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Dead Space 2: How Many Licks Does It Take to Get to the Center of a Necromorph?
adytum
The Inevitable RiseAnd FallRegistered User regular
The Inevitable RiseAnd FallRegistered User regular
Dead Space is a horror franchise created by the good folks at EA and Visceral Games. So far, there have been five games released in the series: Dead Space for the 360/PS3/PC (released October 2008), Dead Space: Extraction for the Wii (released late September 2009), the download-only Dead Space: Ignition, released on XBLA and PSN (also as a preorder bonus for DS2), Dead Space for the iPhone / iPod touch, and finally Dead Space 2 for 360/PS3/PC (both released January 2011). Beyond the games, other works in the franchise include: the animated films, Dead Space: Downfall and Dead Space: Aftermath; the novel detailing humanity's first interaction with a Marker, Dead Space: Martyr; and the graphic novel depicting the final fate of the Ishimura after Isaacs's escape, Dead Space: Salvage.
DS2 INFO: It's out!. Get it now!
So Isaac isn't having the greatest time. While he did successfully extinct the tar out of the necromorph menace on Aegis VII and got away physically intact, he's a bit high-strung from the knockout combo of PTSD, loss of his girlfriend, and the lingering mind-warping effects of the alien Marker, and has wound up a psychiatric patient aboard The Sprawl, a massive, city-sized space station near Saturn's moon Titan. Drifting in and out of consciousness, he awakens to find that the station is overrun with those goddamned necromorphs - truly there is no rest for the wicked nor the highly capable. Isaac must fight his way once again through the entire biomass of a spacefaring society, only this time, he's got some help...
Now, to the other individual games, spoilered to keep this post somewhat manageable (updates to this OP incoming for Ignition and the iPhone game!):
*Bits and pieces of this OP stolen shamelessly from 043's and Fawst's previous OPs.
DEAD SPACE (with included mini-faq if you need some plot refreshment or are just plain confused)
PC USERS TURN OFF V-SYNC - otherwise Isaac takes your input as a suggestion and mostly just looks at things when he feels like it (ie mouse lag). Also note that the game seems to be hard-coded around having a frame-rate of 60 FPS or less. If you are a PC user with a solid rig and still have profound control issues (ie the mouse sensitivity seems dreadful), you should look into forcing v-sync through your video card's control panel. You can do this manually with Nvidia cards by adjusting the the 3D settings for Dead Space (dead space.exe) and making sure Vertical Sync is Forced On. ATI users need to download Rivatuner and use its D3D Overrider to force v-sync. Thanks to Olivaw and Ninja Snarl P for the heads up here.
043 wrote:When the USG Ishimura (a Planet Cracker class mining ship) reports system failures throughout, and no more contact is established, the Concordance Extraction Corporation (CEC) sends the USG Kellion, thinking some simple COM problems are to blame.
Kendra, Hammond and Isaac Clarke (the player; who's girlfriend is stationed on the Ishimura) arrive with a bang, quickly discovering that whatever brought her down wasn't exactly mechanical failure. And that it needs to be taken care of before they can ever get home.
You play the role of Isaac, the engineer of the party, who generally remains silent and maintains his love of repairing various ship systems even as the shit hits the fan repeatedly around him. Gameplay is very similar to RE4 and RE5, with bits of other classics thrown in for good measure (System Shock 2, anyone?), and takes place over 12 separate chapters.
This game nails atmosphere. The entire experience is crafted to keep you unsettled, nervous, and very likely terrified throughout the extent of the game. Shadows of enemies behind you that eventuate into nothing? Check. The constant, overbearing sounds of a creaking metal ship which may or may not actually be space zombies crawling through the vents and stalking you? Check. Blood and bodies drifting through the harshness of open space? You better believe that is a check.
043 wrote:But what does it look like? Spoiler'd for HUEG!
Mini-FAQ (spoiler'd for size and for the fact that SPOILERS AHOY):
Q: What is the best weapon?
A: The Ripper. On this point no dissent will be tolerated...
