You know, for what Vandal did in the previous chapter, I feel like Tiedemann's reaction is pretty subdued. Maybe it's just a form of management that when you want the one person who can fix a situation to be the same person who caused the situation to be exponentially worse, you shouldn't verbally destroy them.
I feel like IronMonkey including a section where Vandal was walking in space (on the outside of the station) existed for two reasons, and none of them I think are particularly great reasons. The first being that Issac did it in Dead Space so they included it here. Secondly, because RIGs have an oxygen meter, you should have a sequence where you actually need to be aware of your oxygen levels. The problem with this is that you then cannot create an area for Vandal to pass through that requires more than 60 seconds of oxygen if the player never upgraded their oxygen levels with Power Nodes because then you create a softlock. The solution to this is to have oxygen refill stations, at least one so Vandal can refill at a point where they can still make it through the area without dying. And then when you throw enemies into the mix (on the return trip), there is not a lot of tension about running out of oxygen because you can just have Vandal fox guarding the oxygen refill station while killing the set number of enemies the game throws at you. The solution to this would be to have enemies infinitely spawn and you just need to avoid them or kill them between the refill station and the exit.
And then there are two hallucinations which have been lacking the last couple of chapters, the first with the Brute jumpscare in the storage room, and the second with Vandal passing through a door into a desert where there's a Marker and then a smash cut to Vandal back on The Sprawl. I also love the tone of Vandal's voice, like they are exhausted and are on the verge of giving up and into the reality of the hallucinations. It might seem rough, to have zero transition between the desert and being back on the station, but I love that IronMonkey had the guts to try something so potentially jarring and not have any kind of polish to it. I only wish that I had turned around before continuing to see if the door back to The Sprawl was still there or if it disappeared when you passed through.
Then we get an anomaly for the game, a Bench, and a Store halfway through the chapter. As far as game mechanics go, this is as good of an indication that there is about to be a battle that you should bulk up for. Buy that Level 4 RIG if you haven't already, spend all your Power Nodes, and buy more ammo with any leftover credits.
Before we get to the Brute battle, let's briefly talk about the corruption that's spreading around The Sprawl. In Dead Space and Dead Space 2, whenever Issac walked on/through this stuff, his feet would stick and his speed would slow, forcing you to walk. Most of the time, the corruption was used as a form of environmental atmosphere but would occasionally be placed in areas where you would encounter Necromorphs as a way of adding a hazard to combat. In Dead Space (Mobile), while the corruption is physically scattered throughout the station, there is no effect, either audible or physical. I could not find anything from IronMonkey about it being an oversight or omitted due to technical limitations, and from what I could tell, this room where you fight the Brute was the only significant instance of corruption being heavily used in a combat area. Now, I am eternally thankful that the corruption does not actually do anything apart from looking a bit icky.
And then comes the doozy of sanity effects, that while fairly well implemented, is now a little outdated. The moment two more Brutes burst into the room after clearing it of additional Necromorphs, there is a red low battery flashing in the upper left corner of the screen. Your screen then goes black, presumably giving the impression that you will either be killed by the Brutes or that the game would not have saved your progress and you will have to start the chapter over from the beginning. But then you briefly see the start/load screen from Dead Space. Then there is the pop-up text of "Confront your fears," which I don't know if it's purposefully misleading or what it meant to have the computer terminal located behind the door? I also recognize that I probably should not have wasted all of that ammo shooting at the Marker and the door. It had been seven years since I last played and I couldn't specifically remember what you needed to do.
Then, once you do use the two terminals, you have the hallway to run down where nothing specific happens other than the station completely disappearing and there being a hallway filled with hanging corpses and red fog. Only for you to end up back where you presumably started, back at the terminal in front of the Marker in the desert. In this instance when you see an image of Vandal running towards you, this time I decided to shoot the duplicate since all of the previous times it had turned into a Necromorph so I am willing to bet that something similar would have happened, and then still taking you back to the room where you fought the Brute.
Finally, there is the last zero oxygen sequence with the aforementioned spawning Necromorphs, which really only became tense when the screen became more and more filled with torn assets and finding that tapping the O2 button to refill the oxygen tank took a couple of attempts. I honestly could have done without this battle sequence but I can understand the need to justify having a zero oxygen battle sequence, again for the reasons I already went into back up at the top.
