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[Akroma]

oh, there is plenty of continual repulsive presence in dead space

the entire atmosphere on the ship is just unnerving.

I really liked this one area where there is at first these extremely loud machines, and this fan that made the light flicker like hell. I knew exactly, if anything was coming for me, I would not notice it, but hell, the entire area was devoid of enemy presence.

similarly to that was this one unit where this flesh stuff grew over the walls, and they would continualy make these horrible wet noises, and move and pulsate, and I only wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, but hey, not a single enemy in there

[Heavy Flak]

Thanks Soulwynd, and Akroma!  I actually saw Yahtzee's review (and the antithesis of it, the Penny Arcade guys who sold it as fantastic) which moved it from my "must buy" to my "watch for a while" list.  I'll probably end up getting it... maybe see if the folks will pick it up for me for a Christmas. 

I think the real problem is there are actually too many good games out now.  Fallout 3, Dead Space, Gears of War 2 (sort of), Far Cry 2... for once, I actually have to be responsible because I'll go broke buying everything I want. 

[Akroma]

I had exactly the same problem Heavy Flak

but I went with dead space, and I am damn happy about it.
well, my ass is not happy about it, because this game makes me shit bricks, but with those I will be able to build houses for the homeless

[Soulwynd]

Don't get me wrong, it's worth buying and playing once, but if you have a more critical view of things you will notice the flaws yahtsee pointed at.

[Akroma]

you are never going to enjoy games if you play it and look for flaws
this is why I will not watch yahtzee before I finished it, or any other review for that matter, or gameplay vids

I play the game, get supised by stuff because I did not know they were coming and hey, it's really fun and really scary, so yeah, there you have it

[Shzar]

I have Dead Space, and I really quite like it so far. I'm ... 7? chapters in. I was skeptical at first; I thought initially that it would be too much like Doom 3, which I dislike rather strongly. But I was pleasantly surprised. I doesn't have me so scared so badly that I feel like quitting (Like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. did in those underground segments), but several times so far I yelped out loud, and I find myself acting very cautious. The weapons are unbalanced, yes. But, if you didn't know, you mostly receive ammo for the weapons you are carrying ... meaning, carry one or two, have tonnes of ammo but limited options for whatever threat you might face. Carry four, the max, be constantly scrounging. I carry four, and I'm constantly having to switch to my ripper, which uses ammo  conservatively, but is a beast to control when fighting multiple critters.

As others have said, the game oozes atmosphere, sometimes in a System Shock 2-esque way. You find audio and video logs of long dead crew members, and sometimes you can hear disembodied voices. The scrawlings of madmen can be found on walls everywhere. (Incidentally, did anyone else see the alien alphabet translation? I saw it, but felt too tired and antsy to write it down.) You can hear your characters heart beat speed up and slow down after you fight and defeat an enemy. And I ADORE the lack of a HUD. It is very slick, and really helps you feel like Isaac in a derelict spaceship and not some chubby nerd in his comfy chair. I hope other developers try this sort of thing in the future.

And the music. FUCK the music. Glissandi harmonics in violins is not pretty.

There are flaws, but this game well makes up for them with polish and design. Well worth a purchase, and I plan on playing through at least twice.

[Asehujiko]

General rules of the thumb:
If it has claws, it's not dead untill you personaly saw it die.
If the music starts playing while you look at a pillar or a corpse, ready your weapon.
If you hear a vent break, or something fall from great height, pull out the line gun and turn arround.

Enemies and strategies to kill them:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Basic zombie. These are the guys that look like Tyranid Lictors. They jump from vents and the ceiling and will walk arround at a medium speed untill they see you and charge you after that. Taking out their legs greatly slows them, taking out the small hands and head on their chest disables their latch attack and shooting off their claws prevents them from slashing at you. I reccomend blasting off one of their legs so they fall over and then aim for the claws. They move the least near their hips/shoulders so that's where you should aim. Will repeatedly try to ambush you by playing dead.

Crawling zombie. Slightly less common and looks like a Necron Wraith, especialy in zero g. They can crawl on walls and ceilings and are your main enemy when gravity is disabled. Their attacks consist of a scorpion like sting with their tail and a regular slash from their claws. Shooting their arms will slow them greatly and by the time both of the are gone, they are dead anyway. The tail is completely invulnerable.