...but actually, all of the weapons are useful when used and upgraded correctly and it mostly comes down to preference. Except the Flamer. Don't even bother with it unless you just like you're enemies to be on fire when they tear you to pieces.
Q: I wish there was an easy way to heal without going into the menu. Like maybe a button?
A: There is. There's a button for it. Y on 360, Triangle on PS3, bound to Q by default on PC. Unfortunately no such option for Stasis and Oxygen...
Q: This PC version sucks and I hate it because Isaac is slow to respond like a Canadian, eh?
A: Turn off v-sync under Visuals in the Options menu. No more input lag!
Q: So, about this Unitology stuff...
Q: So then the Marker is...
Q: What are necromorphs?
Q: Oh the ending has me aflutter with possibilities!
Q: One of the later chapters is a gaping black hole of plot!
Q: Why in the everloving hell were any people in that craphole of a star system in the first place?
A: The Ripper. On this point no dissent will be tolerated...
...but actually, all of the weapons are useful when used and upgraded correctly and it mostly comes down to preference. Except the Flamer. Don't even bother with it unless you just like you're enemies to be on fire when they tear you to pieces.
Q: I wish there was an easy way to heal without going into the menu. Like maybe a button?
A: There is. There's a button for it. Y on 360, Triangle on PS3, bound to Q by default on PC. Unfortunately no such option for Stasis and Oxygen...
Q: This PC version sucks and I hate it because Isaac is slow to respond like a Canadian, eh?
A: Turn off v-sync under Visuals in the Options menu. No more input lag!
Q: So, about this Unitology stuff...
A: It's a religion started about 200 years before the beginning of Dead Space, when an alien obelisk known as a Marker was discovered on Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. Earth government at the time did not want word to get out about there being extraterrestrial life, and it is heavily suggested that the discoverer was assassinated to hush him up. Unfortunately, this made him a bit of a martyr for the little cult he had started in the meantime, and it blossomed into a full-blown religion focusing on human transcendence through death. The Church is now appropriately rich and influential, which when combined with batshit insane fundamentalism means good times are sure to occur. And who could forget the ominous sounding "mausoleum ships"?
Q: So then the Marker is...
A: An alien artefact discovered on Earth. Well, the one in the game is actually a man-made copy. It suppresses the spread of necromorphs around it (hence the DEAD SPACE) and has the ability to influence the minds of people near it. Usually for the worse - we don't know if that's because it is an imperfect copy or if Markers just like people acting like shithouse rats when they are around. We do know that it just wants to BE MADE WHOLE AGAIN, or in actual non-crazy speak, it wants to be down on Aegis VII on its pedestal.
Q: What are necromorphs?
A: The reanimated flesh of the dead crew of the Ishimura, horribly twisted to make them good at making more dead crew. Why would they do this? Well, the necromorph species seems to involve a few things going on at once: a bacterium form, which was created artificially when it was discovered that the Marker contains its genetic instructions and that seems to turn dead flesh into creepy crawlies; it also attempts to change the environment to something suitable for the species. There are also massive necromorph growths which seem to be the results of that goal, along with a Hive Mind that may or may not have been around from the very beginning.
Q: Oh the ending has me aflutter with possibilities!
A: Word of God (Visceral Studios) is that Isaac survived. So whatever you want to think about Nicolo-morph (hallucination or one last necro to curbstomp), Isaac is still cocked, locked, and ready to rock in the sequel. Or maybe it was all a dream...
Secondly, Kendra is a twat and I liked watching her die. But she died so that we may know that the Earth government is filled with people just like her that hate the idea of the Marker, Necros, and research into them becoming public knowledge to such a degree that they're willing to do just about anything to cover it up, including sending an entire ship of incompetent marines to kill everything and everyone with fire. Which leads us to...
Secondly, Kendra is a twat and I liked watching her die. But she died so that we may know that the Earth government is filled with people just like her that hate the idea of the Marker, Necros, and research into them becoming public knowledge to such a degree that they're willing to do just about anything to cover it up, including sending an entire ship of incompetent marines to kill everything and everyone with fire. Which leads us to...
