Dead Space: Complete Incompletion

posted by Jaitu at 12:46

I finished Dead Space a couple of days ago and am happy to report that it remained consistently excellent right through to the finish. There are a number of achievements that I have not yet picked up but, as previously detailed, the game does indeed allow you to begin a 'round 2' from the very beginning but with any suit/weapon upgrades carried over. One little additional detail is that the second play through is exactly the same as if you were starting a new game. The opening cinematic must be watched, the control introductions pop up again and despite having the powered up armour, weapon collection, credits and nodes you will not be able to use special abilities such as Stasis or Kenesis until the plot introduces you to them a second time. This can be a little odd at first as techniques that have become second nature are suddenly stripped from you.
I have begun the second run and having completed round one using nothing but the Plasma Cutter (to grab the 'One Gun' achievement) am now trying to dispatch as many biomorph as possible using the two other weapons currently in my inventory. I won't be able to use any of the others that I picked up before until I get to one of the STORE locations and change them out.
I also made a point of beginning an Impossible difficulty campaign and getting the first save point stashed away.

Dead Space: Room To Breath

posted by Jaitu at 07:50

I got back to the point I was at on the not-quite-hardest level and have moved on further. Last night I made may way through the hydroponics level and cleared the atmosphere before continuing on to the beginning of chapter seven and calling it a night.
While I'm about it I've decided to playthrough the whole game using nothing but the basic Plasma Cutter in order to pick up yet another achievement. Once I start the second run through I'll start using the other weapons to get their respective points.

A Weekend Of Restarts And Do-Overs: Halo3, Dead Space, Pinball FX

posted by Jaitu at 07:49

This weekend had a definite feeling of 'again-ness' to it. Quite apart from spending a sizable chunk of it putting glass back into places the previous owners of our house had removed it from; re-painting a wall that has seen four different colours in the few years we've been living here; climbing a ladder in the conservatory to tidy paint work (something I have done too many times to count recently); and, finally, scratching myself to pieces while constructing our artificial Christmas Tree for the fourth or fifth time in about as many years. The last couple of days gaming has also been of an 'again' nature.

Dead Space.
In the last post I discovered that the Dead Space achievement for completing the game on the hardest difficulty could not be gained by simply choosing the hardest difficulty and piling in. The truly hardest difficulty is not available as an option until you complete the game for the first time. So having struggled my way to chapter five of twelve I decided to give up on the campaign and begin again on easy. My aim now is to play through to the end, picking up as many achievements as I can along the way. I'm already not far from where I left off. Once I'm given the option for the 'Impossible Mode' I'll start a game of it and save a checkpoint so that I can return later. Then, I'll go back to the last save of the Easy campaign and finish it again. The reason for that is you can then begin the campaign on easy a second time but with all the resources you have collected on the first play through. This is in order to tidy up the other achievements which cannot be done on a single play through. The Impossible mission can wait for a time in the future when I wish to torture myself - a time that may never come.

Halo 3.
Techmaster and I continued our Legendary Halo 3 campaign yesterday. We managed to tick off 'The Ark' but in truth we could probably have completed another chapter as well if we had made better decisions and not suffered some poor luck. Firstly we should not have spent way more than half an hour trying fruitlessly to grab the Famine Skull. Secondly had the game not stuttered to a halt before throwing us out two thirds into the chapter and requiring us restart from the beginning (after more than two hours of play) we would likely have gotten further.

Pinball FX.
Lastly, I've been playing Pinball FX again. I like it because it's a game that allows you to come and go as you please. There are no long scripted missions that you can't walk away from until you reach an arbitrary check point or save location. It's simply an excellently put together pinball game. I say it allows you to walk away, in truth it doesn't. It is so packed to the bumpers with the magic of just-one-more-go that a new ball is being fired into the table as soon as the last of the previous game has disappeared from view.

Dead Space: Harder Than I Thought

posted by Jaitu at 07:57

I've been playing Dead Space recently and it's proving to be a fairly excellent third-person-shooter with plenty of tension and more than a few horror surprises.
I decided from the outset to play through on the hardest difficulty setting in order to get the 'Epic Tier 3 Engineer' achievement which is worth a substantial 150 gamer points. The description for the achievement is "Complete the game on the hardest difficulty setting". So I launched myself in and have toiled as far as chapter 5 of 12 so far.
BUT NOW!
Now I have just learned that the 'hardest' difficulty isn't actually available until you complete the game at least once. On completion a hidden option of 'Impossible' becomes available and it's this level of difficulty that'll allow the achievement.
Well, crap. I'm now sorely tempted to restart the whole thing on easy and play through it to get all the other achievements - which in themselves require at least two plays through to accrue.
By all accounts 'easy' is significantly easier than the level I'm currently playing on so I should, at least, be able to get back to where I am in a few hours.

Catching Up: GRID, HALO3, Penny Arcade, Dead Space

posted by Jaitu at 18:31

It's been a little while so here's a quick run down of what's been played in the meantime.
In no particular order.

Penny Arcade Adventures : On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness - Episode Two.
The adventure continues with Tycho and Gabe. Some (very) small tweaks to the controls improve the environment investigation. The story continues on a pace and the humour remains top PA fayre. I had a system crash during the final boss battle but other than that I enjoyed the second installment even more than the first.

Race Driver: GRID.
I haven't actually played this since almost the last post. I think I'm at the top tier of competition now. My only gripe, and it's a pathetic one that I have with all racing games of this nature, is that the rounds become increasingly long and include more races. This makes it harder to pick up and play for a quick gaming hit. I'm at the stage now where to complete a round involves maybe four races that each take ten minutes or more to finish.

HALO 3.
Techmaster and I managed to hook up online long enough to complete another two chapters on Legendary. I'm still peeved that you must complete the whole chapter in one sitting for it to count. We'll have to go back and run one again as despite having gone more than half-way through when we picked it up again from a checkpoint only about a third in the chapter wasn't marked as done when we finished it.

Dead Space.
I picked this up a month or so ago but found it almost impossible to play at the time. I was suffering from flu and the third person viewpoint gave me terrible motion sickness so I put it to one side (and played through Penny Arcade Adventures instead). Returning later I hit a bit of a choke point - I had decided to tackle it on the hardest setting from the get go - but once past that the game picked up some momentum and I've really been enjoying it.