Having never played Bioshock before, I started playing it right after I finished Dead Space. In that order I was disappointed in Bioshock in that it didn't give me that same sense of fear Dead Space did. Also, going back to swinging a wrench and shooting a pistol from sawing off necromorph limbs also didn't give me the warm and fuzzies.

I'm not downplaying Bioshock at all, as I'm sure its an excellent game, however playing them in the order that I did I just couldn't get into Bioshock and I'll probably wait a few months and try again. If its because of the over-hype and thus high expectations for Bioshock or the fact that Dead Space was better in comparison, I don't know. I do know that Dead Space is a great game and I highly recommend it to anyone still on the fence.

Bioshock is less creepy, but I find the story more intricate and compelling and the levels more fun to run around in. They are definitely similar in terms of gameplay and mechanics but they have gone in completely different directions in terms of atmosphere. If you told me I could only play one, I would pick Bioshock, but as I've mentioned in this thread, both are great.

Just started the game yesterday and I am really enjoying it. I just started Chapter 4 last night when I turned it off (360). A couple of questions though.

Is there an easy way to increase your strength without having to go into inventory and use it? Towards the end of Chapter 3, I was low on life and by the time that I would get the health pack and use it, I was dead. It took a while to get through it. Also, for those of you that hack and stomp to death, can you target the areas you want to strike? I've been blasting away and then stomping, but since ammo is becoming an issue, I am going to try to conserve it a bit more. What is the consensus for weapons to carry? And finally, I don't quite get the bench thing. I know that if you have nodes you can increase things, but when I tried, it said that there were no adjacent nodes or something? I'm sure it's not hard to figure out, but I haven't really looked at it yet (and since I rented it, no manual came with it).

You can add more health pressing the "X" button. I read that after I finished the game. :p

For the bench you just have to follow the shortest route to whatever thing you want to increase. There should be a node adjacent to it, in order for the bench to let you put it there.

I spent a lot of time in this part that I had to check the forums for help. This is actually kinda easy once you know what to do.

The monster works this way:
- First it will show 3 tentacles.
- Then it will shoot balls at you (5 at a time).
- Finally it will mix tentacles and ball at you.


For the tentacles, you just wait for them to come, and when it's coming jump to other side. Then just start shooting to the yellow part of the tentacle. You should destroy the 3 of them really easy that way. I used the pulse rifle there.
For the balls, as mentioned before, I used telekinesis, just hold the first ball, wait until it explodes with the second one, hold the third one, wait until it explodes with the fourth one, hold the fifth one and shoot it back at the mouth. That's the easiest part.
For the last part is the same, jump to the other side the tentacle is coming, hold the balls, shoot them back.
Don't forget to collect all the goodies before you leave.

Is there any way to add oxygen with a button press? I hate fiddling around in the inventory to refill oxygen as I'm running out.

I still don't quite understand how to use the force gun. I know it forces them back, but it seems really hard to aim at limbs.

As far as I know, you can only refill your O2 via your inventory or an 02 filling point.
Sell the force gun and get the Line gun or the other gun whose name evades me at the moment. I tried using the force gun but like you said, it was unwieldy. I used the Line gun, Bolt (?) gun and the flame thrower throughout the whole of the game.

Just finished the game this evening and it was just brutal! Really, really enjoyed this one and almost re-started the game just for fun! IMHO, easily one of the best games of the year (if not the best). Now, I'm onto Little big planet & Fallout 3.

I hate the flamethrower. Any tips on how to use it?

I love the line gun as well (despite the amount of space the ammo takes in your inventory), but I put it aside as I'm going for the achievements where you have to kill 30 (I think) enemies with each weapon. As soon as I finish with the force gun, it's going back into inventory. I also love the saw gun.

I'm also making sure not to carry four weapons at a time, because the distribution of ammo drops is just too wide.

Thanks, that saved my life a couple of times. Any other button shortcuts?

Yeah, I am finding pretty much the same thing. I still haven't really found my go to weapon yet. I thought that the flamethrower would be it, but it is pretty useless as I continue on (I am halfway through now). I sold it last night, and I think that i am still carrying four weapons (can't remember what ones).

