[Malacite]

Okay first off if you haven't beaten the game (or at least scene the movie, though it contradicts too many parts of the game thus I discredit it >_>) then don't read on.


That said, I'm going to try and organize my thoughts on specific elements/segments of the game and it's plot and I'd like to see what other people thought.

The Ending

What the fuck? Now, supposedly Nicole was dead the entire time but I'm not buying the "Isaac was crazy" BS that Kendra feeds you after trying to return the Marker. If she was dead, then who the hell operated the control panel across from Isaac?

You know, that one part I think in Chapter 8 or 9 (I honestly don't remember, maybe it was 11) where she speaks to you on a platform directly across from yourself and you have to fend off Necromorphs. Those controls didn't just magically turn themselves on.

I think whatever she injected herself with kept her alive and at least semi-sane up until the very end, where she jumps him and then the credits roll. Speaking of which, that was one cheesy, lame Altman damned ending. The guy survives all that BS (which is in itself BS since he's just some Engineer and has never been trained for nor experienced real combat) just to die to a cheap shot like that guy in the movie who crashed into the Ishimura.

I mean, if they were intent on doing that they could have maybe been a little more creative? How the hell did he not notice her, it's not like there's any ducts big enough to have hidden in and it's a fairly small space so I'm sure he would have noticed her when he got on (and if he didn't well them Isaac you're a real dumb ass for letting your guard down at the last critical juncture)

The Red Marker and the Necromorphs

Well, they were pretty cool, but I think it would have been better if they really were a horrendous alien life form that was being kept dormant by the Marker. But then you'd have to retconn the Red Marker being made by humans like the movie did. It also would have made the Hive Mind a little more interesting as opposed to some mysterious gargantuan monstrosity (and easily one of the saddest final bosses ever in all of gaming) that know one knows how it evolved, it just appeared one day much like the Slug and Leviathan.

Speaking of which, did anyone else positively shit themselves when you heard the waring over the PA "Warning, 10 Kilotonne Mass detected in Food Storage." ? And then that bitch Kendra asks you to go kill it. It's one of the moments where I really wish Isaac had a voice actor, no matter how corny the response anyone would be thinking "No way, screw you! You kill it!"

But yah, it would have been far cooler if the Red Marker was alien made as well with the writings serving as a warning about the Necromorphs. They never really do explain how people even become them. The Infectors only create the Dark versions and obviously aren't required (and just what the hell made them in the first place?) so a little more detail on that would have been lovely.

As a side note, Earth would likely be pretty screwed though since the presence of the original Black Marker would mean there's crap just lying in wait back home.

The Aliens over all were pretty awesome (if a bit stale from the lack of variety towards the end. And BURN IN HELL REGENERATOR! ) and yet there's another little plot hole in the game where it would have been nice to know how people are turned. I'm refering specifically to the Valor and it's crew.

Isaac, a lone Engineer with zero combat training or experience manages to fend off lord knows how many of these things by the end. And yet a ship of trained military personel who are on a Search and Destroy mission get slaughtered by a single Necromorph from the damaged escape pod.

Bull shit. It's your stereotypical Hollywood "Military gets owned but the civilian who's never even handled a gun slaugthers the enemy" bull shit. I'm really sick of it. The Stasis Slicers were awesome but I'm just not buying that part of the game. Further more it seemed to me that there were too many of the Stasis Aliens later on and in places that didn't make sense.

What the fuck were they doing on Aegis 7??? They couldn't possibly have reached the planet from the Ishimura because they would have burned up in Orbit and I'm pretty sure Stasis Modules aren't issued to the P-SECs.

Finally (as this is dragging on) I find it just a tad ironic that Dr. Mercer who was so hell bent ascension, was not only the last of the crew to be turned but was actually making amazing process experimenting with his "Regenerator". One can only imagine what horrors he might have engineered had he continued to experiment.

The Weapons

Strangely enough, I find the game had just enough weapons even if some of them sucked total balls. I honestly have to rank the Plasma Cutter way up there as one of the greatest weapons ever. The damn thing borders on broken when fully upgraded (there's even an achievement/trophy for beating the game using only the PC) and yet it's not really a be-all end-all weapon. I do think it's a little too good but I'm not complaining. Best starting weapon EVER.

