Post by Gender on Feb 12, 2011 0:59:51 GMT -5
Story: From Isaac's perception-
Okay so I wake up on the Sprawl 3 years later into a complete !@#$ storm of chaos. Worse it turns out I'm dieing. The Red Marker that I blew to pieces in Aegis 7 imprinted it's information in my head. Information that everybody seems to want, if it be the Earth Gov or those god damn Marker heads(Sorry Mom you took away cash I could have used for college just to join up with those crazies). It's also having the side effect of giving dementia, so what I'm seeing on occasion might not even be there. Not to mention said information in my head is giving me a bad case of dementia that I'll be struggling with throughout the story trying to face and conquer my past in order to do what must be done. I do get to meet up with some women here and there, but yeah you guys know my luck, they tend to die.
But hey best part is, I can talk now.
So when someone is telling how they can't do something I tell them to shut it while I'm shooting down Necros. Not to mention I get to give out a few orders here and there and carry out what I want to do, not someone over my Rig.
Outside Isaac's Perception:
We have the recurring theme of Nicole throughout the game and her death's effect on poor Isaac along with her apparition still haunting him. Isaac essentially has to deal with his guilt in the process too in order actually do what he needs to do. Not to mention we have to constantly be wondering exactly if Isaac is gunning down people due to his dementia(Which I have my doubts, since the Marker is revealed to have a different effect on clever people over dumb people). Isaac will run into some people that help and some others that try to kill him. Not to mention Isaac makes a few morally questionable choices that have me a little shocked honestly, I never thought Isaac would do things like that. Visceral also brings back the game to it's "Roots" for a chapter too that makes you turning your back thinking Necros are gonna be comming for you in places, your'll know what I'm talking about when you see it.
As mentioned Isaac also has his voice, which he can actually voice his opinion outside text each chapter and he uses said voice to actually interact with characters. He's not just grunting and doing things he told to but trying to accomplish tasks he sets out to do himself which is nice.
Gameplay:
If you played the original Dead Space, your going to feel right at home. Isaac himself is going to feel a bit lighter, swing his arm a bit faster and curbstomp the flesh off Necromorphs just as easily.
Dismemberment is still key, it will save you LOADS of ammo if your aiming for those limbs(Rewards you for playing well).
Although some weapons work just fine shooting for the chest. Some Necromorphs actually require to either stay put or use your brain while dismembering them to avoid death.
Zero Gravity Change - Instead of just hopping around in straight paths Isaac has himself some jet boots and thrusters to maneuver himself around. Which honestly really adds that weightless feeling while in zero gravity and really gives you much more control.
Plus for sequences that involve you have to dodge things flying around it looks cool. =)
Stasis Recharges itself: Didn't like having all those spare stasis packs in your inventory? Well you have a free recharge going on for stasis this time around, it just takes an absurd amount of time un-upgraded.
Able to Pin Necromorphs to the walls: Their limbs, spikes, anything sharp. This will save you loads of ammo along the way and make killing some Necromorphs more easy.
Kinesis is useful: Outside grabbing objects to pin Necromorphs to the walls, or a Necromorph's own claws you shot off, you can litterally kill things with a wheelchair in this game. Kinesis will save you AMMO!
Hacking: Simple, do circles to the blue area to open doors and such. Isaac honestly has magic fingers as he just shoves his hand into machines and starts pulling things apart till it does what he wants.
We also get to enjoy a lot more just plain cool action sequences with Isaac that honestly makes him probably coolest guys ever, even from the very start of the game.
We do see the addition of a few new weapons and tweaks to originals.
The New Stuff:
Detonator:
Isaac essentially can put mines all around him here, on the ground, the walls and such. Anything that crosses the light beams said bombs produce makes them go BOOM! Including Isaac himself. You can also directly just shoot Necromorphs with it and make it go boom that way.
There really isn't an alternate fire for this thing, pressing the alternate fire button will just make the mines retract and allow you to pick them up. This weapon has it's niches against the pack and a certain secret trophy later in the game, although you don't really need it for either mob.
Javelin Gun:
Probably one of my favorites among the new weapons. Main fire consists of tossing Javelins into the Necromorphs and it has a high amount of damage, it will one shot most Necros you run into pinning them to the walls, excluding Brutes and enhanced Necros.
