s simply a tool or a weapon to turn against their enemies, or a threat that they themselves need to crush to survive.
I love the archetype of the ordinary person who accidentally becomes a super hero and absolutely hates it but just keeps on going for the good of everyone else and I think Isaac embodies that perfectly. Plus you get to do fun moments where that protagonist briefly allows themselves to revel in their achievements. It’s incredibly cathartic for a character like Isaac to FINALLY get to show some pride in a big accomplishment, like surviving a boss fight or something.
He’s pretty generic. nothing special
I loved that bit in old DS where Mercer ends up shouting as the crowd abandons him as the situation deteriorates, for all his cultist supervillainy, that one moment where he comes off as desperate and pitiful gives a special something to his gleeful descent into marker madness.
I thought that still happened in this one?
@@Dmol8 Nope. Instead he gets annoyed that a tentacle grabs him because he tought the marker assured he would live.
Mercer is 100 times better in the DS remake, but the moment of him being abandoned was unfortunately removed.
@@Danarogon no mercer is garbage in the remake, hes way more one note and cartoony, giving him that stupid medical tool that can do freeze stasis just so he can do a marvel tier villain monologue and then later the whole hostage situation where isaac only finally reacts once temple's head is paste, even though theres like a good time between mercer slowly bringing up the gun to temples head making his intentions clear
@@battleax10 so its okay for Mercer to do his villain monologues behind glass? and you realixe that Isaac is trying to distract Mercer in that scene from shooting Temple until the stasis wears off but physiccally cant do anything but talk to him, which doesn't work on this deluded motherfucker.
Can't beat Navid Negahban.
The devs said that the Necromorphs, slashers in particular, have a few modes of locomotion and they randomly go into each one so it might just be a case of Mandalore being insanely 'unlucky' for not seeing the sprinting jump slash as often as others. Also turns out that Slashers are the ones that still have killed the most players.
For the characters, it sucks that the delivery of the characters isn't on par with the original. It feels like in the Remake they're written more like actual people but in the Original they deliver their lines more like actual people. So on paper these characters are less one-note but the original just had some REALLY solid performances of characters losing their shit that's hard to forget. Also I feel like Kendra is much more likable as a character in this one, just is very dedicated to her job and not trusting people that have been influenced by the Marker.
As for Isaac reaching out for her I think it's a case of one of Isaac's biggest points that he just wants to help humans survive. Barring Dead Space 3, the only human I remember him actively harming in the games are Tideman and Stross and they literally gave him no other option at that point so at least it's nice to see that he still has that love for life while making Necromorph bone soup.
Not surprising that they kill the most players, they're the enemy you fight the most in the early levels, where new players are still getting used to the controls and the peculiarities of Dead Space's combat system. Plus dying to slashers seems much more of a common occurance now with how much the remake likes to spawn a slasher behind you in every other combat encounter.
IDK I felt the new voice actors sound more like actual people, professionals, whereas the OG felt more like people in a movie.
Both are valid approaches and I prefer many of the OG performances. "U-S-GEEE Ishimura". However I think people IRL tend to be more cool, monotone, and matter of fact in technical settings.
@@forrestpenrod2294 I dunno. I have only played through the first few chapters so far, so I have not seen everything yet. But Kendra in particular to me feels less like someone who is a stressful life or death situation, and more like someone who is mildly concerned because she and her co-workers are having a bad day. The Kendra in the original may have been an abrasive b***h, but her reactions felt more believable and appropriate.
Yeah. Killing people is just such a done thing in media and video games in general it can throw you for a loop when you have a character like Isaac NOT do that. But it makes perfect sense, Isaac is not a professional killer, he's not a sadist or a murderer, he's an engineer, a normal guy. Most people are not inured to seeing other people die violently, let alone participating in it.
Yeah I feel it's just a very human thing to try to save someone from the giant fuckoff flesh monster. Like he wasn't thinking about it, there was just a fuckin terrifying monster and she was reaching out, so he did too cause she wasn't the big scary fucking monster.
I found it funny how Slashers were usually portrayed as relentless overpowering creatures that didn't stop attacking until their targets were ripped to pieces yet Chen just stabbed Hammond and just casually stood there for a while like he was thinking "Alright, now what?"
We call that "bad writing".
I actually felt the same way with Chen's death in the beginning. The necromorph stabs him and just kinda drags him again the wall. It's not slow, per se, but unhurried.
@@KaNoMikoProductions Necromorphs are not that sentient. Their brains are as good as a cockroaches so they only know their purpose is to make a buncha corpses for more necromorphs. That's all they know so it's like an animal that has prey in its mouth. It's going to use whatever it has in it's surroundings to kill the prey completely in the mouth like smashing to a nearby tree. The necromorphs are the same so after they killed the supposed target. What else are they meant to do?
Yeah, having not yet played the remake myself and this but being in the original game this is my first time seeing the scene. My first impression was immediately assuming they were going to make a subtle insinuation that a bit of Chen is still in there. That he couldn't control the urge to kill Hammond but once Necrochens attack landed Hammond was essentially dead allowing, just short enough, him to regain some semblance of self control and shake the lesser of import instinct to brutalize and destroy the body.
In truth though, I believe, the slow death was just a necessary action to make it so Hammond has a "self sacrificing and cooler death.
But all of this has made me wonder if any bit of humanity remains in a necromorph. In one way it's kind of against lore and over done for the monsters to have a shadow of themselves left inside but on the other hand.. it is a terrifying idea, to have some part of the victim know how twisted and horrifying it has become and be unable to stop itself from just shredding it's former colleagues, partners, and friends with it's own two... Bone blade arms.
A bit like the half life zombies, screaming in backwards agony for death or help while tearing into it's fellow man.
Anytime someone writes "Now what?" I hear the line from that rebel in Half-Life 2. You know the one.
My biggest issue with the remake is some of the slasher behavior they removed. In the original if you shot their head off, they would flail their arms around wildly, and if you tried spamming melee they would eventually use their blades to block your attacks. I have not seen either of these behaviors in the remake. I still love it though don’t get me wrong.
I noticed the head thing did could occur but only once in a blue moon. It seems a lot of their more frenzied behaviors have a really low chance of happening.
Damn, I thought I was the only one that remembered Slashers would parry you if you spammed melee attacks
@@gishathosaurus6828 cool details like that are sorely messed
@@shawklan27 At least they added tons of new details that are fantastic. My favourite feature is definitely the "Intensity Director" makes backtracking much more enjoyable and scary.
@@MandaloreGaming I think having behaviors tied to chances adds a nice bit of unpredictability to the monsters, though maybe crazy behaviors like that should be a little more frequent and varied.
Being an engineer was also a reason why I liked Alien: Isolation's Amanda Ripley. It made sense that she'd technobabble a solution and as a player I can excuse why the quest objectives are glowing, heh.
I love the idea that Issac being voice acted and griping about shitty tools and having alt takes based on how damaged he is.
Griping about his tools when he needs them to work seems so very much like an engineer thing to do. My dad's degree was in engineering and when his cordless impactor doesn't work, a machine at the mill isn't working, or he's trying to fix something wrong with his car you can hear him swearing at the manufacturers over how they designed it.
That's honestly how I learned most of my swear words.