And then to have the chapter fade out in another one of those endless hallways, I was not happy about. I think I just really like chapters that start/end at trams, but only if you don't have to worry about a tram sequence at the end of the chapter. Or at least at the end of chapters 9 and 10.
CHAPTER 12: YESTERDAY'S PROBLEM
I have mixed feelings about Chapter 12. On one hand, all it is is a Bench and Store stock-up followed up by a needlessly long traverse ending in the final boss fight. I get the long jumping down to the floor of the reactor core as a way to show scale of the reactor core and the extent of the spread of the corruption, but then why include so many places you can jump to that are out of the way and take upwards of 15 seconds? Maybe if the traversal was made a little more interesting with ammo to collect along the way, it might have made those nearly eight minutes a little bit more palatable. And I am not talking about there being combat encounters either to further eat up your ammo before the BBEG, just something to make the downward jump/climb to the bottom of the reactor a little more interesting.
And once you are down there, I think my game had a little bit of a hiccup as it took 11 seconds for Vandal to react to the Necromorph Boss just hanging there. Maybe I just needed to move?
The fight against the Boss (because there is no other name given) is pretty straightforward as far as Dead Space bosses go. You dodge the big thing it swings at you (a proboscis in this case I think), and the slow-moving projectiles, and aim for the bright yellow puss-filled sacs. That being said, I again acknowledge that my aim really sucks. I was thankful though that when I died, that I did not have to start the boss fight over from the beginning and that it was only from the halfway point. I probably also should have died on that second attempt with all the times the RIG announced that my health was critical, so I'll just chalk it up to dumb luck that I was able to regenerate just enough health to sustain another hit. Ultimately, I like that IronMonkey did not try to do too much with the actual mechanics of the battle, in that had this been on a console or PC, I could have seen the decision to require Vandal to use kinesis on the drill thing that pummels the boss at the end for the killing blow. Or even needing to move around the stage more, maybe using the zero-g jumping mechanic.
I am also thankful that there wasn't as much screen and asset tearing going on from when I first played the game because back then, I couldn't see almost half of the screen.
And that brings Dead Space (Mobile) to a close. Chapter 11 was a great mix of concise combat and a mix of sanity effects, some of which I would classify as the highlight of the game, with Chapter 2 being a very close second. Chapter 12 being essentially just a boss fight with an overly long opening sequence could have been trimmed, but I have already talked about that just a hundred words earlier.
As for the entire game, I don't think I realized how much of the middle-late chapters came across as filler and how much I really disliked the tram stages in Chapters 9 and 10. I know that part of my problems throughout the game had to do with the screen recording widget and the two previous times I had played, I played through on Easy difficulty with this being the first time playing through on Normal; although I think that really only colored my perception of the tram in Chapters 9 and 10.
I would love if this game was somehow resurrected by EA Games, assuming that they hold all rights to the entire Dead Space franchise, and maybe with the success of the Dead Space reboot Dead Space 2 will be remade along with Dead Space Extraction and Dead Space (Mobile). I'm not holding my breath though because of how much of a departure IronMonkey took with its approach to sanity effects compared to how Issac Clarke experienced his (poorly named) dementia. The transition to console would take a bit of work, but I still think it would be possible as the game still very much holds up 12 years after its initial release.
So if you are wondering, yes, I still love Dead Space (Mobile), and is likely my second favorite game in the entire original franchise just behind the first Dead Space. It is not without its flaws, but there are very few games I have played that I would categorize as flawless and I would highly recommend anyone with an Android phone capable of playing this game to do so because it is still that good of a survival horror game.
Nightmare Creatures is a game that I started one afternoon back in 1999 and probably was not given a fair chance as I played for maybe 10-15 minutes before I stopped. All I remember was that I did not like the control setup and I think it might have been too actiony for what I was looking for in a survival horror game. With that in mind, I never made it out of the opening area in the streets of London, so I never ended up going up against any bosses, sewers, or otherwise.
When I watched a playthrough of the Sewer Snake boss fight, I was a little disappointed in how the audio mix felt very muted; it could have also been the settings with the music lower than the sound effects. But it was difficult to hear the amazing organ intro over the sound of the creature roaring and belching fire throughout the stage. Once the drums and guitars come in, at around 10 seconds, the music becomes even more difficult to discern from all of the other sound effects happening, which is really sad because this is some great high-energy boss music. And good luck even hearing anything of that baseline in-game either.
