What you gain in precision with the mouse you lose with WASD v. an analogue stick that allows for more natural gradients of movement speed. Also, I personally find the controller more comfortable when having to deal with a lot of buttons, FEAR2 comes to mind where I actually found the controls better on the controller v. mouse/keyboard.
Saw on one of the gaming blogs that Dead Space sold around 1.4 million units which was less than they expected. Kind of bummed because I loved that game. I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did. I’ve been thinking about going back and replaying it.
I’m on Chapter 10 out of 12, and unless something drastic happens, I’m also planning on replaying it again.
The question is, should it be New Game+ on Hard difficulty (which I’m playing now), or should it be Impossible Difficulty which will unlock once I finish the game?
What does New Game+ offer besides just the ability to run through the game again with your upgrades? More audio logs? More text logs? Has anyone here done it? Is it worth it? Or is it better to try impossible mode?
I’ve come to really enjoy the controller for FPSs. Sure, it isn’t as precise, but that’s part of what I prefer. Pointing and clicking on things doesn’t feel that challenging to me. But it’s a preference thing, so whatever.
Just finished this game yesterday. My wife and I already miss it. Frankly, though, 12 hours was about right for this game. They do a great job of varying the levels and such, but there’s only so much you can do before it’s time to wind things down. I think they did a good job.
If you are already playing on Hard, go to impossible. At the end of the game you get:
SPOILER***********************
anewsuit
somecreds
tennodes
presumably for the retry, but I rented this one, so I’m not going to play it again
**END SPOILERZ
Wait, I thought Dead Space didn’t let you play with the upgrades on a higher difficulty? Did they patch that out?
You can’t change difficulty with New Game+.
I’m pretty sure there’s new text and audio logs to be found, and you can get the Level 6 armor suit which is a military suit that makes you look like a really evil stormtrooper. It’s pretty badass.
Without being able to change the difficulty I’m not sure it’s worth a second playthrough though.
Oh really? I didn’t try it, so I had no idea. So why do they give you that stuff at the end?
So if you’re an achievement whore (and ha ha, how it must suck to be them) then you really need at least two playthroughs to get them all. I don’t think it’s even possible to gather enough nodes to power up all your weapons in one game, plus there’s an achievement for using the one weapon vs. achievements for x number of kills per other weapons. So there’s that.
I have to admit, I am curious as to what the other weapons are like. That would be my main reason for doing a New Game+. I went through with only the plasma cutter the first time, which is one of my favorite weapons of all time.
However, I am curious to see what else the designers of a game with the plasma cutter came up with. It should be fun exploring all the other weapons and leveling them up. Especially if any of them is as fun as the plasma cutter.
You didn’t use ANY of the other weapons? Why not? You can hold 4 at a time. In fact, the plasma cutter was probably my third favorite weapon, though second most often used, I’d say.
Honestly, it started off because I wanted more ammo, so when I found another weapon, I immediately sold it so I could buy more ammo for the plasma cutter. And then I kept selling other kinds of ammo to buy power nodes so I could level up the plasma cutter. I had so much invested in it, and I loved using it, so I thought ‘why the hell shouldn’t I go for the One Gun achievement?’
The side benefit has been that I got my plasma cutter leveled up superfast, and I always have plenty of ammo for it, and I never have to worry about inventory space because the only things I hang onto are medkits, one stasis module, one air can, and plasma ammo.
I’ve had a blast playing this way, so I don’t regret it. I guess when I do a new game+, I’ll find out what I missed out on by going this route.
I ended up being a big fan of the Ripper. With it’s duration upped a couple of clicks it became very useful when facing a horde of necros or for putting serious hurt on one.
Its alt-fire sucks (as far as I can tell) but its ammo can be sold (you don’t need more than 15 shots or so in your inventory, it absolutely does not chew ammo) for a pretty penny.
I had a blast with the cutter/ripper combo. I tried the force beam for a little while, and other than being a nice way to clear those little guys who jump on you, I didn’t find much use for it.