Tentacle child. Very noisy Felhound with an infant's face. They can run on walls and navigate zero g. They have a ranged attack but must be stationary for a long time to use it. That can also jump on your face if you somehow get right next to them but buttonbashing will not only shake them off but also kill them. At range, just shoot the tectacles with a plasma cutter or sever them all at once with the line gun.

Spider. Noisy, small and in huge numbers. Their only attack involves latching onto you and slowly draining your health. Not very common but sometimes hide in crates. Stomp on them when you get the chance or otherwise just buttonbash to kill them. I found it cheaper to just heal any damage suffered by them jumping on me then to waste ammo on them. However, if you can lure them to a ramp, a single shot from the line gun can kill them all.

Flesh Snake. Looks like a pile of red ropes, can crawl on walls and ceilings, very hard to hit, will latch onto you and doesn't die from buttonbashing. Spawns from both fat and tall zombies. Just shoot it a few times with the plasma cutter.

Tentacle head(1). Severed head with a very agressive spinal cord. Functions like an ambusher near railshooter sections and is spawned by wall corpses. They have a lesser version of the tentacle childs gun and feature the same weaknesses. Also, they are immobile.

Tentacle head(2). Larger, tougher versions of the spiders, these are spawned by tall zombies and rarely appear on their own. They can't die by buttonbashing and have a rather disproportionate ammount of health.

Bat. Tent of flesh that jumps arround and turns corpses into black zombies and black crawlers. Highly resistant to attacks but will die of buttonbashing when it jump ontop of you. Noisy, so start stomping ontop of corpses as soon as you hear it.

Black zombie. Dark skinned, more resistant version of the regular zombie. They can take an extremely high ammount of damage but are quite rare. Created from a corpse by a bat.

Black crawler. Same as black zombie.

Wall corpse. Bloated corpse stuck to a wall with a huge gaping hole in it's stomach. Will instantly decapitate you upon getting close - Avoid. Spits out lesser tentacle heads. To kill it, shoot the red tendrils attached to the wall. At first it will regenerate them but after 5 or so it will die anyway.

Fat zombie. Look exactly like Abominations but have alot less health then their Warcraft counterpart. A single shot to the legs will cause them to explode and send out some flesh snakes.

Tall zombie. Tall, skinny fellow with a short cape and a very mechanical walk. Slow and not much health but they explode into several flesh snakes and a greater tentacle head upon death.

Bombers. Essentialy Sporregar with a huge lump on their left arm. Appears in medium sized groups. Shoot the glowing sphere to make them explode violently and take out other nearby enemies. Can create a large chain reaction if bunched up.

Wall Tentacle. Ambushes you from a hole in the wall and will try to drag you in. If it reaches it's hole, you instantly die. Shoot out the fluorecent bulge a few metres downrange to kill it.

You might have noticed a lack of attack data on the above enemies, and that's because they never hit me, a testament to the power of the linegun.

Behemoth. Unmistakeable lumbering brute that will more often then not make a spectacular entry by bashing though a solid wall(and thereby opening your way to the rest of the level). Not as tough as you might expect however. Half a clip of line gun to the legs will kill it. Simply sidestep it's charges.

I haven't completed chapter 9 yet so there may be a few enemies i missed but this should keep you going for the first three quarters of the game.

[Soulwynd]

you are never going to enjoy games if you play it and look for flaws
this is why I will not watch yahtzee before I finished it, or any other review for that matter, or gameplay vids

I play the game, get supised by stuff because I did not know they were coming and hey, it's really fun and really scary, so yeah, there you have it

Sure you will. I enjoy DF, X-Com, Arcanum, Fallout, and quite a few others.

I still don't find it scary, I think it makes me more nervous than anything else, gives a small rush of adrenaline and despise being repetitive with the scenario being very very typically bland for its theme, it's still fun to play at least once.

I know I am very critical of games, mostly because what I look in them is lasting fun. I mainly characterize games within 3 classes; Play 1 hour then delete, play it all the way through once then delete, and finally keeper.

Dead Space falls in the "play all the way through once" games for me. Which is saying a lot. It's a good game but it has annoying things going on and no replayability.