Just a fun theme to play if you find yourself in the sewers and have to battle a 12+ foot tall multiheaded fire-breathing snake. Just another typical Wednesday night in 1834 London.
Oh boy, Chapter 9 is where I almost stopped playing because I felt that I might have hit a skill wall or not used my Power Nodes as efficiently as possible, but we will get to this frustration at the end of the chapter.
Similar to Tiedemann's call with Vandal to help remind the player of their overall goal, Vandal creates another journal entry to document their actions, their goal, and how history might view them in revealing the actions of the Church of Unitology. It is a nice touch that works in-game (since people in the Dead Space universe like to leave audio logs just lying around) that doesn't insult the player with the way they are being reminded of what they are doing, because grinding up and severing waves of Necromorphs through after hallway upon hallway of a space/moon station, why you are doing what you are doing can get a little murky.
I like that the corruption is becoming more prevalent as you get closer to where the Necromorphs are congregating and as over two hours have passed (assuming that real-world time equates to in-game time, which would make sense) since Vandal started sabotaging systems back in Chapter 1. I also like that you start to see more hallways blocked up with furniture and objects in an attempt to block the Necromorph advance. It has frequently been one of the weaker points in Dead Space (Mobile) (as well as Dead Space 2) that rarely if ever come across anybody doing anything or just fleeing from Necromorphs. Even if someone is running away from you down a hall only to get picked off by a Necromorph crawling out of a vent, the best we have here is evidence of an attempted blockade. There are plenty of instances though of Necromorphs crawling through intersections of hallways or into vents as Vandal enters a room, and I love that too, in part because it is one less Necromorph that I have to use ammo on, but also because it means that they are doing something that does not involve Vandal.
And here we get Vandal's third death when I tried to be conservative in my usage of Ripper blades and take on a Pregnant and Swarmers with just a Plasma Cutter. That is a bad approach and should be avoided at all costs. The Line Gun with a healthy dose of kinesis on the other head is great for taking off a Pregnant's legs followed by subsequent stomps until they drop a four-pack of Ripper blades.
Ah, the Core Extractor, aka the BFG of the Dead Space franchise. That is really all I am going to say at the moment about this weapon since I don't really use it until much later in the playthrough.
In the battle against the Brute, you will have to excuse my poor playing skills, just standing there while letting it run right into me. Then running into its slowed arm as I unsuccessfully try to make my way around to its backside. I get that the game is urging you to use the Core Extractor what with Tyler talking about its secondary function as you enter the room with the Brute, and the three Core Extractor ammo drops around the room, but again, I wanted to stockpile that ammo for later; also because I tend to stockpile rare consumables until the very last minute.
And then comes the tram section of the stage, being in my opinion, the hardest area in the entire game, taking me a grand total of nine attempts to finally pass. It was just a difficult combination of enemies in the order that they appear in, made all the more troublesome by the asset tearing going on creating a major visual distraction.
I genuinely don't know how/why the game exited from the tram stage back to the main menu, maybe there was a failsafe that after you die a certain number of times, the game takes you back so you can take a break. It was at this point that I started thinking about the tram stages in general. Their look and construction seem similar to the trams used by Issac in the first Dead Space, but here, Vandal rides on top like they are in some kind of double-decker bus situation. I then started to wish that there was an option to skip these tram stages by opting to stay inside the tram. Maybe have the option to fight Necromorphs on the tram as a chance to gain more credits or Power Nodes, or just skip the tram fights and arrive safely at your destination.
What is interesting about this chapter is that it is primarily all about traversal. You do pick up the Core Extractor, and you do get some items from Tyler (somehow that is never explained where he is and how he is managing to follow you physically unless he is literally one floor above you), there were no significant hallucinations or effects from the Marker, and you do fight a Brute, but there is nothing here that felt absolutely necessary to progress the story. You could just as easily have exited the tram, found the Core Extractor, then got on another tram and started Chapter 10.
CHAPTER 10: REVERSAL
So what I was doing in that first room, where I turned around and went back into the tram station was because the second door, next to the door I had just passed through, confused me. At first, I could not figure out if that door was just a misplaced asset, but based on its location in relation to the Store, one could surmise that it was for staff to access and restock the Store. That might be me just making something up, but it would answer the question as to how the stores are stocked, especially if there is more than one suit that someone would choose to upgrade to when the station was not infested with Necromorphs.