I mean everyone of us would curse that equipment failure in this situation, but the cherry on top is how he goes out of his way to insult the manufacturer specifically. That’s the engineer part
@@xenon3990 The amount of times I've cursed out GM and Ford in my life.
I'm glad to see more people lately are appreciating Gunner Wright's work as Isaac. He's been one of my favorite voice actors ever since Dead Space 2, and I always felt he never got the recognition he truly deserved.
What do you mean? He's mentioned in like every dead space video on UA-cam or any video that references deadspace. His name is definitely recognized
Hey! I know you! I love your ytps
I took Isaac reaching for Kendra as him being so done with everything hes gone through and just wanting to escape the constant visceral bloodshed and death that he had to endure throughout the entire game, he didnt really care about what Kendra did in the face of what they went through and wanted to cling to any sort of actual human life that was left.
I mean if a giant cthulu was about to end me, I figure I'll take any help I can take.
My thoughts too. Moreso see it as him just being tired of the constant losses. Plus it makes his line right after about having nothing left make more sense
This is exactly what I felt too
He has a line after Kendra dies and when he faces off against the Hivemind, about how he now has nothing left to lose. I think that line heavily informs why he reached for her - he's fucking terrified, and for all her sins, she's still another, mostly sane human being.
I have high hopes now for dead space as a whole now. Like I can't wait to see what they will do once they have hit dead space 3.
MandaloreGaming actually had his face changed for this review so it would closely resemble his voice actor's face.
Underrated comment.
...then he put his helmet back on and made the video.
So he looks like sseth now?
@@Scorfanino94 always did
@@Scorfanino94 same person - different split personality
The best part of "cursing when his weapon is out of ammo" is that it doesn't happen when you are alone. I tested it out earlier, and despite being out of ammo [even none to reload with], he didn't swear. I was confused, then when I rewatched the video, I saw that you were showing scenes EXCLUSIVELY when you were shooting at a still alive enemy. Of course Isaac wouldn't swear he's out of ammo if no ones around to hurt him!
That's some outstanding commitment to detail
Having the Ripper secondary fire now ricochet around is the most Dead Space addition I've ever seen. In fact, its such an obvious add to the Ripper, that I have to wonder how Visceral themselves never thought of it. Of course the gun of OSHA's worst nightmare would have a ricochet secondary fire.
Also, I hadn't realized that Dr. Kyne had the same voice actor as Joshua Graham from New Vegas. It makes absolutely no sense to replace him in that case. He's utterly perfect at playing religious, but still intelligent characters.
Not to mention that Joshua is just as nuts as Kyne (which you would, uh, sort of expect given Caesar burned him alive and threw him into the Grand Canyon) but he's so charismatic he manages to get people on his side regardless. That's exactly how new Kyne could easily have worked. He's a devout Unitologist, but also a highly intelligent scientist that's able to rely upon the scientific method and Occam's Razor when faced with the situation rather than the others who double down on their faith and deny any wrongdoing. Have him be clearly unstable, but also intelligent and charismatic. Yes he might seem as likely to stab you as save you, but have him give a compelling argument regardless in a situation where you have no choice but to trust him.
The thing about Unitology is that it's much more of an aggressively open cult than most modern religions (all religions are cults, some are simply more obviously exploitative than other's). It's like a combination of Catholicism with Scientology. You can be an intelligent individual who's fairly self-aware but the Unitologist network will have identified a certain trait that makes you susceptible to indoctrination to, like Kyne and his wife (his desire for convergence being motivated by seeing her again). Kyne is starting to see the crack's in what he was taught precisely because that targeted indoctrination isn't holding up between the reality he is observing and the scientist in him being objective about those observations instead of the outright denial. It also show's that the Unitologist's themselves aren't all monstrously delusional zealot's who will kill anyone that gets in their way a la Dead Space 3. Some of them will wake up when confronted by the truth, and be horrified by the reality of the situation. This would certainly have worked better into the new Isaac backstory as he would go from innate hatred of all Unitologist's to understanding that some of them can change. This also set's him up for being more trusting at the beginning of Dead Space 2, and then subsequently betrayed by Unitology yet again.
It's why I like the new Mercer as Mandalore described him here. Mercer is also a scientist, but he had the complete opposite reaction to Kyne, rather than struggling against what is happening he understands that Unitologist dogma is wrong and that this is completely beyond the comprehension of Unitology, but that the Brethren Moon's (he's unaware of what exactly they are but understands some controlling force exists behind the markers with the intent for convergence to occur) have already effectively won. This drives him mad and drives him towards accepting the outcome Kyne is so terrified of.
It's a duality that seems far more weighted in Mercer's favour here.
I like to think of the upgrades being Isaac using that big engineer brain to hack in some unauthorized upgrades to better weaponize the tools at his disposal. There’s no practical reason to add melee blades to a plasma cutter, after all.
Is religious and intelligent an oxymoron?
Not saying it can’t be, but I had a housemate who was an 8year phd practicing bowel doctor,
We had some electricians in and they left holes in the plaster,
This guy brought some paint and didn’t understand why the holes where still there after he painted over them
So you can be a doctor and not intelligent
I bet the ricochets were a technology/budget thing (not enough time to get them working right). There's no way they didn't think of it. The original game was on Xbox 360, it didn't have a lot to work with by modern standards.
Kind of bummed that Mandy didn’t mention how the necromorphs can be surprisingly silent now.
It used to be they’d scream like they were diving into a mosh pit the moment they spawned.
In the remake they can go dead silent except for small little gurgles and the very quiet splat of their feet if they see a chance to sneak up on you.
The problem is that they’ve lost a lot of their personality with this and other changes. Yes they might be able to sneak up you more easily now but you don’t get that harassing disorienting panic when a bunch of them are screeching and running full pelt at you.
They feel way more generic now.
I remember in OG Dead Space a slasher snuck up behind me, no music/noise or anything, and I about shat myself when I turned around and saw it.
The best part is that if you turn around or get attacked they go back to their death metal routine just to pump the stress harder.
@@massgunner4152 Something Citizen failed to mention. Good catch.
I had a strange bug where a slasher's model didn't render in and I was locked in a room with a fully invisible, mostly silent necromorph and it was genuinely terrifying. I was eventually able to find it by using stasis and guesstimating where it's body was based off the particle effects, which would actually be a really interesting design for a new DS enemy.
This review was so thorough that even Ramesses II would have to consider purchasing it from his trusted online retailer.
A comment so on point and delightfully referential to the video it was made upon that even Ramesses II would have no choice but to command one of his slaves to give a like to.
@@RoosterFloyd Is this an age of empires reference?
@@trampoline11xwell, that and real life, slaves were all the rage until quite recently
@@jjcoola998 They still are, alas, but you have to go to Africa/Middle East to find them.
Finally, a reviewer brave enough to take Rameses II down a peg!
Rameses II be rolling in his sarcophagus
After taking so much shit from witches, Mandy is trying to suck up to YVWH to secure his protection.
Twice!
