Dead Space
polycounter lvl 20
This was sooo under my radar of games coming out this season, luckily I put in a
couple of hours with it over at a buddies house after work yesterday.
What a game!
Speaking purely on the visuals here, this game is a beauty. From the mix of baked
& dynamic lighting down to the UI/HUD representation, I think EA nailed it well.
I checked a bit online and I looks as though they used Unreal 3 for this, but it's
hard to tell. Can anyone confirm this?
I'd like to spend more time with it before going in to specifics about the visuals in
the game.
If you've played it and have thoughts on the artwork in the game, lets hear it. I'd
like to get some proper discussions on actual video game art in titles coming out
rather than if they're fun or not.
Replies
Picking it up after work today!
It would probably be more immersive if I was actually the one playing it... they definitely "go there" when you're not sure if they will or not (I wont spoil anything, you'll see what I mean). Huge congrats to the team that made it, definitely worth checking out. I expect to see their UI setup copied soon too, the in-game HUD interface is brilliant.
I read somewhere that it's an upgraded version of the game engine used in the Godfather game and EA is looking to license it.
It was fun, and looked pretty good! I was a little surprised at how much of the normal mapping is obviously nvidia filter/crazy bump. It looks like little/no high poly modeling took place on a most objects.
Cant wait to get my system back, and finish that game.
Im having fun with it and there are ALOT of "WTF WAS THAT" moments. So far the levels have a bunch of scripted events like canisters rolling into hallways and monsters crawling up windows while you are reading some mission text.
that opening scene made me wanna go re-watch event horizon
oobersli - What is it about the characters textures that bother you? I noticed they get really blurry when the camera is super close to them, like when accessing the menu, but otherwise I think they portrayed the materials decently. I never thought these words would have meaning, but his pants are done really well.
LEViATHAN - the main character or the people overall? The other people, besides the main dude, seem fairly generic. I suppose thats fine for the type of story this is as adding some whiz-bang'ery to them wouldn't exactly help immerse me in the game. As for the main dude, his design looks like a more human, more mobile, Big Daddy. That comparison is obviously coming from his helmet design, but its also the fact most of his metals are rendered with a brown tinge to them, almost like oxidize brass.
There was one party I particularily remember where you're in this sort of lobby of the ship. huge glass planes looking out in to space. I remember the floor design being pretty layered and interesting looking. Overall it was a flat surface, but the added layers that could be seen through glass panels was pretty cool.
i have read(grain of salt) that the engine used for dead space was done in-house and they are thinking about liscensing it. the cliffy b statement was an accidental goof.
Watched the videos of the gameplay, this is a game i won't play, i'm bored of mutated humans and "90% black" games.
Doom3 meets resident evil + The Thing.
I'm lovin the env art. I wish the game could use the screen grab thing I heard the ps3 has available for games. I'd have a lot of images to add to my inspiration folder.
The lighting is really nice as well, combined with some cool alien silhouettes = bad ass moments.
I believe they are using Deferred lighting.
How is that relevant to anything?
Anyway... I read the preview in Game Informer a year ago, it was the most paid-for preview I've ever read. I thought this game was going to be a total turd. But everyone says it is awesome, that has come as a great surprise.
Adam said this
I hope that clears up the confusion.
Looks good.
The opening cinematic is a little painful - really not impressed with their hair.
The line slicer makes you feel like a fucking badass. I downloaded the XBOX Elite suit -it's free for the first week or so- and I hope I'm not ruining my experience by twinking my character with it. I still die gruesomely, so I guess not.
Creepy ass game. Must be played in pitch black with the volume cranked!
That wasn't my point. The fact Dead Space uses Deferred Lighting, in and of itself, doesn't mean anything.