[Akroma]

Asehujiko

you forgot that:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the standard zombie and the crawling zombie have these green slimey updated versions. They are twice as tough and incredibly fast. Stasis takes good care of them, but without, it can waste some ammo.

also, you forgot this crazy thing that is hard to describe, because nothing looks quite like it. I'd say it is a mixture of a bat and a tent. If they are around, they should always be your main target, because they revive corpses, creating these green slimey upgraded zombies

[Asehujiko]

I did mention them, look below the entry about tentacle heads. Anyway, i'm going to play chapter 9 now and see if there's any more enemy types.

[Asehujiko]

Update: At the start of chapter 12 and the game took a turn for the worse during chapter 10.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The game stops being about a haunted spaceship and an evil scientology ripoff cult onboard and switches to 83659865634 government agencies double crossing eachother and the haunted ship being bait for one of the factions. Not that any of them make alot of sense. Why would Kendra go to Aegis 7 if she knew about the Marker already? And why send a tiny repair ship less then a day before a fully armed battlecruiser?

[Ivefan]

It was suprisingly good to have come out of the dungpile called EA.
Never lost interest during my playthrough though it was only creepy at most for the first few enemies untill i figured out that the soundtrack changes as soon an enemy appears.
By then i stopped looking around every corner and just ran straight ahead till i heard the change and thought "oh, another one"
The plot progress is too similar to system shock 2 but that might have been a reason why i liked it.
Though its hard to get scared, startled at most, from it when theres enemies everywhere, you get numb to any sudden appearances due to she sheer quantity.

[Asehujiko]

So i finished it now and the boss+ending was a major letdown.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Hive Mind is a huge lobster and apparently the marker is capable of projecting images of living people over it's own necromorphs. For some reason the fake nicole doesn't have scythes growing out of her shoulders and looks alot like the real nicole. They can't be the same person because the real one died so long ago that the corpse would not have been useable by the time Isaac comes stomping arround. So apparently the hive mind dug up some info about Isaac before he arrived and made a costum necromorph for the purpose of ... killing some of his other necromorphs and the off chance of it's protege hijacking a shuttle with the mole onboard. Isaac looks ugly and sucks at shaving. The game contradicts itself at the ending with all necromorphs being controlled by the hive mind yet the fake nicole is capable of sneaking arround long after her master was hit in the face with a bigas asteroid. If the devs messed up their timeline and fake nicole uses the same body as the real nicole, that means that the hive mind purposefully kept her arround relying completely on the fact that the company would send Isaac and not any of their other personel. None of that makes any sense. Also, Isaac apparently watched nicole's video several times but always skipped the final part untill kendra specificaly tell him to watch it.

Atmosphere - For a few minutes.
Gameplay - Average but repetative.
Story - Falls completely flat on it's face.

The only scary segments are the first 2-3 jumpers, the regenerator and well, the regenerator part deux.

[Akroma]

admitetly, the regenerator is absolutely the most scary thing this game has to offer (especially when you play it in dwarf-mode and say no to overpowered weapons)


I am a bit stuck in level 7, where I have to plant this radio transmitter thing on the asteroid

god damn I hate these rotating things, they just keep tearing me into thousand different parts

which reminds me, Isaac seems to be made of papermache. I know, looking at how many wounds he is receiving, him dying is perfectly reasonable, but does he always have to be cut through straight in half by just a single swing of these not so muscular looking arms ?

not to mention, all other body parts go flying as well. It's like arrows in DF

[Ivefan]

Akroma
jump onto the rock and go outside and plant the beacon

Asehujiko

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There have been repeated referances to people going nuts, seeing people and general brainfuck due to the marker. considering the marker being something that contains the hivemind i doubt that they're on friendly foot with eachother.
I immediately assumed that nicole was an illusion due to 99.999% probability of her being dead and thus the manifestation is a way for the marker to manipulate isaac.
The only possible inconsistency to this is the part where you have to defend her while she pokes a computer for to open a door for some unknown reason.
To counter this i thought that it might be possible that it the whole scene was not as we(isaac) experienced it but just his mind filling it out. the same way schitzrophenics or demented people can.
And i don't really consider anyone sane on that ship