You can’t make a review like this nowadays I’ll tell you that
He brought the Red Sea upon pharaoh
On the topic of Isaac attempting to save Kendra, I never saw it as the games way (or Isaac's way) of trying to redeem her. The way I interpreted it was that Isaac is desperately trying not to lose the only other person left that he has contact with. The moment Kendra dies, Isaac truly is alone for the first time. At that point, I don't think he would care too much about Kendra's betrayal, he doesn't want to lose his only remaining colleague
Glad other people are pointing this out, it's so easy to be completely rational when you're just watching the game on your screen but it absolutely makes sense that isaac in that situation would try to save fucking joseph goebbels if that's the only person he had left.
pretty much his last anchor of sanity
@@swedneck Yeah I have to say, this might be the most I've disagreed with Mandalore in any of his reviews. A lot of that is admittedly down to rng, I'm happy to say my experience with the game was not at all diminished by issues with necromorph aggression that it seems he encountered. Though, his interpretation of the scene where Isaac tries to save Kendra is a little confusing to me
@@owainglyndwrlastprinceofwa2486 sorry but i gotta agree with mandalore, its really odd they went out of their way to attempt to "fix" kendra as a character, there was a interview where the writer said it was one of their goals, so to me it came off more as the writer trying to manipulate you the player to feel sympathetic towards kendra by having isaac attempting to save her, especially since they changed the scene to make it so there was a opportunity to save her, but in the original there was no chance even if isaac wanted to
@@battleax10 Kendra in the original was a shitty and poorly written character, trying to make her sympathetic isn’t some unreasonable thing. You can sympathize with someone but not forgive their actions, Isaac doesn’t suddenly forgive her. He’s tired of loosing people and while he doesn’t forgive her, she’s the last person he’s got left and he doesn’t wanna see anyone else die.
This ain’t something the remake made up you realize? He literally does the same fucking thing in both DS2 and DS3 multiple times
The "that's the crew" line I just chopped up to her knowing but trying to play it off as if she didn't. She was probably the character going into the situation with the most information on the marker.
I know Kendra was in on what was going on, but even she cpuldn't velieve it to be fair. I remember after playing through the remake twice, when she reveals her deception to Isaac as she flies away in the shuttle, she says a few interesting things. She was briefed on the marker on Aegis VII and read the reports of mass hysteria, but even she couldn't believe it. She even said it was crazy that the report was real. I mean, think about it:
If you were a government agent systems analyst and read a report dating back to *two hundred years* ago, stating that the government experimented with a seemingly magical artifact and buried it somewhere, you might be a little incredulous as well. Sure, a marker existed on Earth already but that relic definitely didn't cause the horror story that we saw there.
As we all know, seeing is believing and even when having logs about the government's experiments from years ago, it's hard to believe there wasn't some other explanation. Obviously the system was sanctioned off as an illegal trespassing system so it was easy to come up with many other reasons. So in short, I don't think it's far-fetched to believe that Kendra was actually, genuinely surprised at this whole necromorph outbreak. You could even hear her digging extensively through the logs and figuring out what the crew learned about the necromorphs and feeding it to Isaac.
Oh God, please excuse my horrible typos. I'm on mobile and I have fat fingers. :'(
@@hussainqureshi9933You're not fat fingered, my sweet sweet supple brother, you are merely small phoned.
Do not shame yourself this way! Your phalanges are fit, they are slim, they are vivacious.
Digits so fine Michelangelo would have wept had he known not even his own hands, skilled as they are, could recreate such prime and infallible examples of fingerity.
Remember this, always.
@@RoosterFloydNah, he's fat.
@RoosterFloyd reading through responses, I know this is 5 months old, but god this is a beautiful response
Really glad you addressed the MCC issue of a remake ending up undermining the style and art design of the original. Sometimes the restrictions of the medium forced people to make the most of it to the degree it comes across way better than modern teams being able to do whatever they want. Glad to see DSR finding that happy medium.
And yet DSR still damages the art direction of the original.
Yep, I'm glad dead space remake still got the art of dead space right and polish it.
@@citizen3000 Any change would be damaging, but it seems they went into it with more respect than most remakes, if thats saying anything.
Demon's Souls Remake is guilty of this as well, they FUCKED up the art direction, for extremely pretty graphics 😞
@@dillonwalker3359 If they wanted to respect the original art design, why are the necromorphs more space zombie here then ever? Even the mummified SCAF necros had more variety to the horrible body damage the change had on them. Every single slasher has the exact same body changes, and practically none of them even attempt to showoff just how twisted (literally with some of them) the necromorph could take things.
The Necromorphs are one of the most iconic parts of Dead Space and are very memorable as monsters. In this? Not so much.
"Dead space guns were always eldritch terrors from the nightmares of Californians" one of Mandy's best quotes.
To be fair though, Californians probably think the Zip .22 could slaughter a whole city, so the metaphor kinda falls apart if you think about it to much...
@@RipOffProductionsLLC wish they would fall off into the ocean already
@@RipOffProductionsLLC But imagine if a zip .22 COULD slaughter a whole city! That'd be terrifying AND embarrassing.
As a non-american, what is this joke I'm not understanding?
@@darkpixel1128 State of California is notorious for it's strict and nonsensical firearm laws. Politically it is also a democrat stronghold, and has been so for decades.
I love the idea of the bouncing saw blade doing minimal damage to Isaac because a random blade flying off is EXACTLY what his engineer suit is made to protect against
Holy shit you're right
To answer the question posed in the gameplay section about Slashers charging, often.
Yes; They do it constantly in my playthrough also on hard. While they are noticeable less aggressive in some regards, I generally find that they only do the creep walk if they are far away or you have your back to them and AREN'T engaged in combat. I have found that when engaged with another Necromorphs, the ones behind you will speed up and the ones in front will often freak charge.
They are really aggressive for me. You can come have some of it, if you'd like.
Ones behind you use sneak behaviour until spotted by the player camera, yes
They've jumped at me a few times, but I generally tend to de-leg most things within a second of seeing it
@@MumboJumboZXC They did this in the original.
Kendra established towards the end that Isaac and Cross are both full crazy thanks to the marker and, more importantly, you don't come back from that. IIRC she straight up says that once a marker changes the way you think, that's just how you are now. Seemed a little regretful, since she was also seeing her little brother on the cameras and realizing she's changed forever now but still had a job to do with burying the marker.
(SPOILERS)
I like to think that Isaac reaching for Kendra is more him trying to save who is likely the last remaining human other than him. He's desperate to save someone, anyone, because every other time he's tried he has either just missed, had his hopes dashed when he sees that they're already dead, or watched them die right in front of him. There, as the hive mind is emerging, he is presented with one final survivor. Yes, she betrayed him and everyone he had come to the Ishimura with, yes she killed someone in cold blood, but she is still alive and they can escape together. His visceral reaction to her being turned to chunky salsa is that last attempt to successfully save someone being stripped from him one last time.
And he was so close, too.
I mean it makes sense. I interpreted more as Isaac isn’t a killer. When he sees Mercer’s experiments on still living humans, he doesn’t kill them. Even though he would be totally justified to do it. They will die and become necromorphs but Isaac doesn’t want to be responsible for their deaths. So he leaves them alive to be turned into monsters later.
Issacs character really shines through here. What a truly heroic guy
Isaac is consistently shown in the game - even in the original game - as being someone who wants to save people, to the point that he (can't) won't even willingly euthanize them as a game mechanic. So Isaac trying to save Kendra still makes sense because like it or not, she's still a living human being in the same shithole as everyone else. Isaac wants justice, not revenge, and he doesn't want her or anyone else dead.
His one line to Kendra in the remake says it best: "Enough people have died!"