For your first ride on the Gondola, I love that by this point in the game, you come to recognize some level of game design and this area is designed to run around and fight Necromorphs. The only thing that would have been better is if there had been a box or two to break open, which is what I was looking for when I first entered and was running around. And that is the brilliant thing here, is that nothing happens. You do receive the calls from Tiedemann and Tyler, but for 70 seconds, it is just Vandal alone, with the tension building the entire time. Would the Necromorphs attack midway through the ride, or right after the gondola docks and before the doors unlock. I think it's a brilliant choice.
In the Crossover Seal Control Room is where one of the few cutscenes takes place, which makes sense because you are supposed to see a lot that you could miss or gloss over in a hurry. It is also supposed to make clear to the player what Tyler has been manipulating Vandal to do the entire game. It's nice to see the close-up of the security camera as the Necromorphs break into the Crossover Tube as well as the animation of them flooding the Crossover Tube, if anything to help orient the player as to what is happening where on the Sprawl. I am not sure if the warbly sounding alarm as Tyler is talking to Vandal is an audio glitch or if it is supposed to play so much louder, but I am a little sad that it played over the last time Vandal talked with Tyler.
And then, on your ride back on the gondola to the Titan Shard, you run into the Necromorphs. Although, more kudos to the developers for waiting a good 20 seconds after the gondola starts, potentially giving the player the impression that once again, they will not be attacked. I know that I probably should have used other weapons besides the Line Gun, or at least swapped between other guns, but a lot of this had to do with the placement of the screen recording widget, which again made touching the menu button a little finicky. I probably should have also used stasis a lot more frequently than I did, but because there was so much room to run and there were never so many enemies on screen at one time (likely to reduce the difficulty for touchscreen controls and (maybe?) for engine limitations of having too many enemies on the screen at one time).
Something else that was interesting was that the gondola ride back took 3 minutes 26 seconds, which I had originally thought was from me needing to kill all of the scripted Necromorphs before the gondola could dock, but there was that one last Pregnant roaming around before the lockdown was lifted.
I do love that reveal of the hallway leading back to the tram station, where you see the direct and immediate effect of Vandal releasing the Necromorphs into and out of the Crossover Tube. Just this long hallway filled with corpses of people who fewer than five minutes ago had all been alive and possibly on their way home from whatever job they were doing. I find it more effective to show to consequences of Vandal's mistake rather than just hearing about it. I also find that part of the tension here is from the fear that any or all of these bodies could pop up and start attacking as a Necromorph considering the only combat so far in this stage happened during the second gondola sequence. But I like that there wasn't any combat, that the hallway was there for Vandal to reflect on what their actions had led to.
And then we get the final tram sequence.
Starting this sequence off against two Pregnants, you just know that the devs are intentionally being difficult since just one swarm of Swarmers can take down Vandal, but now you potentially have to deal with two. And then on attempt #2, having to deal with the Crawler while a host of Swarmers jumping around me as my health was dipping lower, I knew that that run was just about over.
In between Attempts #2 and #3, I moved the minimized screen recording widget from the upper right to just below the center on the right side of the screen so that I could easily access the menu button to switch weapons more easily, and so that it didn't get in the way of my right thumb which was used to move the camera around. What I had not anticipated was that it would then get in the way of the "Tap" button when the Lurker latches onto you and you have to tap it until its tentacles wave back allowing you to slice them and then punt the demon asshole into oblivion.
Attempt #3 was just a comedy of errors, with the timed mine completely missing the Pregnants, then only hitting one with the next mine, and then having the Corer animation be interrupted by Swarmers and then getting smacked by the other Pregnant. That was a bad run, along with a similar outcome on attempt #4.
Finally, we made it through on attempt #5, although I still made plenty of mistakes. Like using the Corer on a single Exploder several times. Missing entirely with the Ripper on Swarmers and your standard buffed Necromorph. Then taking a whopping 20 seconds to dispatch a single Crawler because of the aforementioned moving of the widget over the "Tap" button on the right side of the screen. Although, in my own defense, with all of the asset-tearing going on by the end of the stage, it was really difficult to see where anything was on the screen. I am actually really surprised that I survived that final wave of surprise Swarmers as my health was already really low and after only a second, dropped down to critical.