When fully upgraded it's alternate fire not only is shocking groups of Necros with AOE damage but blows them up aswell. It really makes it useful for aoeing a lot mobs of Necros or taking down the occasional niche Necros that are pinned out in space or into a wall that must be killed to avoid being killed by them.
Seeker Rifle:
Essentially gets himself a real gun here. It's the games sniper rifle, it does great damage to anything you point it at, although it's not practical to be firing this thing off trying to defend yourself at close range, but it will kill most of the enemies run into.
It's alternate fire is a zoom in for greater aim and apparently can be used to see detail, like exploding baby tags with their names on it.
Rivet Gun:
Heres your DLC gun. I didn't expect it to be all that powerful, then I saw the commercial for it and some how it pretty much floored a Necromorph, which was cool. But then I actually got to play with it ingame, not anywhere as close as good as the commercial implied it was, infact it comes off as the weakest weapon in the game.
Main fire involves shooting those Rivets that eat up your inventory space and alternate fire makes said Rivets fly out of the target making for an AOE shrapnel bomb attack on groups. I also believe it can pin targets to the wall, but honestly your going to be burning a lot of it's firing directly into a Necromorph and not see it go down. Your better off with the good old trusty Plasma Cutter or Force Gun.
Hardcore Unlock:
Not telling, bestest weapon ever though.
Main Fire: Lot of damage.
Alternate Fire: Less damage but faster firing rate.
Old Stuff with Tweaks:
Plasma Cutter:
When upgraded into it's special it now does added damage with fire = cool.
Pulse Rifle:
The Alternate Fire is now useful and fires a grenade to blow things apart. One of my favorite weapons in the game that makes the last boss pretty easy.
Force Gun:
It's Main fire is the same and it is still awsome. It will prevent with clever use being sucked out into space. But it's old Alternate Fire is gone, now it pretty much shoots a steady stream of pew pew beams instead, which is cool and all if you want to slam one enemy with a lot of damage that isn't remotely close to you but the main fire is still the main way to go for this gun.
Contact Beam:
This thing is amazing. It will one shot nearly everything in this game and two shot brutes fully upgraded. The charge time isn't bad but the reload is on the slow side.
It's alternate fire still provides that brief moment of invulnerability and with the added twist when you put a node it's special place you get stasis added to the alternate fire. This thing is a killing machine.
Flame Thrower:
Now it's alternate fire lets loose a canister that will pretty blow up on a Necromorph and light them on fire, don't want to be close to that when it happens. Not my favorite weapon, but it's easy to get the achievement for and shack it.
Necromorphs:
Ofcourse outside the face lift a lot of our Necromorph friends recieved and some actual cloths, we actually saw some new enemies and most of our old friends from the Ishimura.(Slashers, Leapers, Infectors, Pregnants, Lurkers, Swarmers, Guardians, Pods)
But with every sequel comes new enemies:
Like the Tripod, Puker, Pack, The Nest and such.
I'd go into detail for these guys but that would be too much of a spoiler IMO. I can say the names due to you guys not likely never going to figure out whose who. Either way they all have their niches and required bit of strategy otherwise they will kill you.
Graphics:
Even if you've just played the Demo you could notice how sharp Isaac looked, along with the rest of the game on the trial. Like a certain executive produce mentioned the guys at Visceral got a lot more polygons in for this game, so naturally things looked better, in some cases a lot better.
In the actual retail release, it's still looking fine. Not to mention Visceral in general just upgrading Isaac's suit look making everything seem more sharp and futuristic.
Sprawl itself and Saturn look beautiful.
Environments deliver in beauty, darkness, creepyness and the like.
Audio:
We still get our little creepy bits of noises, footsteps, howling, water droplets in generally sounds to set the mood for a Necromorph to give you a little bit of fear after sneaking up on you.
If you have the right set up, it's going to sound better on the PS3 then the Xbox incarnation. If you don't, you won't a difference. Which isn't bad, but just point that out.
Online:
I've heard my fair share of complaints, but honestly you can have a lot of fun here. You start off a game as either a Human or Necromorph, after the first round you get kicked off into the other team, so Human if you where a Necromorph the last game and vice versa.
I haven't gotten close to level 60 cap yet(I think it's 60), but yeah Necromorphs get damage modifiers as they level, Humans get upgrades to stasis, what suit skins they can play as and their pick of weapons from the game.
I think also additional health packs, but don't quote me on that. For those who got the collectors edition, you have your Unitologist Rig to wear, still looks awsome.