Is it weird I liked that moment? That even after everything she had done to him, he still wants to save the last person in the crew, or even the entire ishimura/planet? And when he fails, he gets up and yells and an eldritch horror "COME ON THEN. CAUSE THIS IS ALL I GOT LEFT!" just.. I dunno. It felt good.
"Come on then! Cause *_this_* is all I've got left!"
9:45 about the "voice lines change depending on condition" the only other example I can't think of is PS4's Spider-Man, Peter's delivery changes depending on whether he's standing still or swinging around.
I do love this kind of stuff, makes the dialogue feels much more immersive.
That's the only other example I could think of as well. Gotta be a lot of work to record everything twice, and it might not even be worth it in the grand scheme of things, but fuck it's just awesome.
Edit: Luigi's Mansion had Luigi say "mario" in different tones and cadences depending on health, but that would be so much less work than entire dialogue lines.
In read dead redemption 2, they changed the dialoge on horseback depending how far the other npc are. Are they farer away, Arthur talks louder and shouts a bit.
a really og version of this is in Shadow of the Colossus, which funnily has almost no dialogue. How you call for your horse depends on how close he is and whether or not you’re fighting a colossus, low health, etc.
In RDR2 during horseback conversations, characters talk normally or shout at each other depending on the distance between them.
Mario in the 3D games. Also Luigi's Mansion
One of the things in sound design that caught my attention was Isaacs heartbeat. It intensified when he ran, fought or was grabbled.
Fun fact, even the original has this design, but I noticed it’s more noticeable in the remake. It’s a good quality of life change that I didn’t think they’d work on.
Early in the game his heart beat also gets faster when he looks at dead bodies.
@@TheDarkkilla12 How is it a quality of life change?
Also when you walk into dark corners/rooms!
@@citizen3000 are you going to moan under every single comment lmao
The jump scare at the end of the original Dead Space 1 was scarier. Having the necromorph crouching behind the seat vs sitting in it significantly changed the impact.
Me too
Intelligence be spoooy
I don't know what to think. I don't like how the final scare isn't as creepy and outright scary like the first game, but at the same time I am so thankful the remake made the final scare not as bad.
i played the original when i was in high school and that ending scare actually made me fall back out of my chair lol
What about the secret ending?
That didn't feel like "ah, jump scare" scary, but seeing someone that insane, especially someone like Isaac, is pretty horrifying
This feels like we've come full circle. I originally stumbled on your channel through your Dead Space 1 and 2 reviews.
Same
I'll say.
You ever get that feeling of deja vu?
I'm gay!
I wanna be tracer
Ok?
I have been in this place before
@@0uttaS1TE Higher on the street
The laser box was amazing to watch, all games need at least one way to break the combat just for the fun factor.
That change in transparency at 39:11 is insane attention to detail. Mando really cares about his patrons.
Wow, good eye!
It took me far too long to realize what you meant because it goes by so quickly. I even thought maybe you meant 'transparency' as in, transparency behind the process but that didn't make sense because he's often very transparent that way. Only after watching it an embarrassing amount of times I realized the length of the scrolling name was too long and he didn't want to obscure it with the comment box lol
He could have edited it any other way but this is a prime example of 'work smart not hard' lol
Okay, now this is epic.
This isn't spooktober, but the spooktober intro put me in a really good mood. Hype!
For a split second I thought "It must be October, the goosebumps intro is playing!"
@@Undreth For some reason I forgot that it was the goosebumps intro. Thought it was a modified version.
I think you hit the nail on the head about the pulse rifle. In a world where the only victory is in dismemberment, a regular gun would be terrible. I like that the pulse rifle just sucks and I feel like that plays into the themes of dead space so well.
I don't understand where the idea that it sucks in all cases comes from though. I always found that it had a good use when it came to hitting the large yellow balls of bosses. It made it so I didn't have to be AS precise with my aiming in tense boss fights or tentacle grabs.
I always bought and upgraded the pulse rifle in preparation for the Hivemind on Aegus VII. Ever since I mistakenly tried fighting it with ineffective weapons, that is. Here, in the remake, I basically carried it around for the exact same purpose, but it had its uses as a grenade launcher. Definitely not an entirely useless weapon. Especially when the pulse rifle's precise, narrow barrel works wonders against the yellow pods of the Leviathan and Hivemind.
A powerful pulse rifle that sucks against Necromorphs implies the true threat of the Necromorphs in a subtle and small way.
I love Mandalore's reviews because he forms a decent picture of the game in your head while most other reviewers fail to do so
I frequently go back to rewatch old reviews of his because of how great he is at assessing something in a concise and entertaining way. I can't think of a single reviewer of anything where I do that.
@@happyman3802 Twilight's getting jealous of this story..
@@phattjohnson Haha, I just think credit where credit is due.
@@happyman3802 Because this man does not obey the USDA approved Formula of UA-cammeat:
1. Intro. Speed read "Sup everyone it's ya boy" as if we knew who you were in the first place.
2. Content. Repeat what you saw others with followers review last week. No writing required.
3. Outro. "Make sure to like and subscribe" as if anyone will remember your name by Tuesday.
@@WindFireAllThatKindOfThing damn, how depressingly accurate
That director thing made the remake both fun as hell and a pain in the ass at the same time. On my first playthrough 90% of the slashers I fought had a decent movement speed but always had their arms tucked in and pointed directly at me. Plasma Cutter rounds were almost deflecting off their arms due to the sharp angle, but as a trade off I was constantly getting Contact Beam ammo and fought the Hive Mind with over 100 rounds on hand
Man I had like 70 rounds of contact beam for the final boss, and that was on hard
I see the part of Isaac reaching toward Kendra as pretty normal to be honest. He's been dealing with creatures that cause fear and panic and fighting for his life almost always alone for hours. Sure she double crossed him, but Isaac has seen the last of any humans within light years die around him and she was the only last living person alive. I could totally see someone reaching for the familiarity of another human when the last moving things around you are melting skin monsters that want you dead.
Not to mention Issac likely understood that Kendra was right regarding the situation, yet the Marker's Dementia kept Clarke under its influence
I think the writers were using Chen as a way to develop Hammond's character, rather than be something the player should care about. They might've been drawing from Event Horizon for it, since the leader in that is constantly dealing with the vision of a lost crewmate.
That’s a great allusion to another classic piece of space madness horror!
This is definitely the case. It's shown that Hammond cares a lot about keeping his crew safe, so him being torn up by losing crew member, and the marker taking advantage of that, makes a lot of sense.
Well Mandy said this himself, the problem is that we need more for that to work.
@@SpecterVonBaren You don't tho, it gives enough for Hammond's character, Chen wasn't a character in the first game, just a first death. This is hands down an improvement, cause at least it gives more depth to a character (not Chen). If you need more than that, then you forgot you're playing a remake of a game about killing monster's on a ship. That or you just didn't pay attention
@@mattcubed9658 It would still be stronger if Chen was alive for a little bit longer, not for *his* character development, but for Hammond's. What I'm thinking of is that Chen gets separated from the group or something, and Hammond attempts to save him, but fails. As it currently happens, it doesn't really feel like Hammond did anything wrong, it's just that Chen got killed. If Hammond own failings lead to Chen's death, that would make his guilt later in the story much better, and make Hammond a stronger character. He'd go from being unable to move on from Chen's death -- which makes him seem kinda mopey -- to being unable to forget his own failure to protect someone, which would solidify his "Papa Bear" role, as Mandalore put it. Then, maybe reframe Hammond's death around him still having other people to protect. It'd make him similarly heroic as the original, while keeping his Chen arc.
