CVG was lucky enough to get some hands-on time with Electronic Art’s upcoming space survival horror title, Dead Space, and they think it looks promising. But that’s not a hot story, this is: the game’s developers are toying with the option of omitting the game’s pause functionality. Does that take some sack, or what?
In life, there is no pause button. When your boss walks in on you posting a Cblog instead of finishing up those TPS reports, you can’t hit start and assess your best excuse. Why should it be any different when a drooling space monsters jumps out of the shadows to have its way with your space engineer?
While there’s a chance the devs will ultimately decide to include the option in the final build, I’d like to see this in action. If anything, it’ll make for a great “Good idea, bad idea” discussion. On one hand, I can see how something like this could up the intensity of a survival horror title. On the other hand — considering the assumed diets of many gamers — the lack of a pause to allow for a bathroom break could be disastrous.
As a culture, we’ve been spoiled with the ability to allow ourselves to pause the “action” and be distracted — in our homes we can pause movies, music, videogames, and even television. You can even put down a book mid-sentence if you needed to. Would sitting still and seeing a task through without interruption be that bad? I can hardly remember what it’s like.
