Over the week-end I obsessively played “Dead Space” Xbox 360 until I made it through the whole game.
I have a few questions, but I’m not looking for hints or cheats. That’s what gamefaq is for;).
My favorite weapon, the plasma cutter, seemed oddly familiar. Specifically, the alternative fire where the array could be rotated from vertical to horizontal. I know I have seen this before. Does anybody remember seeing a similar gimmick in another game?
When I completed the game, it “awarded” me 10 extra nodes and 50,000 credits. Yet when I started a new game, Isaac was penniless and nodeless. He did, however, still have his level four suit in which I had finished the previous game. There seems to be more money and nodes lying around in-game. Does “awarded” actually mean “there if you can find them?”
Is there any real point in spending a lot of money and nodes upgrading a weapon? In my first game, I completely maxed-out the plasma cutter, but I didn’t notice any real in-game benefit other than higher ammo capacity. Upgrading suits, OTOH, seems a better value: more air and higher hit points. I’d have probably finished the game with a higher level suit if I hadn’t put so many resources into that gun.
What the *HELL *is going on with the Marker? It’s man-made and suppresses the Hive Mind, right? So, why does the Hive Mind want it back? Why does the Hive Mind, which telepathically controls the necromorphs, try to kill Isaac all through the game when he is trying to bring the Marker back to it and “make it whole?”
I’ve heard this game series may be the “new Silent Hill.” It’s great fun, but all they really seem to have in common is a confusing, contradictory backstory.
I was under the impression the marker wanted you to put it back in it’s place, not the hive mind. The hive is trying to stop you when you try to get the marker planetside. Wasn’t the marker responsible for the hallucinations the player is having?
After finishing the game, and watching the cutscene, did you do a save? To get the extra credits & nodes, you’ve got to load up that save (which IIRC has a ‘+’ in its name), and start a new game after that load. Then you start with the credits & nodes (and stormtrooper suit).
Isn’t it credits to upgrade (buy) a new suit, but nodes to upgrade the weapons? I don’t remember buying many nodes, unless I was out of them and facing a door that required one. Anyway, enemies get more powerful as you go through the game too, so your upgraded cutter may just have kept you at par with the enemies.
The Marker will only suppress the Hive Mind if it’s placed in that particular spot at the end of the game. As long as the Marker exists and is in the hands of non-necros, there’s a chance it will be put back in place. So the Hive Mind wants to keep it so it can’t be used against it - like Xaltotun and the Heart of Ahriman in “Conan the Conqueror.” The Marker is what was telepathically prodding Isaac, to get him to put it back where it belongs, like the Hawaiian Tiki idol in “The Brady Bunch”.
And yeah, I find that explanation a little weak too.
Suits require nodes to activate their upgrades, other than increased storage. I only got as far as suit 4, which is depicted with metal splints, but didn’t notice that the suits actually provide any improved protection. You last longer in a fight because you have more hit points rather than from the suit reducing the damage you take. Other than having more pockets, a nodeless level four suit is no different from the nodeless default suit with which you start the game. I guess this can be rationalized that the “extra” hit points belong to the suit itself rather than to Isaac.
Nodes can be purchased for 10K each. By the end of my first play-through I had to buy a bunch to fill in all the “welds” on the suit and cutter.
I haven’t played in a while, but didn’t a new suit provide increased inventory slots and increased protection as soon as you purchased them? It was a pretty small increase - even the stormtrooper suit you get after beating the game is only 30% increase over the basic suit. You’re right though - buying more hit points has a greater effect.
The game makes a distinction between the RIG and the suit - The RIG is the thing on your spine that indicates your current hit points and air remaining. The NPCs, even unarmored ones, have them as well. That’s why upgrading hit points isn’t affected by buying a new suit. How upgrading the RIG makes your body able to resist twice as much damage before dying is a mystery.
BTW, if you do the whole save after complete, reload, start a new game, your weapons start at whatever upgrade level they were when you finished (unless you start at “Impossible” difficulty). Playing the first few levels with upgraded weapons definitely shows they’re much more powerful.
At normal & hard, I don’t believe the necros respawn - ISTR running around an empty level for quite a while looking for loot. When you revisit a level as you do a few times, there’s a whole new set of necros to fight though.
I’ll have to try reloading the saved complete and then starting a new game. I’d like to start right off with the maxed plasma cutter. Do you have to start at a higher difficulty level to retain all your stuff and get the extra loot? Yesterday, I saved when prompted to and then when straight into a new game at the same (medium) difficulty level. All it let me keep was the suit.
Completely pointless aside: At the end of the game cutscene when we get our first really good look at Isaac, I was surprised at how old and homely they made him. Most video game protagonists are young, athletic and (ruggedly) handsome. Isaac is gray, balding, and kind of schlubby looking. Based on what he does in the game, I guess we must give him credit for being athletic though.
They actually created some webcomics, an interactive website, and other things that fill in the backstory and try to explain the mythos of the whole thing, including the Marker, the Hive Mind, and Unitology. Check out the wikipedia entry for more information if you want to delve into the world of Dead Space.
Thinking back, I don’t really remember if I did the same difficulty or harder when I started the second game. I’m certain I kept the upgraded weapons - one of the 360 Achievements is “fully upgrade all weapons” which would be impossible if you started from scratch each time you began a new game.
At the beginning of a new game, as soon as you get camera control, you can pan around and look at Isaac as well. You have to be on the ball and do it quickly - he puts the helmet on shortly afterwards. He looks better before his adventure.
Further musing: You know what was hilarious? Towards the end of the game, there’s a segment in the shuttle bay centering around loading the marker into the shuttle. Predictably, when you complete segments of the task necros appear. Two of these encounters are on railed catwalks. The mixed bag of necros appear in a howling mob at the far end of the catwalk and come running and screaming toward you…and get shot to pieces. They are just so cartoony at that moment that it was impossible to take them seriously. It was such a Hoss Delgado moment that it was funny the first time and then pants-pissing funny the second time.
You were right, muldoonthief. Last night I loaded the cleared game save and started a new game. Isaac had the money, power nodes, and level six suit schematic, as well as his upgraded weapons from the first game. You were also correct about the game differentiating between the suits and the RIG. In the early phases of the game, the difference between upgraded and plain weapons is much more evident.
That level six suit is really bad ass looking. In it, Isaac is scarier than some of the monsters.
Okay, I’ve played through a couple times now and I’m still dicking around with it mainly to rack up achievements. Some final thoughts:
On the first playthrough, the tension level is very high. On repeat plays, vastly less so as the necros are finite in number and always appear in exactly the same places.
The shooting gallery minigame is fun. Zero-g basketball is an enormous steaming pile of ass.
The first meteor cannon segment is also a pile of ass. The second, where one fights the slug, is tolerable.
The plasma cutter and the force gun are the only weapons that are worthwile. All of the others, but especially the flamethrower, are weak and lame even when upgraded. You don’t even really need the force gun, for that matter. It’s just handy for smooshing the swarms of little spidery necros all in one shot and its alt. fire mode makes short work of the wall monster-type necros.
Stasis and kinesis were nifty things to play around with. After the first playthrough, when it became clear that anywhere you would actually need stasis to advance the game there is a charger, it was a lot of fun hitting necros with stasis and dismembering them with the minimum possible number of shots.