9:45 games with different delivery based on conditions was done so well in Dirt Rally.
yes. a rally game.
the devs strapped the co-driver into a simulation chair and ran his lines while racing through different speeds, vibrations and road conditions. there's real fear in his voice.
That’s awesome
Heatblur did this for DCS: F-14. They put the voice actor for the backseater in VR and recorded him while they played the game in multiplayer.
They probably made necromorphs slower because they are harder to stager in this game, like in ds2 they will get staggered with one plasma cutter shot (don't recall how is it in ds1) but in remake you have to use something heavier, or use mele. I also feel like closer to the end of the game necromorphs getting more aggresive)
For what it's worth, I just started playing and ran into four separate dudes doing the run in my first 30 mins. It was so common I came back here to see if anyone else had mentioned it.
That's also one of the reasons why the Pulse Rifle feels so worthless in the Remake.
It used to be great at staggering that it made up for it's weak damage.
Necromorphs are faster in this Game and more annoying since they always charge at you or you can avoid them so easily
I didn’t know the voiceover’s were different depending on how much health you have! That’s a great touch. The only other example of that that springs to mind is the Spider-Man PS4 game - if you’re standing still or walking, he delivers lines normally, but if you’re swinging through the city (which why wouldn’t you be) he delivers them like someone in the middle of heavy exercise! Always think that’s a really neat trick.
My interpretation of the ending(s) is that they both take at some point or another. The original ending + events of the game are what takes place first and the events of new game+ and alternate ending are what transpired in Isaac's mind after the fact. Essentially his mind being trapped inside the Ishimura and being corrupted by the marker driving him insane. It lines up with the books since they apparently found Isaac going crazy (I haven't personally read them, it's just what other people have told me).
Also something I found during new game+ was on the gondola section where you meet up with 'Nicole,' you can access the security console on the other side where she was once you enable zero g and it replays a log of Isaac & Elizabeth Cross talking to each other (with Isaac thinking she's Nicole).
So the whole new game plus in the remake can be in his mind while in he is in the hospital in dead space 2.
@@Jak239JC Moreso that he's still on the ship (the escape shuttle) and reliving the nightmare over and over in his mind. Like I say, the alternate ending comes after the original one.
Dead Space mobile! 37:44. That takes me back- what a fantastic iOs game that was, with a properly developed if simple self-contained story. It even had a horde mode! I'd love to see that remade.
My only issue with Nicole is that they had an opportunity to make the twist reveal more impactful, but her voice direction and the way she's presented still seems very clearly "off" throughout the game. I would have loved for her to seem more personable and kind, in a way that makes Isaac's realization seem like it would be more of a surprise to him (despite players mostly all knowing what's going on). Just as an example, when on the shuttle to Aegis VII, it would have been REALLY cool to have Nicole show concern for Isaac as he appears to black out multiple times, or even seem to black out a few times herself. This actually would have worked especially well with the way the twist is altered with Cross' involvement, as the things they say back and forth to each other could come from a place of genuine care even if the marker is twisting what's being heard and seen. As it is, Nicole's increased presence just makes the truth seem even more obvious, missing an opportunity to make it all feel more subtle.
I read the blacking out on the shuttle as the Marker keeping Isaac and Cross from interacting too much, specifically so that it can keep the illusion up in close quarters
Sure it can manipulate them, but there's only so much it can do when they're sitting right next to eachother. Much easier to handle when they're just basically passed out in their chairs
If my girlfriend started talking about how awesome a monolith cult is, I'd flatter myself to think I'd be able to notice something is off. Obviously Isaac's not totally lucid by this point anyways but it still felt a little too much like Nicole was winking at us the whole time
I thought it was cool actually, because as the player you go "man she is being really creepy," and find yourself thinking "dude, RUN!" while being forced to not only watch, but control Isaac as he helps this clearly sketchy "person". It shows more directly that he, too, is under the influence of the marker.
Thing is it makes sense for "Nicole" to be off. She's not really Nicole, IT is a figment of the Marker manipulating and exploiting a traumatized and fragile man's psyche. And because it's the construct of an eldritch race, It makes sense that it can't comprehend and then replicate the warmth of a human trying to comfort another human. And it doesn't need to ultimately, since Isaac himself is all too willing to believe a lie that staves away the awful truth that he knows deep down, and wants to keep buried.
Props for mentioning Peter Mensah, the guy ruled in Spartacus and even managed to give a memorable performance in Jason X.
Yeah, he’s sadly a very underused actor.
He is also best known as the persian emissary from the movie 300. When I played the original Dead Space I immediately recogniced that face of Hammond.
The "doing multiple takes of VO for different levels of health" is cool. They did a similar thing in the new Spider-Man games, where they did multiple takes of VO depending on if Spider-Man/Miles were swinging and in combat. It's neat to hear Spidey sound exerted when talking during swinging sections.
I love the escalating stomp screams too. Wish they'd gone all out with it more like Issac just screams DIE DIE DIE or smtg haha
Isaac actually does different voice lines for fatigue levels too, if you've been sprinting a lot. I'm surprised Mandy either wasn't aware or omitted it.
Unfortunately they didn't bother to mesh the ambient character audio with the voice acting. So now Isaac is basically silent until someone opens coms, at which point he immediately begins hamming it up for sympathy lol
@@wholetyouinhere That's not a negative. Isaac spends most of the time quiet and in his head in 2 and 3 as well
10:46 that joke set up and the cut to the necromorph running by had me dying! Drunk necromorph saving his burnt pizza!
I always thought it was really cool how the lines of the helmet showed what level tier the armor was in the original, but I guess the three lines is the iconic look. Strange that in the remake only the level 2 keeps that pervious idea while the rest all have three.
Good review! I appreciate you holding direction accountable for some questionable acting rather than just saying the actor was bad. Wish more reviewers understood that.
I have no way to play this game, so I’ve just been watching videos of it. I had no idea about Isaac cursing the corporation under his breath when his tools stop working, and I absolutely LOVE that little detail.
Man, to think I started watching Mandalore's videos with the og DS 1 review so so many years ago, makes me a little bit nostalgic. I remeber seeing the video on my feed thinking "A DS review huh? I haven't seen many people review it, I'll give it a go" and now its one of my favourite youtubers, I always wait for his next video with excitement and everytime I get the "MandaloreGaming has uplouded a new video" my day brightens.
Also that "I miss Chen" at 33:43 had me laughing for minutes lmao
In regards to the necromorphs being a little more sluggish...what stands out to me is that there are more and different enemy types in this remake. All the standard morphs show up, but the quicker movement is present in different contexts. It could be something they changed to enforce a more nuanced enemy identity.
Yeah, the fact is before they were enemies with set hp, with limbs that had set hp. Now they have to be physically prevented from moving, so although they move slower, they don't get stun-locked.
“So let me get this straight… I’m in somewhere that I would not call the Ishimura. I’m seeing freaking Necromorphs. And…oh yeah! I’m talking to my dead wife!”
I hate it
oh, go to hell
@@waifupatter4193 I'm surprised somebody even recognise that.