One gun achievement merged nicely with Resident Evil honed min-maxing to ensure my first playthrough would only use the plasma cutter. In retrospect, after having dropped out around ch9 or 10, it probably would have helped to mix it up.
I ended up a bit conflicted on the guns. I appreciated that the game could be completed with just about any of the weapons, but was disappointed that Dead Space couldn’t figure out a way to have certain scenarios where you were at a disadvantage or had an advantage based on your weapon.
Instead, the Plasma Cutter was almost always the best weapon to have.
I finished Chapter 10 and 11 tonight. I have to admit that I’m finally getting drawn into the story. They’re finally getting better with their text logs especially, and the audio logs are getting more interesting too. Why they didn’t present some of this information in Chapter 1 instead of Chapter 10, I’ll never know. After all, it’s only background information that helps understand the universe better. Why wait until Chapter 10 to explain it to the player? I think it’s a pretty foolish move.
In System Shock 2, they also did this. This selective doling out of information to the player. But they were just a LOT better at it. Keeping the stories and information very relevant, and also painting a bigger picture that would keep the player interested.
I finished the game, and I immediately started a New Game+. And then proceeded to play through Chapters 1 and 2 again.
I have to admit, it’s a real power trip going through these early chapters with upgraded equipment. I just feel so incredibly powerful. The first play through was like playing Aliens Vs Predator as the human. This playthrough is like playing Aliens vs Predator as the Predator. Muahahah. These puny enemies are no match for my wrath.
I wish the game had been a tad harder on Hard towards the end of the game though. Once I get tired of stomping aliens with wild abandon, I think I’ll give Impossible difficulty a try. I suspect it will be a rude awakening.
BlueJackalope recently let me borrow his copy and MAN this is a great game (thanks again, Blue). I totally loved it. A few quick things…
At first I didn’t think I play it at all, because I had a really difficult time with the controls. They felt sluggish and, because of the over the shoulder perspective, I couldn’t seem to target very well. But, after I spent a little time with it, the camera didn’t bother me at all. I set the difficulty at medium because of the early control issue, so I’m looking forward to hitting it on Hard next. I started a game and it appears that, even though none of your weapons carry over, you can start with a level 5 suit, so that’s cool.
The story was fairly standard space-horror-junk, but one thing I think the game did extremely well was the large set-pieces. Right from the opening cinematic, I knew this was going to be a cool. There were SO many times I’d enter a hangar or some other gigantic space and my first reaction would be “Wow. Just… wow.”
Now I’m really looking forward to the sequel.
-Mink-
One of my favorite bits comes pretty early when you are on a lift that moves you through a dark engineering section that is filled with mist. The dark and the mist makes the section seem unbeliveably immense.
And you can hear stuff moving around in the mist. Stuff you don’t want to see.
Perfect sci-fi horror atmosphere.
I don’t know if it’s been linked in this thread already or not (too lazy to check) but I thought the RPS write-up on Dead Space was pretty much dead-on regarding both the games’ success and failure.
I started playing a through the New Game+ a little more, and I’m thinking of instead going back and trying it on a harder difficulty with different weapons. I wish I could take that badass military armor with me though. A lot of sites seem to recommend going the cutter-only route that Lizard_King is talking about, and it makes a lot of sense to me strategically. I used the Cutter, Line Gun, Force Gun and Ripper on my playthrough.
By the end of Chapter 12, I had so many nodes and so much money that I decided to upgrade something besides my equipment and my plasma cutter. I was able to fully uprade the Force Gun and Flamethrower. Now that I’ve started a new game+, I’m having a blast trying the Force gun, and I’m going to try the flamethrower next. Plus now I have enough nodes and money that the Ripper is now almost fully upgraded. I have noticed this time that I’m spending a LOT more money/resources on ammo now that I’m using the Force Gun all the time instead of the Plasma cutter. So I have less money for power nodes.