This series of chapters ended up being a mixed bag in more than one way. First, the difficulty of the tram sections in both chapters was nearly paralyzing in both cases, taking a combined total of 14 attempts. Granted some of that was through a combination of asset tearing and bad placement of the widget, but also my poor playing at times. For the amount of content in these chapters, they probably could have been combined into one making for a better and more concise experience, but then you would run into the problem of needing to rework the phrase from the first letter of each chapter. Yeah, they did that here too, which I think is great, and was a little disappointed that it didn't happen with any of the other games.
The beginning of Chapter 7 is where the game introduces the mechanic of zero-g jumping where you aim at a distant target, then jolt the phone up to launch Vandal towards your target. The act of jumping while in zero-g is pretty awkward since the target is often only a small section of flooring and it uses the zero-g jumping style from the original Dead Space, which is that you just "fly" towards your target with moderate rotation of the screen based on what direction will be "up" when you land. And you have almost zero control between launching and landing although you can sometimes still grab floating objects if they are in your direct path. How all of this is implemented feels like IronMonkey made a concerted attempt to make this mechanic as easy to use as possible, but it really ended up just feeling awkward and a bit of a trudge as I tried to find my way around the area. Thankfully, no Necromorphs attacked during this sequence so it only reached one minor level of frustrating.
That fighting in the hallway sequence after severing the second of three drain safeguard powerboxes was a bit annoying for a couple of reasons. First, as I have mentioned in the past, targeting the explosive tanks with kinesis was not always accurate and it often felt like a gamble between spending the time to pick one up and then accurately throwing one in the vicinity of a Necromorph to have the explosions damage them or to just use the gun that is already equipped. And then as was evidenced in this fight, sometimes the tanks would just bounce off the Necromorph, and all of that time leading up to the throw was wasted. Plus, I think that too many Necromorphs were thrown at Vandal for that one fight. Granted, there was not a lot of combat leading up to that encounter, but it just felt like it went on way too long. And no, I'm not bitter because this was the first time I died in the game (just wait for Monday).
While going over the video again, I cannot be sure, but it seems like the hallway sequence after you cut the last safeguard and are headed towards Service Reservoir C was designed to purposefully have you going around in circles if you did not take the path as directed by your locater.
During that final battle in the large room leading up to the tram station, part of my problem was that I had placed the screen recording widget partially over the menu button just enough to prevent me from easily opening the menu to switch weapons. Because in this game, without access to the Pulse Rifle or Flame Thrower, the Ripper is the best weapon to use against the Swarmers that can erupt out of the Pregnants. And hoo-boy did I get lucky on two of those passes running away from the two groups of Swarmers and not getting hit once. That could have gone south really quickly.
And then another tram ride.
CHAPTER 8: ENCROACHMENT
Well, despite having a maxed-out health meter and a recently purchased Level 3 Suit, it turns out you can still be overconfident against a handful of Necromorphs and die a few minutes into the beginning of a stage. This is also when there starts to be a lot more asset/screen tearing happening and with the combination of flashing lights, the crisscrossing of the asset tears going this way and that, and the fact that the room itself is pretty dark, all combined to make a horrible room to fight in and not a fun gaming experience.
I did appreciate the transmission from Tiedemann for two reasons. First, it gives someone else for Vandal to communicate with, and second, it reminds the player of their overall objective as opposed to moving from chapter to chapter because that is what you do in a video game. It had also been a few chapters since Vandals last communicated with Tiedemann so it was good to have the reminder that he is trying to find a solution with the person who was responsible for releasing the Necromorphs into the Sprawl.
For the Lost Woods-type sequence of rooms and halls where you are supposed to follow the blood stain on the ground, I wish there had been a slightly less obvious solution. By this point in the game, I would be surprised for a player to either not follow the blood stain the first time around, or at least after passing back into the same room they just came from by taking the wrong door/hallway. I do like the fake-out with "This is not the way" text scrolling at the top of the doors, even though it was used above doors you have to take and/or are supposed to take. In this playthrough, I was purposefully taking the wrong route to see if there were any sanity effects, but since none were happening, that was when I decided I should just follow the blood.