Q: One of the later chapters is a gaping black hole of plot!
A: Yup. A single necro, not of the type that infects people, takes out an entire military ship sent to chill in the system earlier and wait for shit to go down. Better still, the government knew shit was likely to go down, warned the ship of it, and still a single necro in an escape pod fucks an entire ship of marines. The less we think about this, the better.
Q: Why in the everloving hell were any people in that craphole of a star system in the first place?
A: The Ishimura was there planet-cracking. Cracking planets. Mining. Making money. This was illegal, however, because the government marked the system OFF-LIMITS earlier. The government did this because it had been doing research with its copy of the Marker and lab-created necros there, and decided that it had seen enough at some point and left it there. Later, during the the preparations to tear off a piece of the planet the size of Australia, the CEC found the Marker, people started going insane, necros come out of the woodwork, and the the Marker was brought up to the ship. Did I mention that Unitologists had infiltrated the CEC and staffed much of the Ishimura purposely with their ranks? Anyways, a shuttle with necros crashed into the Ishimura, and the rest is fairly self-explanatory...
DEAD SPACE: DOWNFALL
043 wrote:Dead Space: Downfall:
An animated prequel to the game, Downfall tells the story of the Ishimura before the Necromorph infestation. It is expected to release on DVD and BluRay on October 28th.
Bonus features include:
- Two exclusive codes for the game.
- Deleted scenes.
- Soundtrack.
- And a digital copy for BluRay owners ONLY.
You can probably get this pretty cheaply nowadays. For the most part, it provides some context for the events occurring prior to those of Dead Space on Aegis VII, although all told there isn't a lot in it that you can't figure out from the game itself. Haven't seen this myself, so I'm just passing on what I know. Feel free to elaborate in the thread!
DEAD SPACE: EXTRACTION
A Wii shooter-on-rails (and now a Playstation Move compatible bonus for early adopters of Dead Space 2 on the PS3), Extraction is a direct prequel to the original. You actually play several characters over the course of the game, and interact with several others, including Nicole, Isaac's girlfriend. It's honestly a good game, so if you have access to a Wii I highly recommend it (it should be dropping in price precipitously as it sold terribly, probably because it had this boxart:
If you don't have access to a Wii, you can watch the game being played all the way through on youtube. You can also just read my quick and dirty synopsis below:
You start out as a worker on the colony on Aegis VII after the Marker has been uncovered. Everyone around you goes crazy, you fight back, only to discover at the end of the chapter that you are in fact the crazy one when you are killed by security personnel. One month later, you take control of the chief of security on the colony that is now overrun with necromorphs and insane colonists. You manage to reach a shuttle to the Ishimura, but not before finding a 20 year-old woman named Lexine Murdoch and one Dr. Warren Eckhart. When approaching the Ishimura in the shuttle, you are fired upon by the ship's guns and crash land into the ship, where you are captured by the ship's security forces. Nicole examines your group of survivors, while the ship is quickly overrun by necros. Shooty stuff occurs, and you take control of a worker in the hydroponics section of the ship who meets up with the rest of the surviving group. We find out that Eckhart is a Unitologist, and the worker is killed by a necro as he flees the scene. You regain control of the security officers, the group decides that the only way off the ship is on an executive shuttle, and they split up so that one part can disable the automated guns (so they aren't shot as they attempt to leave) while the other preps it. Eckhart reveals that Lexine is significant to the Unitologist's plans before he is killed by a necromorph. More shooty stuff occurs, and the three remaining members of the group (Lexine and the two playable security officers) make it into a shuttle and take off. As they leave the ship, they hear the transmission from the Kellion but cannot respond. Suddenly, a necro attacks...
We do know that Lexine plays a part in the sequel, so the attack may not be real. In any case, she is special because the Marker has no effect on her.
We do know that Lexine plays a part in the sequel, so the attack may not be real. In any case, she is special because the Marker has no effect on her.
