Dead Space

Survival horror at its finest! Dead Space raises the bar of this genre, pushing the horror to the limits of what most gamers will be able to stomach. Instead of the neat and clean head shots of your typical zombie shoot em up, the mutilated, hybrid, alien-like remains you face in Dead Space require severe dismemberment before death. Lucky for you, you'll find a diverse array of futuristic weaponry aboard the derelict mining craft, each with a secondary mechanism, and each one able to be upgraded into powerful tools of destruction.

Some of the greatest, most frightening moments of this game happen when nothing seems to be happening at all. The power may flicker before failing totally, plunging you into total darkness for several excruciating moments when all you will see is the narrow shaft of light projected from your raised weapon. Every weapon is equipped with this small flashlight beam that you grow to depend on as you are continuously thrown into the shadowy depths of the spacecraft.

The designers very cleverly string you along through a maze of corridors utilizing a 3d mapping tool and inventory menus that do not appear during a pause menu, forcing you to manage inventory and get directions on the fly. Most of the cinematic elements of this game occur during game play with contextual action prompts, extremely limiting wait time as the story unfolds.

Personally, what set this game apart from so many similar type survival horror games that I have played was the psychological horror of doubting what my own eyes were seeing onscreen as the main characters began to succumb to the sickness and suffered with hallucinations. Also, the zero gravity areas and the areas exposed to the vacuum of space added a stressful dynamic to enemy confrontations and puzzle rooms that was unique and refreshing.

It will take about two and a half play throughs in order to comfortably purchase all upgrades for all weapons. However, in order to maintain your cleared game inventory, you are forced to play the same difficulty level. If you want to play a higher level you have to start a new game. Although this is fair to the few brave enough to start out by choosing the hardest difficulty available, the rest of us choosing normal will become quickly overpowered by the middle of the second play through and will be bored before fully upgrading each weapon entirely.

One thing I wish I knew before starting this game was the "one gun" trophy requiring a player to complete an entire play through using only the plasma cutter. I found this frustrating because on my first play through I used the cutter about 90% of the time, only falling back to the line gun for clustered enemies and saving all my pulse rounds for boss battles requiring fast, direct targeting. On my second play through I wanted to experiment more with all the weapons, but felt compelled to go after the "one gun" trophy.

Overall, a compelling and frightening experience. I'm very excited to play the sequel unveiled at this year's E3 convention.

I felt compelled to revisit this post after achieving the platinum trophy on a play through where I also simultaneously achieved both the "Three Tier Engineer" and "One Gun" trophies. It was a very challenging and frightening experience to say the least. I had thought it might be boring relying only on the plasma cutter, but I was wrong. Not only is it more challenging, it also creates an interesting dynamic when it comes to determining how to spend each hard earned credit.

If you're out to achieve these three trophies at once, here are a few tips that will help:

1.) Conserve ammo, well obviously, but this includes all the ammo that you won't be using because they're compatible with weapons other then the plasma cutter. Sell all the random ammo at the store for extra credits. Contact energy is especially valuable. Also, take advantage of every explosive canister that you come across even if you have to carry them with kinesis from one room to another. Look for these especially near outbreaks of those little leech things, one thrown canister can kill a swarm of them at once.

2.) Skip every other suit upgrade, meaning level two and level four. Now this is a double edged sword. You'll definitely save a lot of credits, but you'll have less damage resistance and fewer inventory slots during these odd periods. If you can manage your inventory well by making the most of the extra storage space provided by the store, this can be a very effective strategy. Also, if you consider the fact that you'll not need to pick up any schematics for these even numbered suit levels, or pick up schematics for weapons or gear that you'll not be using, you really don't need the few extra slots of space that these suits provide. If you only want to skip one suit upgrade, skip level four because you find the level five schematic so soon after this one, it's really a waste, something like 40k vs 50k ten minutes later. If you buy the level four suit you'll definitely have the level five schematic long before you can save up the credits to afford it.

3.) Another useful tip to manage your inventory is to place extra items near the tram car if there is not a store present. Since you always return to the tram car, up until the last chapter, this is a safe place to leave items. I would typically leave a heal or two there at the start of each new chapter so that I could heal before starting the next if needed. This strategy will also help you conserve the heals because you'll be less likely to quickly use up what you are carrying if you know that you left one just beyond the next corridor.

4.) The best tip for conserving heals is to take advantage of the automatic heal you get when upgrading your rig's hp. If you look at the nano map for your rig you'll see that to reach each hp boost costs three nodes, quite expensive at 10k per node if you're buying them from the store. You can limp to a bench near death and get completely healed by an hp upgrade. A full heal costs 10k at the store, so if you even only can manage to take advantage of this twice, you've saved 20k.

5.) Don't buy nodes until the very end. Chances are you know most of the hiding places after previous play throughs and since you'll only be upgrading a few pieces of equipment on this run you shouldn't need any extra. On my run I bought a couple along the way and ended up with one extra that I had to sell back for a measly 5k, don't make that mistake. It's better to end up in a position where you can afford to buy one rather than sell one because you don't need it.

6.) Destroy whole corpses! You may already know this, but in case you don't, this will vastly improve your odds at survival. There are several locations throughout the game where you will find whole corpses, often sitting against walls with sacks over their heads. One room in particular has a dozen or more, you can't miss it. When you come across them they will be dead, but these bastards can be reanimated by those fleshy, bat-type things. The trick is to mutilate them before this happens. Don't waste any ammo on them, instead just stomp a mud hole in them and make sure you've busted off a couple of limbs. I don't know if you need to mash off each limb, or just upset their pose, but just to be safe I stomped the hell out of every one I came across. When you revisit these areas you'll often face only a single bat-type thing that will be unable to reanimate any of the corpses you've stomped. It's disgusting work, but it definitely pays.

7.) Plan for extended fire fights nearing the end of the game. There are a few sequences during the last two levels where you will burn through ammo very quickly. You'll have to buy extra at the store, especially when you first reach the store at the beginning of level 12. After you move the artifact into the colony you'll reach a section where you have to raise bridges to keep the monolith moving. Moving halfway into this area will trigger a quarantine and you'll get assaulted by possibly the largest and most aggressive horde of enemies in the game. Make sure to have well over 100 rounds for your cutter before entering. Make sure you're planning for the rest of the level as well, otherwise you'll be back tracking. You'll have one last chance to visit the store before facing the final boss, so you don't need to be carrying everything, but I would recommend at least 150 rounds, extra heals, and stasis packs of course.

8.) Just before the final battle you get back to the store and bench. Now's the time to buy any extra nodes for upgrades if you're not fully upgraded yet. If you've followed these tips you'll probably have a pretty impressive inventory at this point, but take the time to stock up on anything you're low on since this is the last opportunity. Saving at this point, my inventory was stocked full to the brim, 1/5 health, 1/5 stasis, and 3/5 ammo and I didn't need nearly as much as I had to finish.