I like how tight the FOV angle is. It's very claustrophobic.
originally i didnt like the character design but im loving it now, cool details on your suit and the lack of a traditional hud is great. This game actually made me say wow for a lens flare thats pretty awesome, the lighting and camera effects are fantastic.
the only thing that im kinda meh on is issac himself as a character, no real personality as of yet, im only at the 4th chapter.
i would say if you are slightly curious about this game snag it and enjoy
my roomate lent it to me and i hit about chapter 7ish in two midnight ---> whenever game sessions. game wise i find it to be a "bioshock light" type of game. the weapons are more direct, and there's no redundant magic type abilities.
the problem i have is that there's redundancy in the guns, i tweaked out the plasma cutter (first weapon) to the nines and it tears everything in the game apart, i have literally next to no use for the other bits in the arsenal.
bottom line this is popcorn shock horror, not ambient terror. and there's nothing wrong with that at all. a really tight game and its super great that it fights you every step of the way with the constant " don't go for the head!" mentality. a lot of fun for sure.
just don't go thinking this game will totally freak you out while it rapes your morality or something leaving you as a quivering puddle of gamer after the opening sequence.
artwise:
i think the coolest thing about the art is the subject matter. there is some freaking cool shit you get to see throughout the game. a good example is a gravity well you end up running into, its scale combined with the effects is really quite breathtaking.
whoever pushed the gore and flesh textures and materials of the game really sold me that's for sure. everything from the twisting tendrils from an open wound, to the piles of flesh that slide away sickeningly as you stomp your way to the next room.
i find the ships doors and lifts and stuff seem really functional and practical in their architecture. its really great to see it become a haven for horrific abominations while heavy industrial groans pepper the background churning relentlessly to accent the overall feel.
bottom line, i love horror and space so this game happily marries the two in something that you don't need a major in philosophy and psychiatrist to help you out in understanding.
the game is shallow but its an awesome puddle to cool your feet in for a while.
Seems they studied car crash victims and war scenes for the gore.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/dead-space-team-studied-car-crash-victims
The monsters are great, parts of their design reminds me a lot of John Carpenter's The Thing with their spindly red meaty bits flapping about. I love shooting body parts off and love how they adapt.
The game isn't scary at all though, and it's not really a knock against it because I don't know if it's possible to make a game genuinely scary. There are surprise moments when something pops out but that isn't -scary-. I'm only at chapter 5 or so and so far I don't really care about the girl I'm there to find, I wish my character had some dialog. I think the real back story is finally starting to show up so hopefully the game's story will make itself more known, rather than me trying to just fix everything on this ship.
I think it's pretty funny that I've seen this on numerous news sites. When making anything gory you're usually digging through tons of sick shit through google image searches to inspire and give decent ideas. It's really not that far fetched or overwhelming that they looked at a few car crash victims for just that.
It's a sweet game, I've only been playing it for a bit, I think I just started chap 3. Looks like a winner to me! Sort of a Bioshock/System Shock mixed with Condemmed (for the gore & scare factors). I haven't been really "scared" yet, but I have been shocked by shit jumping up. The music/FX are done really well, so playing late at night is pretty creepy.
I also loved the sound when you are in vaccuum - you can't hear anything except the sounds transmitted through your feet from the ground. Nice!
it's probably just some producer->journo direct feed that made for these "headlines". on one title according to the media we apparently had a whole team of clothing designers for the characters when in reality that department was more like one concept guy + the producer's imagination.
I'm a little tossed up on the animation some of it is obviously Mo-capped while others are not. I have nothing against mo-cap but time needs to be spent blending hand/finger animations into the mo-cap. The hand animations need to be ratcheted up a few notches so they both reach a middle ground.
I see the hand key'ed stuff lacking a surprising amount of weight and secondary motion. Of course this is what I see in their trailer footage, I'll have a more informed opinion when I play it. I'm a little excited to get to this one, looks like fun
metroid + quake + resident evil + gears = dead space
I love the restraint shown in the forms, the forms follow function on the environment side and
they religiously followed the art direction of Event Horizon and really sold that atmosphere.
Really, it is a thing of breathtaking beauty thanks to their discipline of form and saturation and
constant use of dynamic shadows and stark sterile lighting, a real joy to wander in.
I'm enjoying the gameplay too, it is shock horror, lots of frights and lights turning off for a
second while we hear monsters creeping around and the scripting and text exposition is
pretty convincing and works more because love for a woman is at the center of it.
Dario Argento once said that cinema has been built on the premise of putting women in
peril, it works because women emote better and we sympathize with them more than
with men. So having the female hook works for it better than most games that take the horror
route.
I think they got carried away with the flies buzzing around corpses... in space... heh, what did
they import flies when they went on their mission ?
But who care about that right?
Anyway, I'm loving it.