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Anyone suggest the Force Gun this time around? Worth it?
anyway, the lack of general store availability early on in the game really makes your started inventory size hurt. mebbe i just wasn't getting hit much, but after min-maxing for DS1's impossible mode, it pains me to leave a health pack on the ground cause i don't have room for it
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
So whats the PS3 vs 360 verdict on DS2?
3DS: 1521-4165-5907
PS3: KayleSolo
Live: Kayle Solo
WiiU: KayleSolo
MAJOR END GAME SPOILERS
Loved how Issac looked to side expecting Nicole to jump out at him again and Ellie was like "What?".
Had a feeling that there were going to be multiple markers, those Unitologists don't fuck around.
Maybe Issac will go on a Marker destroying crusade in the next game.
I think that if the PS3 version hadn't come with the full HD version of Extraction that I would have rather rented it.
As for the PS3 vs Xbox 360:
The PS3 version ran perfect, without any slow down whatsoever.
Plus it comes with the full version of Extraction and only has one disc as opposed to the swapping on the 360.
I'm sure once Digital Foundry does it's thing, it'll uncover some minor differences but nothing major.
Overall I think the PS3 version is the way to go on this one.
same here. i understand that a store is generally available once a chapter, but unlike in the first game, you can't backtrack and sell/bank your excess as you progress. a lot of the stores are stuck behind one-way doors or broken vent sequences. :?
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
3DS: 1521-4165-5907
PS3: KayleSolo
Live: Kayle Solo
WiiU: KayleSolo
I lulz'ed.
Do all new PS3 copies of Dead Space 2 come with Extraction?
And what's Ignition?
There is no regular controller option?
I would like to play it but I have no desire to purchase Move or a Wii to do so.
PSN: Corbius
Yes first run on PS3 comes with Extraction. Ignition is a shitty/so-so mini-game collection wrapped in a motion comic wrapper that leads directly into Dead Space 2.
No, you can use a regular PS3 controller if you want and use thumb sticks.
And... Is Extraction worth the $15 it costs stand alone? Because I'd really, really rather get the PC version.
Wow, first I heard of that. This is good to know. I'm also in the "no Move for me" camp.
not only that, but the inkblot that certain fans got in the mail makes an appearance too
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
One.
licks it again
Two.
licks and bites necromorph, gets horrifically disemboweled
*cough*...three...three licks....urk...
let's not go there. dead space has already inspired some horrific fanfics
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Hooray! My room isn't big enough for the Move stuff to work properly anyway.
PSN: Corbius
So you have a PS3 and you want the game on PC. Do you have any Move controllers? PC version will probably look the prettiest, and having the game on Steam is a good thing, but the PS3 version comes with Extraction for free. If you are willing to pay the extra money so you can have it both ways, a simple way to see if it is worth the 15 bucks for you is to just read a couple reviews for Extraction on the Wii and then just imagine it HDafied.
Just to cover my ass, mind you I'm 99% sure on this because I was playing and I paused the game with my move controller. Then without thinking I accidentally picked up the regular controller when I was ready to start playing again and it said player 2 has joined the game. I didn't actually play at that point I just exited and restarted the level so I wouldn't have to wrestle with 2 controllers at once. I'd say that makes it a safe bet though.
An hour or two, though there is an achievement for beating it in 25 min not counting cutscenes, which is most of the game.
PS: Put the PA comic in the OP.
Oh no, I have castrated this man, and this alien recombinant virus has infected the dead penis!
Apparently it's supposed to detonate all the rivets you've fired so far
If this is true I may have found my new favorite gun
The Unitologists worship the Marker, and the captain of the Ishimura was a Unitologist sent to retrieve it under the guise of an illegal mining mission.
The Unitologists talk about a transformation - is this turning into a necromorph? Where do the necromorphs come from, in the first place? Does the Marker generate them, somehow, or are they a separate alien menace? If the Hive Mind was destroyed and they're still attacking, I guess it's not that important, since there are still hostile necromorphs.