@@waifupatter4193 LMAO
*Isaac screaming desperately while dangling above the Hivemind's mouth*
*Record scratch, freeze frame*
Yup, that's me.
You're probably wondering how I got into this situation.
Really appreciate the excellent caption job, it's so fluid and easy to understand what's being said!
I had them doing the freak charge constantly, i think its a thing their new little director decides.
It would work if it made them more aggressive if you're winning easily. But I've seen people mop the floor with them and they'd still waddle around for the most part, so I wonder what determines it. Also one thing I would have liked is if they would have not buffed the melee soo hard. You shouldn't be rewarded for going in to give a necromorph a hug when they can rip you apart, but they can be stun locked by the faster stomping, they should at least be limited to one stun per stomp/swing spam so they can slash at you, that way players aren't encouraged to just walk up to the unstasised necros and start stomping away while they keep flinching out of their attack animations, kind of disarms them a bit too hard as a competent threat.
@@VB-92 melee only works if it’s just one (or you have weighted blades plasma cutter lol)
The animation for their charge is inferior to the original game.
@@MumboJumboZXC or if you just use stasis, which you're given an excessive amount of, via generous wall stations and packs
I genuinely don't believe in the "intensity director" there's no intelligence to anything that happens, it's all just random flags.
I was really pleasantly surprised with how good the flamethrower was in the remake, I ended up falling back on it as ol' faithful VERY often. I did my first playthrough on hard, and plasma cutter ammo was super scarce, but for some reason the flamethrower is just obscenely ammo efficient, while still dealing really great damage. This is kind of a minor thing, but it was just fun as hell to use, and flamethrowers are usually awful in horror games imo.
That thing worked surprisingly well against the Guardians (and let me indulge in reenacting scenes from "The Thing"). And it also lets you give cadavers (I.E Infector food) a Viking funeral.
Dude dead space mobile was awesome and now that you mention it, would definitely want to see a remake for that. Two things that really stood out for me was the infinite ammo/overheating pulse rifle gun and on the final boss (don’t think a lot of people discovered this and I might be the only one) there is a sweet spot to anti gravity from the very top, all the way to very bottom instead of using anti gravity on a lot of platforms which was a pain. IIRC, there’s a platform above the door you enter and you got to find an angle until you see the bottom and use anti gravity and it just takes you to the bottom. Oh and one last thing that stood out was how in the end you’re actually a girl. Definitely a Metroid moment for me
I personally felt the whole Chen route they took with the remake was to show even Hammond wasn't safe from the Marker's influence so was kinda why I didn't mind the change too much
I can understand that, but it likely could have been much better done if you actually felt like some camaraderie was there between them beforehand. Hell have Chen and Hammond go on a mission together while Isaac is observing, have him help out, make him actually mean something to the player as well. Then when we see Chen's horrific reanimated corpse chasing Hammond through the ship we get a sense of horror and loss to empathize with Hammond himself.
As it stands I think I much prefer the Hammond who ends up cornered by a Brute and goes out gun's blazing. Even when he knows he's going to die, he tells Isaac to save himself and Kendra while not giving up. New Hammond does have a sense of that, but I feel like it could have been better if he sort of snap's out of it at the last second, tells Isaac to finish the mission, and takes Chen out without destroying a key component they need but still ending up with him dying as a result.
It also feels much less true to the setting than the first game. Hammond literally gets torn apart by the Brute while you watch, but the Chenmorph just stabs him and stands there without, you know, doing what Slashers do to literally everyone else. The Necromorph should have just torn him apart with no hesitation after he let his guard down.
@@AveSicarius Do we really have to see comraderie building between Hammond and his co workers? He obviously knew them because he doesn't ask for their files before the mission. I felt bad for Hammond because a coworker death affected him so much.
@@DemonLordSparda
Not with Hammond, with the player, otherwise there is literally no reason to be emotionally invested. Any character buildup must be at least observed by the player, it's game writing 101. It's why we care about certain characters more than other's, and why the death of a beloved character in a well written game is so impactful.
It would be far more meaningful to actually see Chen and Hammond together, have Chen interact with Isaac, and have him be useful, then have the rest of the side story unfold. You'd care more about this guy you liked being turned into a monster and hunting down another guy you liked than a random stranger chasing down someone who'd only said a few lines to him previously.
@@adamwatchesvideosontheinte6642
It's not about having to witness elements to make the story work, it's about you witnessing characters to gain some kind of attachment to them. What are you not getting about this?
If both your friend and a random stranger died, which would make you more sad? In a fictional context there's a huge difference between seeing someone chased by a random zombie and someone being chased by the reanimated corpse of their best friend. This is more impactful to the observer when you have seen the relationship between those two prior to that horrific event.
Hammond was clearly influenced by the death of his men in the first game, but he didn't keep harping on about it, he got the job done so he could protect the others. We don't see anywhere enough of Chen's character to have him be the focus of so much and have the player actually care about it, like Mandalore suggested, it would have been better to have Chen actually establish himself as a character if this is the route the wanted to go down. As it stands it's a random redshirt you don't care about chasing someone you might grow to care about, and it's frankly far less impactful than Hammond's story in the original. Hammond tried his best to get everyone out of there alive, he gets cornered by a Necromorph and unceremoniously torn apart, that's peak Dead Space. In the remake he's obsessed with a character you saw for two seconds, and that character is shoehorned into the plot in a manner that really doesn't elict the effect the writer was going for, not only that but
It's not an issue with overwriting, it's an entirely empathetic context. The story making sense doesn't matter if you don't care about it at all, and this doesn't even make sense in the first place. Why is the Chenmorph chasing Hammond everywhere? Why does it just stand there staring at him when it finally catches up and attacks him? Why is Hammond's character made so weak in the remake? Why does he almost ruin everything for you when he sacrificed himself to kill Chen instead of the original plot where he sacrificed himself trying to save you? Ironically enough original Hammond is more true to how the writer was trying to portray him in this game.
It would be much more impactful if Chen survived past the other redshirt and died afterwards, and more logical storywise if Hammond had to retrace his steps, he comes across the Chenmorph and manages to escape but is obviously spooked by the experience, the markers influence increases over Hammond and he begins to see Chen around just as Isaac sees Nicole, perhaps he even mistakes Isaac for him at one point, and then the story continues as before but on the Valor he ends up following what he believes is Chen after managing to control himself for long enough to help Isaac out, gets cornered by a Necromorph and comes to his senses but it's too late and he's unceremoniously torn apart. There you go, both the Necromorph and Hammond act true to form and it maintains a semblance of the impact of the original. I just don't feel anything compared to watching Hammond die in the original.
It's just not as impactful as his death in the original or as true to Hammond's character as presented even in this game. There's no point in adding to the story if it doesn't elicit some response. The entire point of storytelling is to provoke an emotional response in the listener, in games the player, this clearly is insufficient in that regard.
And even without that it just shows he's a very caring leader. Of course he's going on n on about his soldier that just got turned into a living screaming knife rack. Both his deaths are perfectly befitting his character in their respective games, one is a blaze of glory n this one is putting his friend to rest
So excited for this!! I watched your videos on the original trilogy years ago and since I've been hoping for this remake and I LOVED it.
