Ranking the Dead Space Games

Over the Holiday break, I’ve been playing through the Dead Space series, and I’ve forgotten just how good those games were.

I decided to rank the three main dead Space games from worst to best. I’ve decided not to include the Wii version of Dead Space Extraction as that’s an on-rail shooter and doesn’t play like the other entries in the series.

Also, I’ll keep spoilers to an absolute minimum, and anything I discuss will happen within the first couple hours of gameplay.

Let’s get started.

3. Dead Space 3

Up until last week, I’d never played Dead Space 3, and a large part of that was due to the negative feedback the game got at launch. People criticized the co-op multiplayer, the microtransactions, and the general lack of scares in the game.

And you know what?

The game is nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be.

I was expecting co-op to be shoved down with throat from the first minute and was pleasantly surprised when it wasn’t. Then I thought that you had to complete a certain number of chapters before having access to co-op, but I played the entire way through the game, and not once did I feel that I was at a disadvantage for not having a buddy with me.

The first hour or so felt like the series’ previous entries. Then a tutorial popped up, letting me know the game had a crouch button, something the last games didn’t have.

What use is a crouch button against the mega quick necromorphs?

Of course, that’s when human enemies attacked me, and the game became a GI Joe knockoff. The Dead Space Series has always had fantastic combat, but that wasn’t due to the shooting. It was the way the shooting was done.

The Dead Space Series has always had fantastic combat, but that wasn’t due to the shooting. It was the way the shooting was done.

Instead of just unloading clips into enemies, you must take up their limbs to destroy them. The first gun you receive SMG, meaning that this tactic is almost useless, and you get through by simply filling enemies with bullets.

It’s a real shame as the game does start strongly after being informed that your ex-girlfriend, Ellie Langford (also featured in Dead Space 2), has gone missing along with her team. The gov contacts you to help track her down. As Isaac attempts to leave his apartment building, he’s attacked by soldiers who worship the markers that caused people to become Necromorphs. The soldiers want to kill Isaac for destroying two markers in the previous games.

After your escape, you’re captured by Jacob Dank, who activates a marker before trying to kill Isaac.

From there, Isaac makes his way to the ship where Ellie’s SOS was broadcast from – but not before it’s blown apart by space mines.

That’s a summary of an opening couple of hours, and I don’t want to spoil the game further for those that haven’t played it, but it’s a pretty exciting story. Indeed, when the game sticks to what it knows, it’s excellent, but when it tries to become a set-piece-packed third-person shooter, it isn’t.

When the game sticks to what it knows, it’s excellent, but when it tries to become a set-piece-packed third-person shooter, it isn’t.

Another gripe of mine is microtransactions. I’m okay with some microtransactions in games. Fortnite and Warframe handle those very well by allowing you to buy purely cosmetic items that make your character look cooler. The trouble with them in Dead Space three is that they weren’t there in the first two games and have been added purely to make money.

In Dead Space 1 and 2, you had to find power nodes to upgrade your equipment, which was expected. In Dead Space 3, you have to gather multiple different resources to create anything, and if you can’t find enough of a particular resource, well, EA has your back. They’ve kindly offered you the chance to acquire materials using real money.

The trouble with this sort of DLC is that these resources may be scarce in the game to encourage a player to purchase. Of course, I can’t prove it, but that’s the thinking.

Hidden beneath the more action-orientated battles, the DLC, and the unnecessary co-op is an excellent game.

It is a shame – hidden beneath the more action-orientated battles, the DLC, and the unnecessary co-op is an excellent game. But, unfortunately, those mentioned issues place it as the worst game in the series.

2. Dead Space

When I first played Dead Space, I was still unsure what to expect. I knew it was a third-person horror title, so I thought it was an RE4, which is never a bad thing, but when it comes to scaring Dead Space 1 makes Resident Evil 4 look like Roblox. In the original dead Space, you play as Isaac Clark, a systems engineer who is part of a rescue team sent to the USG Ishimura, a planet-cracking mining ship, to find out what happened after the ship went radio silent. Unfortunately, your ship suffers damage when attempting to dock, and it’s soon revealed that a damaged spacecraft is the least of the team’s problems. 

Further complicating things is your missing girlfriend Nicole, who was stationed aboard the Ishimura before something went wrong. 