The gameplay revolves entirely around the fact that anywhere at any time monsters could spring out behind you. No pause to use the inventory, no safe zones... its not scary, it's just it's just overly stressful due to a lack of pacing. You nervously anticipate combat more than you actually experience it, and it's not because combat is crazy and intense, but because you're under equipped and slow to react (love that grandma style turn speed).
It doesn't help that everything "scary" and "shocking" that I've experienced so far in the game has already happend in System Shock, Doom 3, and Resident Evil either. It's actually really frustrating how blatantly they copied System Shock 2 and Event Horizon too, to the point of a few scripted events bringing some serious dejavu...
I dont really get why the hud is supposed to be so inventive, they just took it out of floating planes and glued it to the player's back. They're both still literal bars of health and freeze power...If they had been some kind of logical functional display of the suit that seemed realistic it would be different, but the dude could never see those himself so it's just a HUD affixed to a model...
I'm not really impressed by the environments either. From the concepts in the art book I expected them to be really awesome (since the concepts absolutely were) but their textures/materials REALLY fall flat. The entire game seems like a cool idea executed with somewhat blah artists though. The characters and monsters artwork are horrendous...Like someone else said the intro cutscene was just painful to watch and I cant help thinking "failed version of The Thing" when I see the main zombie type guys...
The audio is pretty decent...though a lot of the "spooky ambient sounds" loop way too often...
Now that I sound like a bitter asshole I will say that I'm still playing it optimistically waiting for improvement...Not gonna hold my breath though. I'm probably being hugely over critical because of all the hype and the fact that this is easily one of my top two game settings ever, so take it as you will.
Ah well.
because my first thought was 'wow, if he thinks Dead Space sucks , his stuff must be amazing!'.
The thing about hating on other developers so strongly, in a public forum. is that it always
comes back to bite you on the ass later.
I'm sorry my artwork isn't of a high enough caliber to "allow" me to criticize public work (I was under the impression anyone could critique anything?), and in fact I'm shocked that you are so incredibly enamored by the work as it passes on everything that I ever see turn up in yours. I dont think a single object in the game was created from a high poly mesh bake down, which I could swear I've heard you argue is an important way to make impressive detailed objects. I'm sorry the content on the website I made before I got hired doesn't impress you either. Not that I expect it to, but the content in my unearthly challenge thread is a bit more up to date. Although, I never claimed to be an award winning artist.
I was not hating on the developer, and I called no artist out specifically, I was merely stating a very objective and critical view of an otherwise overwhelmingly glowingly reviewed product in hopes of offering a new viewpoint on it. Like I stated previously, this is one of two of my all time favorite visual themes (for videogames, movies, or artwork in general), and as such I have extremely high expectations for it. I'm sorry if those expectations might "bite [me] on the ass later."
I find it sad that you have to attack me personally as the only means to defend your position. I have always been impressed by your art but the artwork you support often puzzles me. In the future I promise to avoid looking at anything with a critical eye and will remain complacent with whatever visuals I'm so blessed to receive.
Sandbag, I doubt you played it. You probably watched the videos and made some snap decisions, not a smart move. Adam and Ror called you it and gave you a poke to the ribs, time to move on and not dwell on it or worse try to argue about who is morally right or who said what first.
The short answer is no one cares and your just going to derail the thread "defending your honor". Have some thicker skin and maybe give things a fair shake before going off on them?
Personally I really like to wander around and check out assets but you have to put it all in context and nit picking over screen shots itsn't going to give you an accurate sense of the games pacing and movement which can't really be captured in stills, and is only marginally captured by trailers.
To put things back on track, I'm heading out at lunch to pick it up. Hopefully it won't be like Assassins Creed (started playing that again 2 nights ago) with long ass tutorials and boring dialog.
The art direction overall looks good, but as he said you can point out a lot of assets that arent the greatest. But you can do this in almost every game if you like, GTA for example is a great looking game, until you actually take the time to look at any of the assets.
I dont really get why people are getting all upset that he's giving his honest opinion on some of the assets, weather he's beaten the game or only play a couple levels has absolutely no baring on his ability to crit some of the assests, and last i checked this was a game art forum, so i dont see why being critcal about art assets is somehow now blamsphemous, i'm sure if this was a medicore game or worse the same people clamoring for the awesome art would be ragging on how terrible the art is.