The Line gun was okay. Pretty nice crowd control gun with a basically useless secondary fire. Nothing like hacking off 10+ limbs in one shot though!

The Pulse Rifle was surprisingly good. I read so many posts on forums where people just trashed it as a garbage weapon when really, the thing is a beast fully upgraded. 175 magazine and half the power of a fully upgraded PC when maxed out this thing kills. What amazed me the most was how it would actually stagger most enemies when concentrating fire on their limbs. It won't hack them off easily but it stuns them enough that you don't really notice.

The Contact Beam was a big disappoint for me. The thing's a little slow and takes forever to upgrade it's damage and charge time to max, and is only really useful for the Brutes. Maybe on the higher difficulties it's good (particularly the Shockwave secondary) but I just never found much of a need for it other than the 4 or 5 brutes that show up in the game. Even against the bosses the thing just wasn't worth it since you can easily pile on damage very quickly with the PC or Pulse Rifle, and their weakspots are only open for so long.

The Ripper is a cool weapon but again a failure. If you can manage to stasis a group of enemies you can really put the hurt on fast but the akwardness of the weapon just makes it too impractical. The secondary does jack shit compared to the other guns and most enemies will move far too quickly to get any good use out of it. God help you if you try to use it against multiple enemies.

The Force Gun is a mixed bag. The grenades are ridiculous for clearing enemies who are knocked down and the Spawners but not much else. Maybe I just suck at aiming but I can rarely hit most enemies with it and even then I swear it took like 2-3 shots to drop a single Slasher... WTF? I'm sure if I max it out on my 2nd playthrough it'll be better. The primary fire is pretty sweet though. Knocks enemies off their feet and if upgraded and aimed up you can kill most of the weaker enemies in 1-2 shots. Go go Kinetic Shotgun!

Lastly there's the flamethrower. I really think this was just an hommage weapon. I'm a big fan of flamethrowers and tend to abandon strategy in most games just to use them for kicks (I'm a pyro :3) but Dead Space was different.

What the hell is a weapon like this even doing in a game where you have to dismember your enemies? Even maxed out the damn thing is only good for clearing out the hordes of spiders/crawlers that die in 1-2 shots of any other weapon anyway. The Blue Flame is bitching though and there's just something about burning aliens to ashes that's ever so satisfying. Doesn't change the fact that it's an ammo guzzling POS.

Dead Space 2?

So with all that happened, do you think there will be a sequel? I really want to get the comics now as I'm totally hooked. However, it does seem like things were more or less resolved. Now, the Red Marker isn't back where it should be but the Hive Mind is dead, along with pretty much everyone on the Ishimura/Colony. Unless some more dumb asses head out that way and/or stumble upon Isaac's shuttle (again, not an issue if he just hallucinated that Necro-Nicole as some people theorize) there doesn't seem to be much room for another game.


And do we really need one? I would like for the story to continue and to play a new game with a different main character (multiplayer would also be freaking epic) but how do you proceed? Unless the CEC manages to send in another team that successfully delivers a full report leading to some kind of repeat of the incident on Earth, I just don't see much in the ways of a sequel.

The other thing is while I want another game I'm worried that the mechanics will become tired. There will have to be new Necromorphs for one thing (making Earth a potentially insane setting with different animals becoming Necromorphs) and a good enough plot to warrant it. I don't want to end up just playing what is essentially a remake of Dead Space but in a new locale.

I want to go one but... later. It's late and I'm tired of writing this


The last thing I want to point out that bothers me is in the movie and the game people were breathing on the planet just fine. And yet, it's supposed to be a "dead planet". No water, and more importantly no plant life. No plants = No Oxygen = No Colony so WTF?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Maybe they're like Superman and can hold thier breath in space.

Or maybe its just another dumb horror game plot and they weren't expecting you to sweat the details.

I don't question that Green Lanterns can talk to each other in space. I guess thier little power rings also double as walkie talkies or something. Those rings can do anything - thats one hell of way to retcon stuff.