Something I love about dead Space is the feeling of helplessness, but the fact that you aren’t entirely helpless.

Isaac is an engineered, not a gritty space Marine, so having him blowing away aliens with assault rifles and rocket launchers would be silly. Instead, Isaac repurposes a variety of different tools which were used to carry out maintenance on the ship. Nowadays, it’s common for games like Amnesia to have you as a character who can’t even throw a punch to defend themselves. Dead Space gives you some of the best tools in video games to do this, and you still feel on edge.

Oh, and do you know how I said this game was scary? Play with the lights off and a headset on, and I can guarantee you will jump out of your chair a lot. A big reason for this is this game’s fantastic sound design, which all entries in this series have had. Walking down corridors and hearing the scuttling of footsteps or the rattling of pipes is unsettling. Speaking of problems, the game isn’t just a jump scare simulator. Plenty of the game’s scariest moments come from witnessing something creepy. Watching a blind woman clutching onto the bloody body of a loved one? Check.

A man repeatedly smashed his head into a wall? Check.

My only real complaint with the game is some unnecessary backtracking, though this is easily solved by clicking the right stick, revealing the objective. 

Even though I completed dead Space a long time ago, I played it again to see how well it holds up, and I’m happy to report that it holds up very, very well. I played on the Xbox Series X using the backward compatibility feature, and all three games in this series look surprisingly good. 

This is the game that launched Visceral Games, and playing through it again, it’s very easy to see why. For the first game in a series, it is surprisingly well-tuned, and everything from the sound design to the limb-cutting gameplay is top-notch. It should go without saying, but if you’ve never played the Dead Space series and want to jump in but worry the first game might feel a little dated, worry not. It is still one of the scariest games money can buy.

Read more about the Dead Space Remake.

With the Dead Space Remake coming out next month, we should expect a new wave of fans who never got to experience the original.

1. Dead Space 2

Dead Space 2 takes everything about the first game and makes it even better. After the first game’s events, Isaac is taken to the sprawl of a civilian Space Station. Three years after the events of the Ishimura, you awake in a straight jacket. 

As Franco Dele, the protagonist of Dead Space Ignition (another dead space game we won’t be covering here as it’s not a conventional dead space game), tries to set you free. 

Unfortunately for Franco, he’s attacked by Necromorph and transformed into a slasher right in front of you. You then have to escape the chaos while still wearing your straight jacket. 

Soon you bump into Foster Edgars, a scientist who oversaw the operations on Isaac. After freeing Isaac from his straight jacket, Edgars takes his own life claiming everyone will burn for what they did to Isaac.

It feels much gorier than the original, but that’s not a bad thing.

That’s the first thing I noticed when playing this game, it feels much gorier than the original, but that’s not a bad thing, just an observation.

Dead Space 2 core gameplay is unchanged from the original, and (as we would find out with Dead Space 3) that’s not bad. I didn’t think it was possible, but the game is scarier than the first. 

The scenes that featured a dead Nicole are some of the creepiest in all of video games. 

There’s just something about how she moves that puts me on edge.

One key area that Dead Space 2 improves on versus Dead Space 1 is location variety.

You can find a kindergarten, a shopping center, and a church. The variety helps space out the dark and claustrophobic corridors. All the weapons from the first game are back, plus plenty of new auditions, and they all feel fantastic to use. 

Compared to Dead Space 1, everything has been given an added layer of Polish. 

One of my favorites is the Javelin Gun, which skewers enemies into walls. Dead Space 1 performed well at retail, and it’s clear that Visceral had a bigger budget for this game. As a result, everything has been given an added layer of Polish. 

One thing that I completely forgot is the existence of a multiplier mode in Dead Space 2.

Multiplayer saw four human soldiers and four human-controlled Necromorphs going against each other.

I never played it when the game was first released, and when I tried to get on recently, the servers were down. 

So there’s not much more to say about Dead Space 2 other than it takes an already great game in dead Space 1 and goes about making it even better. 

It is a fantastic horror experience and easily one of my top five horror games I’ve ever played, which is why I consider it the best in the series.

So what do you think? Do you agree with my rankings? 

Some folks will be annoyed that I have yet to include Dead Space Ignition, Extraction, or the Dead Space mobile port, but I wanted to focus purely on the primary games in this series rather than