Was any of this explained or hinted at in the first game, or the other satellite games? I don't recall.
Yes.
The Marker (both of them) broadcast a genetic code for the necromorph virus, it was scientists using that code that created the actual virus.
In Dead Space: Salvage it looks like there's another Hive Mind that develops on the Ishimura after the events of DS1, but it's not clear if it actually is or the artist just re-used the design in lieu of creating a new giant necromorph. In any case, I don't think the Hive Mind on Aegis VII was the ultimate controlling force of all necromorphs everywhere.
worse than that, and it was actually posted on EA's official forums.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
You are 100% correct sir, it works just fine with the standard sixaxis controller. I have it on Wii and played it without Move on the PS3. I really enjoy using the controller a little more than pointing the whole time. It's not as much of a strain on the arm, but that's probably how I hold the controller. Though it is a little laggy on the movement at times, but not anything troublesome just yet.
PS3 Trophies
Xbox | x Dredgen Yor x |
Check out the Dead Space Wiki, it answers a lot of your questions with info from the Dead Space books and games.
This article explains pretty much everything about Unitology, its founding and its beliefs.
http://deadspace.wikia.com/wiki/Unitology
The multiplayer is decent at best. I played it for about 45 mins to try it out then got bored and went back to the single player.
A lot of players don't realize they have to work together to achieve goals and just run around killing and stomping Necromorphs.
I consider that more of a bonus add on than standalone feature.
I'll play it every so often just to butcher some human players as the Necromorphs but I wouldn't play religiously, haha.
I've heard mostly good things about multi, in the vein that it isn't groundbreaking or even all that "great", but it is fun and serviceable in short bouts. IGN is the only publication that I've seen thus far, completely shit on multiplayer.
The Marker is sentient, and causes hallucinations to allow people to make more Markers, and also to use the Markers to keep the necromorphs from spreading. Whether the nasty hallucinations are caused by the Red Marker as a bad copy, or by the necromorphs, or by the Hive Mind, is uncertain. It is also possible that the Marker madness overwhelms people even if it's supposed to help.
The Red Marker was made by a team including Unitology's founder, Altman, who was killed by the government and martyred, potentially on purpose to make the religion more popular. When there was a necromorph outbreak/madness outbreak, the Red Marker was deemed too dangerous and buried on Aegis VII, and the Black Marker has been hidden by the government somewhere unknown.
So basically we don't really know any real answers yet, unless they're in 2.
Xbox | x Dredgen Yor x |
So the Black Marker did in fact create Necromorphs and also caused hallucinations in Humans. Once the goverment found it they reverse engineered it but it was a flawed copy since it wasn't made out of the same material as the original which is an unknown material not found anywhere on Earth. It also caused the madness like the original Black Marker did but also had a "Dead Space" around it that stops the Necromorph DNA from initiating recombination and makes it go dormant.
Then the Government put the copy on Aegis VII to observe/experiment with it and that's when the first outbreak of Necromorphs occurred on Aegis VII. Almost everyone was killed during the ourbreat but a few of the surviving scientists lead by Dr. Eando Dukaj, created a pedestal, that one of the members claimed to have seen in a vision, most likely made by the marker, that could amplify the "Dead Space" made by the marker in the hopes of stopping the Necromorphs from spreading, and hopefully giving them a chance at survival. The team succeeded in making the pedestal and locked the Hive Mind and the rest of the infection with it on Aegis VII. That's when the Government placed the ban on Aegis VII to prevent another outbreak from occurring.
So the Red Marker didn't actually create the Necromorphs, it was the scientists that did from the genetic code written on the marker. The Red Marker actually WANTED to contain the outbreak so it told the scientists how to build the pedestal and also later on told Issac to put it back onto the pedestal.
We're not sure if the original Black Maker also has a will of it's own or where it is now.
I copy and pasted some info from:
http://deadspace.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Marker
I love the whole Dead Space mythos/universe, I hope it's all explained in the next game.