The Flesh Racking Center, I love as a world-building concept, and love the implications of it being included in a Dead Space game. On its own, it makes sense that by 2500, a method to grow flesh for the purpose of food would be developed so that it could be used to help feed an entire mining operation in space. In the world of Dead Space, entering a room with walls lined with racks of flesh is a horrible place to find yourself since the Marker excels in the mutation and reanimation of fleshy bits. On top of that, I believe this is the first series of rooms where you find any evidence of the corruption that spreads, and it makes sense that it would likely start in a room that is specifically designed to grow flesh.
I also like the little touch of Tyler popping in to unlock a door for you. The dialogue was not needed as it was just a comment about locked doors, and then the door unlocking with no other follow-through from Vandal or Tyler, but it was nice to have him come back in if only to remind you that he is still alive.
And then the thing with not being able to pick up the battery, I have nothing for you. I switched weapons thinking that maybe that might somehow allow me a better chance of picking it up. I'm also thankful that I was able to throw the battery through the fast-closing door because trying to drop the battery, using stasis on the door, picking up the battery again, and making it through the door before the stasis wore off would have been a nightmare.
The ending to Chapter 8 was a bit anticlimactic as far as I was concerned. Maybe the meat rack hallway fight against all of the Exploders was meant to be more dramatic as there is less room to maneuver against these types of creatures? Yeah, I did get hit several times with the life meter dipping down to a critical range, but it never felt too difficult as I can blame myself for the mistakes as opposed to feeling overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Then to have the chapter end shortly after entering the hallway felt like it was supposed to actually connect to Chapter 9, but with Chapter 9 being about the same length, this would have been a pretty long level, stretching out to about 35-40 minutes. I am glad that the chapter was not that long, but I would have liked a more conclusive ending.
So that all brings us to the back half of Dead Space (Mobile). While there were several good moments of environmental storytelling and a few good sanity effects, looking back it felt like a lot of what these two chapters offered were just waves of Necromorphs to kill and in a few cases, be killed by. I probably could have done without the zero-g jumping section which just amounted to an area to pass through and expand on the meat-racking area in terms of room/area-specific events. And I am still not a fan of fade-outs, be it in music or video games; although there are obviously exceptions.
What I like about this theme is there is a mixed feeling of mystery, wonder, and optimism, which is what you want at the beginning of The Shore when things seem slightly out of place but at least still somewhat normal. Well, more normal anyway than before things start getting really weird depending on how much you end up exploring. It's just a nice unobtrusive theme to have in the background, and occasionally comes to the front with an emotional crescendo, all accompanied by the haunting vocals of Andriana Kalochristianaki.
Another reason why I feel like I was drawn to this theme was that the first half really reminded me of the piece "Credit Where Credit Is Due" from the first season of LOST, which has that same sense of mystery and wonder.
[This chapter is where we return to my original playthrough, so the upgrades I had in Chapters 1 - 4 might differ and if you have been keeping track of the number of credits, that will likely be different as well.]
In this section, where you have to locate two batteries and lug them back to their respective plugs, I probably could have done without it all. I kind of understand why this section is here from a couple of standpoints, but it just feels a bit useless and there to pad out the game. I understand that from a lore and scale perspective, the Sprawl is there because it is mining the moon Titan so it makes sense to have a map section that is devoted to mining. It also makes sense that it is not just a series of small corridors, that the mining has been going on for a while, so naturally, there are going to be long hallways. But spending all of this time (just about nine minutes) doing a menial task without any kind of dialogue between Vandal and Tyler, or hallucinations, or any kind of storytelling beyond minor environmental storytelling felt like a waste of my time and of space in the game.
The rest of the chapter took less time than the entire time I spent looking for the two batteries and getting them installed. Granted I did spend time looking around and doubling back to make sure that I hadn't forgotten anything, but I just felt frustrated that half of this chapter existed to make the game nine minutes longer. Once you get into the Crew Quarters, Tyler calls you back about his "gift," you make another entry in your own log, you talk with Director Tideman about your status, and you have another hallucination. All good moments that help to further the plot and build on Vandal's declining sanity. But they are all regulated to the second half of the chapter.
Once you are through, it is back to another tram ride where you collect more credits and use more ammo. Likely placed here after already having a tram at the end of Chapter 4 to possibly imply that this is going to be the norm from now on, which would be especially stressful after the end of Chapter 6. I am still a little annoyed at myself for missing that box on the tram though.