Imagine giving EA money as a reward for killing dead space lol. Made by the andromeda team as well
@@стрелок-ч7р imagine being poor. You reek of poverty
@@стрелок-ч7р shouldn't game devs be rewarded for doing good. The game is good so get it if you like it. Shouldn't hate on people for getting things they like man. That's just a bit fucked up.
@ScrilboBaggins He clearly made an argument from a point of integrity, not financial consumption, a concept a consooomer cattle drone like you will never understand. Consume product and don't ask questions then consume next product. Moooooo
@Julianuz No bad Publishers should never be given money. You people never learn.
Love the review.
I personally really enjoyed the different approach on the characters and story.
In particular with Kendra being made an actual character that I could emphasize with and understand instead of NAG-MASTER 5000.
I agree with the Chen/Hammond stuff, it was bizarre how torn up Hammond was about Chen, how much focus there was on that aspect to develop Hammond but they chose not to actually make Chen a character.
I didn't see him mention it yet but another amazing detail is you can hit yourself with a normal door. Issac actually reacts and loses a smidgen of health
Red Dead Redemption 2 has distance-based line readings for conversations and even just NPC greetings. People will yell if you ride too far behind or ahead and quiet back down to normal volume when you get more comfortably nearby. There are even stealth readings for calling your horse while crouching or around enemies.
I think its a good thing the original has largely stood up over time, so if you don't like the remake you could just play the original. But it really seems like they're both "different, not worse" depending on your preference.
I completely agree. When the remake was announced I was highly skeptical because I had just replayed the original and it still looks and plays great. I’m glad that it looks like they did a really solid job but the original is my jam and nothing will change that.
To each their own, but I completely despise the narcissistic compulsion to alter beloved media in order to "update it for modern audiences", which is code for "I'm an egotistical activist type looking for things to change".
@wholetyouinhere while I agree with the premise, I don't see an issue if they just upgrade graphics and fix bugs and QOL
@@wholetyouinhere You're reading too much into it. It's just a remake of a dated ass game lmao
@@wholetyouinhere Honestly I feel like that doesnt apply as much to the Dead Space remake. It feels more like a faithful adaptation rather than a "modernized update". I would personally say the new Saints Row fits your description better, as it poorly phoned in a lot of stuff that ultimately ruined the whole game
I'll be fascinated to see your take on Callisto Protocol. I was okay on it at first and still think it has some interesting ideas, but it only soured more and more in retrospect and *especially* after the DS Remake.
I hope Callisto is given the opportunity to iron out its rough patches rather than be shouted down into obscurity...
@@anihilus2344 Unfortunately, all I've seen is EA shills and Cons00mors talking s*** about Callisto Protocol since this came out.
@@anihilus2344 sadly with Callisto protocol being a massive commercial flop, it’s unlikely we might see a second game. It apparently had a 130 million dollar budget and hasn’t even made half of it back from what I’ve read.
@@boomerkobold3943 I mean, it wasn't a very good game. Just because someone's not giving infinite chances to that annoying mess doesn't make them a shill or a mindless consumer.
@@BE-fw1lr yeah, callisto is a brawler, with mediocre combat and bad balance issues. terrible enemy variety, and complete lack of exploration. overall, the only thing dead space inspired in it, is the presentation.
I think that one of my favorite things about the first dead space is that, with how the necromorphs shoot out somewhat slow projectiles or leap out at you if you don't lay down enough suppressing fire, it feels like there should be a dodge button like some of the resident evils, but there just isn't. You are slow and clunky and your only real advantage is that you can fight a lot better at a distance than they can and you have the tools to keep them there.
For me Issac reaching his hand out for Daniels is less redemption and more he’s sick of death. There’s so many dead aboard the ishimura all typically done when he was without any control over the situation (locked behind glass) and Daniels is the one and only person he can possibly save, regardless of all the damage she caused, he just wants someone to live.
Nah, that sounds dumb
@@Senator-Wary Yeah dude it's so stupid when human characters in horrific situations try to desperately cling to some sense of normalcy, so cringe lmfao
@@TheCallOfTheValkyrie K
@Sigvuld Desmortia she murdered two people and tried to leave Isaac for dead why would he care?
@@Senator-Wary He probably reached for her instinctively since she's the only person alive there. Isaac isn't a sociopath, even if she was a bitch when adrenaline kicks in its instincts and reflex that take over.
I actually really like the Hammond-Chen part of the story. Instead of telling how the Marker use a combination of necromorphs and hallucination to weaponize guilt, we as players are shown of the process.
It is a clear indication that Hammond was under the influence of the marker, hallucinating a Chen necromorph being alive and Kellion being not destroyed. In the original, it seems that Hammond was not affected by the Marker at all, which seems to be a little bit odd given how everyone else was seeing things. It also explains perfectly why Hammond did not kill the Slasher in the pod before launching the pod even though he knew to cut off the limbs and he was armed with a pulse rifle.
It also makes the necromorphs and whatever is controlling them a more calculated villain. The end goal of the Marker is making enough dead biomass, and it will maximize the efficiency by turning dead people into necromorphs and sending them against those close to them. This way the hallucination has a better chance of fooling the survivor for just long enough to be killed and added to the biomass pile. Hammond might be a brave security officer, but in the face of the Marker, he is just some biomass that needs collecting and Chen is the best tool for the collection.
It happened to Hammond, but in the last moment of clarity Hammond destroyed himself and necromorphed Chen. However who knows how many times similar scenarios has happened in the colony and on Ishimura, and how many times the Marker actually succeed. It can make the outbreak even more scary than we first thought.
The audio lines changing based on health is an amazing touch of detail. I'm glad more studios are doing mostly faithful remakes; some changes work, some don't, but it's nice getting to enjoy new experiences in familiar settings.
The game definitely tracks weapon use and forces you to change up your loadout. By CH 3 I'm sitting pretty with a beastly plasma cutter and didn't notice the ammo count. When it ran out Isaac is genuinely weighing up hatred for zombies and CEC executives, I was right there with him. Like did you see the price of batteries these days. And they don't even have charger stations, you have to get them new. This corporate crap is literally murdering the working man
The first Rameses II reference caught me off guard. The second, mere minutes later, startled me. I had just watched Prince of Egypt when I saw this.
Please keep out of my house, I have enough food for two (2) people and my dog is the one who gets the other portion.
Thank you Valentine Grim for the amazing work you've put on during these years with Mandy
I think you undersold the Ripper in this version. It was the surprise MVP for me. You can often take down 2 necromorphs with one use of primary fire, and as a bonus, if you rip and tear fast enough, you can even hit secondary fire and shoot that same blade for a chance at bonus hits.
you know that bit of the goosebumbs theme that rolls down the keys?
you know how you hear it when the blue trail runs across Mandalore's logo?
you know how he always syncs the two?
he doesn't have to do that.
he does that because he loves us.
