Dead Space 2

Dan · 01 February, 2011, 11:07:37 AM

The hardcore achievement is at least not as hard as Zealot (well until you add the no checkpoints etc thing) by which I mean to say that most reports I've read place the enemies at the Survivalist level of difficulty.

It's still probably one of the hardest chuffing achievements I've ever seen, I'm going to give it a go one day but I have no expectations of success :/

Have you seen the reward for completing it? It's immense

bluemeanie · 01 February, 2011, 01:00:35 PM

I've gotten as far as walking through the medical looking bit in the total dark using just the torch and an empty wheelchair rolling past an open doorway.... so about 15 minutes in.

I'm such a girl with games its depressing. Gonna go back to it tonight though

bluemeanie · 01 February, 2011, 11:20:39 PM

Wife was taking the piss out of me so I made her sit and watch while I played for 10 minutes

she's a lot quieter now... apart from the "WHY would anyone play this? Its not fun! Its horrible!"

Keef Monkey · 02 February, 2011, 10:50:32 AM

Quote from: bluemeanie on 01 February, 2011, 11:20:39 PM
Wife was taking the piss out of me so I made her sit and watch while I played for 10 minutes

she's a lot quieter now... apart from the "WHY would anyone play this? Its not fun! Its horrible!"

Ha nice! Sounds like my missus watching a Left 4 Dead session, she has some kind of breakdown.

Gonna start another run on this tonight I think, amp up the difficulty a wee bit and see how I get on. Those achievements won't earn themselves! Although looking at how tough some of them are I might not earn them either.

Dan · 02 February, 2011, 11:17:54 AM

Finished my normal run last night and I got those same wife-noises! [spoiler]The eye machine made her scream when I f*cked it up and got a face full of drill[/spoiler]. Mine's a gamer too though so she joins in with the l4d sessions happily for me

The difficulty really ramps up for those last few chapters! I am very dubious about trying it on a harder difficulty as it was tres frustrating in some sections.

How many achievements did you manage to grab on your first game Keef? I'm missing a bunch of the weapon ones, the crawley babies, decompression and limb severing ones (and the difficulties aswell of course

). Tempted to run through on casual for lols and to clean up that stuff and gear up for a zealot attempt ;o

Keef Monkey · 02 February, 2011, 01:03:32 PM

Got a fair whack (sitting on 29/50), what's left seems mainly do-able. I'm probably about the same as you, need the baby one, the decompression and the weapon ones, so I reckon they'll come as I play it through on the harder modes (if I can manage them)! Stumbled upon the Peng treasure this time, needed a guide to find it in DS1!

Keef Monkey · 04 February, 2011, 07:35:07 PM

Double post! Finished it again last night in the wee small hours, this time on Survivalist difficulty. Kicked off a Zealot difficulty run too, so far I haven't noticed any difference to be honest. Am a bit concerned by the hardcore mode though (no checkpoints and only 3 saves) but think I'll give it a bash!

Dan · 07 February, 2011, 10:26:32 AM

Nice! I went straight from normal game to zealot and similarly didn't notice much difference. The large black necros tended to 1 shot me but with fully upgraded rig, stasis and weps it was a bit of a breeze to be honest.

Sat on 49/50 cheevos now. Had a hard core attempt on sunday afternoon. Got to half way through chap 2 and died at the train bit. It is such a big difference doing it with the crappy default suit and plasma cutter!! Might have to plump for the supernova DLC pack to get a better suit and force gun from the start ;o

Keef Monkey · 07 February, 2011, 06:24:49 PM

Quote from: Dan on 07 February, 2011, 10:26:32 AM
Nice! I went straight from normal game to zealot and similarly didn't notice much difference. The large black necros tended to 1 shot me but with fully upgraded rig, stasis and weps it was a bit of a breeze to be honest.

Sat on 49/50 cheevos now. Had a hard core attempt on sunday afternoon. Got to half way through chap 2 and died at the train bit. It is such a big difference doing it with the crappy default suit and plasma cutter!! Might have to plump for the supernova DLC pack to get a better suit and force gun from the start ;o

I have to admit I resorted to a dlc pack in DS1 when I hit a brick wall halfway through Impossible mode! Picked up the military pack which got me through a tough patch. I wouldn't normally condone paying for dlc like that, but it was that or give up, and that wasn't happening!

Have been trying to figure out where the best spots to save in Hardcore would be (definitely will be saving immediately before the [spoiler]eye poker[/spoiler] because I'm awful at that and die every time.

radiator · 07 February, 2011, 06:39:33 PM

Must admit that Dead Space never appealed to me on an aesthetic level - not keen on the Hellraiser/Event Horizon side of horror which this reminds me of, but the word of mouth on this is so good that I may check it out at some point - don't really have time for videogames at the mo and I still haven't finished Dead Nation and only just scratched the surface on Gran Turismo 5!

Dan · 08 February, 2011, 09:33:05 AM

If you enjoy survival horror and especially "cinematic" game storytelling then I can't recommend DS2 highly enough. I'd sure play DS1 through first as it's also excellent.

I'm looking forward to the forthcoming DLC.

Keef Monkey · 08 February, 2011, 10:00:49 AM

Apparently there's a bit of an exploit on hardcore mode in that the game has to create a checkpoint to switch discs. So if you can get through the first couple of hours without dying then you'll hit disc 2 and you've got a checkpoint to work with (until you reboot obviously). So you've got that and your 3 saves. I reckon that's do-able, but it does mean putting aside a large chunks of time to play it (think I can manage that)!

You should try it Radiator, you can get the first game dirt-cheap these days. The sequel is better, but DS1 still holds up really well.

Keef Monkey · 15 February, 2011, 04:56:50 PM

Think I may be close to cracking this Hardcore mode malarkey. Have used my last save about 10 minutes before the finale, so it's looking likely I might actually make it. Them's a tough 10 minutes though.

Dan · 15 February, 2011, 05:02:40 PM

Wow well done. I am beginning to suspect that I don't have the patience needed for it. Another attempt at the weekend saw me dying at the "hanging from a train" bit in chapter 3. I haven't even made it to my first save :/

Got any tips? It's frustrating being on 49/50 :O

Keef Monkey · 15 February, 2011, 07:14:46 PM

Honestly, I don't know! I played it on normal, then survivalist, then zealot, so by the time I was onto Hardcore I knew the game so well that the first few hours weren't too tough. Blind luck for a lot of it though. Best advice I got was to only carry 2 weapons, the game drops ammo based on your loadout, so the if you're only carrying your 2 favorites you'll have plenty of ammo for them generally (pulse rifle and force gun for me).

Save-wise you really want to hold off saving until about chapter 10 or 11, as then you can pop another save after the[spoiler] drill ride[/spoiler] and use the last one right at the end. If I'd died a couple of hours in I don't know if I would have persevered, but I got very, very lucky a lot!

I do have one of the dlc packs (the packs all give you a couple of different suits and some weapons). I wouldn't normally go for that kind of dlc, it's a bit money-grabbing I think, but to jump into a really good suit early on is a godsend in hardcore.