CHAPTER 6: LUMBERING BEAST
First off, the Line Gun. It is really just a beefier form of Plasma Cutter and the game tells you that too. Initially, I was going to complain about the mine's secondary function, but having a timed explosive makes a lot more sense from a mining operation perspective than it does from a tactical weapon perspective. If it were up to me, I would rather have the mine function as a proximity mine because I had a horrible time trying to time the timed mine from when I fired it to when I actually wanted it to explode. Usually, it was when I was up against Pregnants that I just wanted to blow them up by having them walk into an explosion and for the first couple of uses it seemed to work as intended, but that might have just been beginner's luck. It was not until much later than it should have been that I realized the mine was not proximity-based. Like a lot of heavy munitions, I really only ended up using the Line Gun against larger groups, if I was maxed out on ammunition and ammo dropped, or if I could not switch to another weapon in time.
The first section of this chapter I was fine with in terms of time well spent. Tyler has a check-in with Vandal, and you acquire the Line Gun. The hallways after this feel like they were designed to look identical and make you feel turned around. Yeah, I did use the location tracker a few times and ignored it to further explore, but that really ended up just meaning I ran into more Necromorphs and wasted a lot more ammo than I should have. I also probably could have done better with my shots and aiming at their limbs and not just body shots. Some of the encounters felt like they were meant for the Line Gun, and others, well, I just plain sucked. I think this was also the first time in the game that I started running out of Plasma Cutter ammo, but this is a survival horror game after all.
The Water Treatment Plant, despite feeling similar in size to the mining tunnels, I thought was handled a lot better in terms of having a large space as a pass-through. There was a character-building (albeit a minor one) dialogue between Vandal and Tyler where they talked about their birthplaces and Tyler's experience growing up on Mars. Aside from that, there were a couple of items to pick up and that was it. There was some tension from thinking that Necromorphs would pop out of a vent at any given moment, but that ended up not happening until you reached the second Water Treatment reservoir. But then there was the Hitchcock camera effect as Vandal was running down the hallway that stretched into infinity in both directions, only to be ambushed by our first run-in with a Pregnant.
I am pretty sure that this section of the hallway is where the face of a Necromorph usually pops up on the lower right side of the screen, usually under where your thumb is placed, but it did not happen this time, which made me a little sad.
And then to close out this chapter we have our first encounter with the Brute mini-boss, although as it is fought by itself, it does not offer a deadly challenge. First off, the room where you battle the Brute is fairly wide and very long, so if you are low on health, you could always just run away from it while your health regenerates. Second, because of its large frame (and hitbox) and the somewhat short range of your stasis, you are almost guaranteed to hit it with stasis if you are aiming in the general direction. Then you just have to go around back and hit it a few times with the Line Gun or the Ripper and that is it. Because I did not find the battle to be too difficult, it really just felt like a confidence boost for both myself as the player and Vandal the character.
So that is it for these two chapters in Dead Space (Mobile). Again, my only real complaint here is the mining tunnels section in Chapter 5, the rest contained what I would want from the mid-point in a Dead Space game. A bit of character and lore-building, some encounters with Necromorphs, a healthy dose of mind-bending sanity effects, and a satisfying mini-boss fight that was tense, but not punishing when approached with a cool head.
Today's article will cover chapters 3 and 4 from Dead Space (Mobile). Our written commentary and analysis for chapters 1 and 2 can be found below and all subsequent chapters will be listed in the same place for each article for the previous chapters for quick reference in future articles as well.
For the most part, I found Chapter 3 to be an equally strong chapter, especially if you go a little bit off the beaten track and explore areas that are not directly part of the main quest, which is, more often than not, just a single room off to the side with a couple of items to pick up. Here, Vandal has another violent hallucination in the first room, with blood splattered all over the walls and corpses everywhere, a step up from Chapter 2 where it was just limbs scattered. What I love about this particular hallucination is that it almost functions as a premonition because the room you are directed to go in by your locator, has bodies scattered about in a similar fashion. The effect might be lessened by visiting the storage room second, or the interpretation could be different? But again, in this room, Vandal has another hallucination, but when they report it to Tyler, he almost sounds excited and jealous that Vandal is the one having hallucinations, that they were "blessed" by the Marker and not them. That's just my interpretation.