Going from the Remake into DS2 for the first time since it launched, it's incredible how seamless it feels to play, and it's also a treat rediscovering how amazing DS2 is. They did a fantastic job on the Dead Space atmosphere/feel in the remake imo
The fact that the dialogue actually accounts for Isaac's HP is amazing. Mind = blown
I love the small details added. Like the basket ball game section! hearing the creepy cheering and people yelling, "MAKE US WHOLE ISAAC" *chefs kiss
I really miss the auto-deploy helmets from 2 and 3. Those were so cool and I'm surprised mandalore didn't mention them.
tbf, OG 1 had normal helmets you put on and take off too, so maybe they'll do the retractable helmets in a DS2 remake
I *KNEW* I couldn't be the only one thinking of A Plague Tale with those cello sounds; I loved the sense of danger and urgency they transmitted in the games whenever they played.
to be honest, i like isaacs effort to safe kendra, and his vocal response to her death, it shows to me that hes really just a good guy, and that even if kendra lied, he would try to safe her, cause they were one crew, it really just drives home my sypmathy for issac beeing a genuine good guy, who shows the other cheak when it mean hes able to safe someone.
At this point I have an impression that Mandalore only reviews games with electric attacks to insert Marv scream in every video.
I took the change to Kendra at the very end of him just trying to save anyone for the Evil corpse eaters. The line he shouts at the eldritch abomination moments later reinforces this in my mind. All in all I think it is a good change
Finished my 1st playthrough and will tell you this.
The weapons, while different in function compared to the original ones, are actually fun.
Frostbite and the ambience do a genuinely good job.
The story expansions are a step in the good way.
Necromorphs are more persistent than ever (ESPECIALLY The Hunter).
Making the game like Resident Evil and allowing you to backtrack was also a step in the right direction (not to mention adding side-quests).
The only things I'd nitpick are Hammond not being played by Peter Mensah and lack of behaviors from the Necromorphs. Like them stalking the Ishimura in search of people they missed to kill or them piling corpses in one place like it was in the engine room in the original.
Edit: Doing now a 2nd run to get the level 6 R.I.G. Oh and some scenes with the Infected Suit are hilarious. Especially in the Captain's nest with Hammond.
Edit 2: If they remake DS2, they should add in the DS Mobile campaign and DS2 Severed DLC which was exclusive to the console version of DS2. Also remaster Extraction.
I really liked the backtracking aspect. There was just something really fun about completing the side missions and unlocking higher clearances doors and chests knowing that you risk more attacks by the necromorphs. Some of my most tense fights were in medical trying to get to the last few locked rooms.
my biggest issue gameplay wise was the fact that issac lost his injured animations from the first 3 games, if he was on yellow he'd start limping and if his rig was red he'd visibly struggle to walk because of his injuries
I do have to say, there's currently a save-ruining bug where batteries just disappear. The only known fix is loading back a save from before the battery would have spawned, which costs a LOT of progress. I remember having to redo all of medical and ch 2 twice because the last battery (the one in the hallway that explodes into the vacuum) just didn't spawn for both my first run (Hard difficulty) and second run (Easy mode, just to test the combat).
I think what we all need to accept is that motion capture is a tool that should be used SOMETIMES, not all the time. It's a big "can vs should" issue. When it works, it works. But to completely replace all traditional animation and voice acting is a moronic decision.
You can hear this voice change type of thing also in the new Spiderman game. While he swings and talks, he sounds more strained, but while stationary he'll talk more smooth, but i love that they did this in the DS remake
Honestly my biggest beef with the remake is the world state changes to Medical and Hydroponics don't happen, so the bodies that are ALL. OVER. the entrance of Medical don't Ominously Disappear as you're leaving the way you came in before you have any information on why or how the hell that might happen, they just... stay there. And you don't have the Hydroponics cases full of food, only for it all to visibly Be Consumed when the Leviathan goes aggro on you all and blocks off or fills out the new-to-you sections of Hydroponics with biomass on that second visit, it just... has a section where there's plenty of food, and then a section where there's not so much food, and a section that already has a snotwall right from the getgo. Also call me a moonbrain but I got MUCH more turned around in the zero-G sections of Hydroponics in the Remake's zG controls than I remember getting with the original's Flying Squirrel treatment--though NEW zero g sections were actually very good for me.
I'd say there's one thing the new Kendra does really, really well:
Whenever Isaac is mentioning Nicole in calls/audio with her, you can TELL that she knows you're losing it but has to keep it under wraps.
"N- Nicole's there? She's uhhhh quite the trooper, huh?"
And then there's always just these knowing looks in some of the video calls, you can see it in her eyes. I think it was a really neat detail to have Kendra show.
Isaac trying to save her is dumb af though, honestly it is the worst change in the whole game.
Do you not think his line where he faces off the Hivemind informs that choice, though? It suggested to me that despite all her sins, she's still a human being, and he's seen so much death and fucked up shit that he doesn't want to lose any more. Imagine that same scene if she reached for him and he slapped her hand away, or the like.
@@PowerfulSkeleton I think if I saw that amount of meat monsters I would wanna save even the worst person there is only so much death one can take even with a vendetta and it’s just a small change over all
i'm just sad that the new Nicole died of obvious old age. not sure why Isaac was dating a woman in her late 60s, but there you go.
@@Laneous14 She looks like she's an attractive 40-50 year old. Why do people who critique that change act like she suddenly looks like the crypt keeper?
@@PowerfulSkeleton no one has to be completely benevolent or a complete sadist. something better (and more true to her original character) would be her bargaining with Isaac that she can help him only to draw her weapon on him and then get eliminated by the hivemind.
One thing I love that this video shows is that, depending on Isaac's health, he does different takes on voice lines. So if he is injured he'll sound more hurt and out of breath. An amazing little detail
I think my biggest visual complaint(? honestly I'm not sure if I like it less or its just different) is the health bar. The border of where your current health ends feels more fuzzy and less defined and it was often hard for me to tell 'exactly' how much health I had.
Admittedly this is pretty in-line with other survival horror games that make you squint at your health bar and go "I *think* I can take another hit without having to use a medkit? welp, guess there's only one way to find out", but it was kind of jarring after feeling like I was able to much more accurately tell how hurt I was in OG 1 and 2.
Otherwise I very much consider the package as a whole to be a home run.
i felt like this was only an issue to a full health bar. because of the curvature, it makes knowing if it was full or 1-2 hits in harder. but i dont thing it is that problematic once it reaches 3/4th full.
When a game or movie is remade it’s really hard to not emphasize the negatives or any point that failed to heighten or maintain the same strengths as the original. My main concerns with the remake are mainly enemy aggressiveness, sound design and the changing of certain characters. That being said I’m really happy to hear the remake did so many things right and I’ll be happy to play it despite my inability to not be frustrated with certain aspects. Really looking forward to the RE4 Remake as well now with the Demo and gameplay reveals out. Great review as always
holy shit Mandalore, "the force gun can prescribe a decade of proactiv instantly" might be the best line you've ever written
I had a bug where when you first reach the marker and have the cutscene with Mercer, he just straight up didn't spawn in. So Isaac was talking to nobody, and then a ghost broke the glass because the hunter didn't spawn in either. I was just wandering around in that room for a minute, wondering what the hell was going on.
Something similar happened to me the first time you run into Mercer and the Hunter. The Hunter disappeared inside the tank and then the glass is smashed open and nothing happens, had to reload a previous save to make it work. Thankfully that was the only bug I encountered in my playthrough.
A great review and a very honest one! I agree on Remake Dr. Kyne should’ve been more insane than he was and the problem with Remake Hammond. The review felt like a critical look into the remake from a longtime fan.
Can’t wait for your honest take on the Callisto Protocol.
I don’t see why he should be insane at all. All the logs say Amelia to him is a calming presence