VGChatz: Dead Space - Article

by Paul Broussard , posted on 13 March 2023 / 3,375 Views

It's that time again! In this month's episode of VGChatz, Lee and Paul play the recent acclaimed remake of Dead Space; they discuss what's changed from the original, how it's improved (and how it hasn't), and answer some user questions. Check out the video below, or watch on YouTube.

If you have questions or comments of your own (or would simply like more cat pictures), post them below and we'll discuss them on the next episode!

2 Comments

Jaicee (on 15 March 2023)

Speaking of dead space, thought I'd post my thoughts here tonight.

Best episode so far! I especially liked the one-question Q&A segment. ;) Thanks so much for the follow-up and for my new fame across all 40 or so forum members watching the channel! I feel so important now. :D

I think it's definitely subjective as to whether an action should be prompt-based or not, of course. Not inherently against the silliness of having a cat jump around like Mario either, but I can't help feeling like there had to be some limit to the volume of absurdity on offer in Stray or else the whole vibe of this being a semi-believable cat character would be lost, and much of the game's overall tone along with it. (Cats certainly do have energetic sides for sure...Olivia likes to show off for her dude by zipping back and forth across the grass at top speed before scratching on various trees...but I've noticed that she doesn't do an awful lot of jumping that she doesn't need to.) It's kind of like how one of the greatest charms of Gato Roboto for me is the fact that your cat protagonist can't speak, but can only respond to every comment and instruction with "Meow".

Even aside from my moment of YouTube stardom and the many insights it provided though, I felt like this episode had other merits too. It flowed a little better than the last one both in terms of conversation and the absence of technical shortcomings. Appreciated the extra polish! I can imagine that these things must be a bit challenging to pull off.

Anyway, the score of 9 for Dead Space here surprised me too. Based on the footage here though, I can already see the appeal! It's hard to really grasp the thickness of a game's atmosphere without its audio, but the richness of detail, the area layouts I'm seeing, and yes definitely the lighting choices that are on display here convey much by themselves and certainly indicate that a tremendous amount of real care went into this project. Gotta agree with Paul on two things specifically: 1) I think I tend to err on the side of changing things that could plausibly be improved in remasters myself too. And 2) in the horror genre, atmosphere is definitely the single most crucial factor for my taste.