The Humans are sent off on a set objective, blow markers, turn this and that one, blow up the entire place, the Necromorphs have one role to kill them untill the time runs out. It works rather well as long as you have some sort of team oranization, like a team of lurkers blasting away at a particular target(fun fun). =) Human's also should travel in packs, your die a lot less that way.
Human Combat - You can shoot off Necromorphs that grab onto a fellow human, pick up ammo or health packs from dead Necromorphs, your stasis pack which is a god send and a lot of diversity in your weapons. Also your a hell of a lot more durable than the paper bags that are Necromorphs, although you have a bit of a respawn time. Stay alive and complete the objective.
Necromorph Combat - Your job is to kill the humans. What tools do you get? Besides the choice of being a Child Necro, Baby Necro, Puker, and Slasher you also are able to see the enemies through walls. Your also able to do executions and assuming the target's health is low enough you kill them.
Pack - Quickest Respawn, no durability, you will die alot, decent damage and fast on your feat. You can also jump high.
Lurker - The Spiderman of Necromorphs, your fast, leap in the air, stick to walls and range people from the shadows. Your as durable as a paper bag. Just barely longer respawn than Child Necro.
Puker - Ever want to play the role of someone that can just puke endlessly at their target to kill them? Here you are, your stuck to the ground and a target, Human's don't want to kill you near them, that's bad for them and you ranged fighting ability. Your much durable than Lurkers or School Necros. Longer, more around human respawn time.
Big Girl Slasher, you have your spitting power and slash away at your opponents with the longest respawn time. I haven't used this one much, I get gunned down too much.
You can change between said units whenever you'd like after you die. Pretty much you have all four choices sitting on the bottom of the screen after death and when the timer for respawn hits one it becomes available for you to use. You can also spawn in vents of your choosing.
DLC:
Right now DLC consists of a bunch of armors and two versions of each weapon with various perks to make them better than whats offered ingame. These packs will give you a decent advantage on Hardcore over the normal player running around with his Level 3 engineer suit with only 10 item slots(Ouchies on hardcore).
The Suits themselves are like your suits in game but different colors slapped on with different bonuses.
Unitologist Suit remains one of the coolest suits in the game, although I am partial to the Elite Advance Suit you pick up in New Game Plus saves.
Death Space Severed is going to deal with Team Extraction(My nickname for them) being back from Aegis 7 and their story as it plays along next to Isaac (ten Bucks a certain drill is thanks to these guys that or Vandal). Don't know what they are up to other than killing Necromorphs pew pew pew.
Difficulty Settings:
-Check Points make death in this game not at all too game breaking, unless you burned all your ammo before the last boss due to not using your brain.-
Casual: I didn't bother. The closest to playing this was a few chapters for a limited time because my friend sucks at Dead Space.
Normal: This is where I started, baby steps to relearn how to Isaac.
Survivalist: The next step up, which with a new game plus I would imagine would be easy. I skipped it though, the closest I've been to doing survivalist is Hardcore.
Zealot: This is were I took my new game+. The Necromorphs here are the toughest of the tough and the hardest hitting.
Hardcore: Difficulty is Survivalist, the catch is, no new game plus and no check points. Saves are also limited to 3 throughout the game. Expect to lose a few hours of gamming due to death, just avoid blowing yourself up(Shakes Head, god dang exploders).
Reward for pulling this off is the best weapon in the game and the trophy.
My Thoughts:
I'm a Deadspace fanboy, any review I inherently make will be slanted into = I love it.
If your a fan of the original and haven't bought this your bonkers (*cough*K4tz*cough*).
Some of the new weapons were a bit meh compared to some of the classics and the tweaks we got to actually make most of these weapons actually useful is a nice change of pace. Even if we can still beat all the various difficulties with just a plasma cutter and force gun. The enemies will make you have to think and employ some level of strategy, if your running into the pack swinging Isaac's arm your doing something wrong(or something incredibly right).
As the name implies, expect to die plenty in this game, some in incredibly painful looking ways.
(Lost boss or Needle minigame, gross, POOR POOR ISAAC)
I honestly think it's a great game and a worthy sequel to the original Dead Space, I get what I loved about the first game, all in a much more sleek package, some plot twists and some really action sequences to boot.
PS3 Verion: I'm calling this the best version of the game, for two reasons, including the limited edition offering Extraction for free, one disk and the sound quality.