Chapter 3 is also where you acquire my favorite weapon in the game, The Ripper. Essentially it is a circular saw that you would buy at Home Depot that will either launch the blade vertically or if you have it oriented horizontally, will be more circular saw-like as the blade flies out in front of you and just tears apart necromophs. My critique of The Ripper is twofold. First, I wish that you could eject the blade even when in the horizontal position, similar to the function in the vertical position, or at the very least it means that the blade is broken. Second, I wish that the blade did not fly out so far because it often felt like the blade passed through and passed the Necromorph I was attacking and would be on the opposite side not dealing any damage, even when I was backing up to try and keep the blade on them. Either way, I love The Ripper, and is frequently (but not always) my go-to weapon from almost this point on, unless I start running out of ammo or if I start getting a lot of plasma cutter ammo drops so I can conserve Ripper blades.
Chapter 3 is also the introduction of the tram sequences that, thankfully, are not after every stage from this point on. For the most part, I viewed them as little bonus kill zones where you can gain extra credits while expending more of your ammo. Unfortunately, you cannot wait out the tram ride but you have to kill all of the pre-determined number of Necromorphs the game throws at you before the chapter fades to black. At least the first bunch of tram sequences are not too bad are really just for trying to acquire more credits as opposed to a stressful battle from all angles. That comes back in later chapters, and it comes hard.
CHAPTER 4: IDENTITY CRISIS
At this point, you might be asking yourself why I am not using kinesis to pick up the explosive gas tanks to use them against Necromorphs, and that is because I have found it difficult with the touch controls to select the tank to pick it up when dealing with a charging enemy. Every so often I will give it a try and I feel that I will frequently fire off a round instead because using kinesis and firing your weapon are functionally identical movements, it is just a matter of where you tap o the screen and if your aim is just a little off of the target to use kinesis, you will instead fire your weapon. I have a similar issue at times when trying to tap screens to activate them or when opening lockers/boxes which is why at times I will seemingly just start aiming my weapon when I am trying to click a button/open a box.
This chapter is also the start of the asset-tearing glitch/bug that will plague me to varying degrees for the remainder of the game. I know that it is not because I am playing from an APK file on a newer device than what the game was designed for because I had the same thing happen when I first played the game back in 2015. I have seen other playthroughs on YouTube and there never seems to be as much tearing compared to as much as you will see in my videos here, so it might in fact be a me problem, but I could not not talk about it because of how prevalent it is. Thankfully, the tears do not seem to reach into infinity most of the time, nor are they as large as the ones in whatever room/chamber this picture was taken in.
I love, love, love, the dialogue from Tyler in this chapter, especially the comment about Vandal needing to backtrack 300 meters. That comment, even though I know it's coming gets me every time because when he says that, along with needing to go through another mining area, my gut drops at the thought of having to potentially fight through another series of hallways and corridors filled with Necromorphs. But then Tyler says, "Just screwin' with ya. Try it now, it's open." And that delivery by Andy Chanley is pure gold as far as I'm concerned. I know I am probably reading too much into the delivery, but the fact that his voice drops and he's still mid-chuckle while saying "It's open" sounds completely genuine This is also definitely the first obvious sign that the Marker is likely having some effect on Tyler and I start to wonder what hallucinations (visual or aural) he is having to come up with this joke at this particular moment.
The rest of the chapter is pretty standard Dead Space with a button at the end of a long room and then having to fight your way back to the entrance as the room seals off because Necromorphs start swarming in. Oh, except for the part where Vandal hallucinates themselves as a Necromorph. That's something you don't experience every day and I love that it's in here. I also love that, in typical guy-in-charge fashion, Tyler brushes off Vandal's frustration (because he cannot see what Vandal is experiencing in their mind) as just being hysterical. It is just a nice complete 180-degree swing from the joking Tyler literally 15 seconds earlier.
So yeah, Chapters 3 & 4 I still found to be solid Dead Space survival horror with the growing number and varieties of hallucinations by Vandal and the player. I did feel that the button clicking in Chapter 4 got a little ridiculous as far as not actually being able to hit the button the first time around and I apologize for the shrillness of the sound effect of The Ripper starting and stopping multiple times while I tried to push a single button. And that asset-tearing nonsense is only going to get worse from here on out; not game-breaking bad, just annoying.
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