Dead Space's Impossible Difficulty: The Way To Go - rabbit221

I feel the need, even now when Dead Space has been out a few months, to explain to you why you should play through it on Normal, and THEN play through it again on Impossible. Sure, this game will still scare the SHIT out of you on Normal, but think about it. You're never really scared on Normal are you? Running through blasting necromorphs left and right because you have an abundance of ammo, multiple guns, plenty of money, several health packs and probably more than enough air cans. On Normal, you probably don't care less about the different types of necromorphs, you just wanna blast them all to hell. Even the Brute doesn't strike terror in your heart like it should, you just think "Stasis, shoot it in the ass. Repeat."

Well, you can forget about that shit when you step it up to Impossible.

Impossible is, in my opinion, THE best way to play this game. Only when you step it up to this difficulty does this game truly, TRULY turn into a "horror"/survival game. Even your basic, four armed crazy-ass necromorph will make you quiver in your space boots. You know, the way a four armed necromorph SHOULD. Everything is limited on Impossible; less money, less ammo, fewer power nodes. With that in mind, even powering up your suit becomes a struggle. With less ammo and money, the secret rooms that can only be opened with power nodes become like little oasis' in the desert. When you're running low on ammo and money these little rooms can be a goldmine. So instead of blowing all your power nodes on health bars and weapon powerups, you might think twice before using them. The fact that things are somewhat rare and hard to come by really give you the feeling of being desperate and hopeless.

Now, let's talk about trying to kill things on impossible. And those things killing you. With ease.

Let's start with the regular baddies. On Normal these guys go down with 2 to 3 shots, cut off the legs and they're done. Impossible? Yeah, 6-7, if you're lucky, with no powerups to your weapons. Then you've got the creepy-crawly guys. Those mother fuckers are a pain in the ass. You basically HAVE to cut off the arms otherwise you'll just be wasting ammo shooting the body. If you've played through on Normal, you'll remember those little bastards that bust out of a pregnant necromorphs stomach if you kill it wrong. You didn't have to worry about them on Normal as long as you can mash the A button fast enough. But, on Impossible, if they get ahold of you? Forget about it, you're as good as dead. It's nice to play a survival/horror game where at some points you're actually like, "FUCK! I should run!" The necromorph babies aren't too much different on Impossible, just shoot off the tentacles and they're pretty much down. And the Brutes. Oh ho. . . These bad boys will make you shit your pants the minute they come through the wall. Even with health upgrades these motherfuckers will take you down real fast if you're not careful. Then you have the guys with the explosive sacs for arms. On Normal you wouldn't think twice before shooting the sac and watching his remains scatter across room. I did this the first few times on Impossible and found it was better to switch up my strategy and cut off the explosive sacs and use the telekenisis to hurl them at the other baddies. Saves ammo, trust me.

Then you have the boss battles. If you thought these were nail biting affairs before, you have NO idea. It really makes you rethink your line of attack. Finally, you've got the psycho asshole's impossible to kill necromorph. If you were going to cower in fear from anything in impossible, THIS would be the creature to fear.

Seriously though. I strongly recommend playing through Dead Space on Impossible. It's infinitely more suspenseful and scary. There's plenty of "scary" moments throughout the game, but Impossible mode is the only time I've ever had a game get me tense and worked up, actually creeping through and thinking about what I was going to do next instead of running around blasting necromorphs left and right. Nothing like having a yellow health bar, 7 shots left, and hearing the skittering of two necromorphs, knowing that one of them will kill you.