The flame thrower is only really good on the little beasties that come out of the pregnant necromorphs and the tall moaning/dividing necromorphs you'll run into in later chapters. My main go to weapon was the Line Gun. It works well with everything except the big boss in the food storage area and the massive beasty at the end. My second most useful weapon was the first one I aquired, the plasma energy "hand gun" it's almost surgical in the way it allows you to dismember the monsters. Most of the green lit boxes you open have the energy for it so it's almost impossible to run out of ammo. That and the Pulse Rifle are really good to use and almost limitless in ammo supply. The Pulse rifle is kinda hard to target but it does enough damage to take em' down.

Thanks for the weapons breakdown. I was wondering what I should keep and what I should dump. I'll probably try to carry three around at most, in order to free up some space for health packs.

So how often should be getting the nodes for the bench upgrades? I know that I still don't have a great understanding of it, but it doesn't seem like they pop up too much. I know that it can increase the damage, etc of my weapons, so I want to try to pump them up as much as I can.

You can buy nodes too, with your extra cash. In fact, besides weapons, that's pretty much all you have to buy, as there should be plenty of ammo, oxygen, stasis pods, and health packs lying around (at least on the normal level, no idea about the harder settings), and the free armor you can download lasts you for a while.

Using a node on the ammo upgrades and the armor upgrades also refill the ammo in your weapon or your health for free.

what is the highest level suit schematic?
I am up to lvl 4.

Glad to be of help. In ref to your question about nodes, the sooner you get and apply them the better. i'd also suggest getting the scorpion suit DL on the PSN. It's $2.50 but well worth the money. It's a level 5 suit and is fairly indestructible. Get as many nodes as you can and update your hit points and O2. Once you do this, you'll be in a much better position when brawling and the extra O2 really comes in handy when you get turned around with all the leaping and such on the environs outside the ship. you should also upgrade your weapons but, my first choice was to get my suit up and then upgrade my weapons.

Are the free suits not available anymore? Those are also level 5 suits, and they're free...

edit: I should add, they're free for PS3 and 360 users, not sure about PC

The Obsidian suit (Black & Blue scheme) was free for a while on PSN but as of yesterday, I saw it priced at $2.49. The Scorpion Suit (Green & Red Scheme) was to my knowledge always $2.49 on PSN.

IIRC these suits were free for the first 2 weeks of release.

I think my favorite weapon has been the Ripper. Something nice about having a circular saw blade hovering a few feet in front of you for 10 seconds or so. Especially helpful when a bunch of things come at you as you can nail them all in a single shot.

Plasma cutter is my second I'd say. I use the "secondary" fire to start, which shoots a horizontal beam. Take the legs off everything to slow them down and then switch to vertical fire and slice arms off for the kills.

Jamie

Just beat this a few minutes ago. Have to say, a very solid game. Played it on medium, which had I realized that it wouldn't really matter between easy or medium, I'd probably have done easy!

Now on to Fallout 3!

I just beat this game yesterday. Have to say it was a really cool game.

Definately had me on the edge of my seat most the time. Something very uneasy in playing a game where you constantly think to yourself "Oh shit I am gonna walk around this corner and die". LOL

Now that I beat it I don't see playing it again. It is odd, but I couldn't wait to finish the game even though I was enjoying it so much. Guess it did a good job setting a mood :)

Jamie

just finished it over the weekend.
very nice game, but i was disappointed at the ending.
The cut scene at the end was very uneventful and very short.

I finished a week ago and I've been playing LBP and Fallout since then and I miss the game. I don't have time to play it, and I know if I start a new game I won't be able to stop. So if playing LBP and Fallout 3 makes me miss Dead Space,I guess that's a good thing about the game :p

But starting this Friday I think I'll forget about everything.

Just beat this and I'm going through a second playthrough to get achievements. I'm surprised so many people hate the Force Gun. It sucks to get used to at first, but once I got used to it and got it upgraded, it's one of my go-to weapons. It's the best weapon when you're in tight areas and getting swarmed and don't have the distance or time to surgically pick off limbs. The thing to remember with the Force Gun is that the limb detaching strategy goes out the window and you just have to blast the bastards straight on for maximum effectiveness. The Line Gun is great for dispatching enemies as they charge you, but it's small capacity and slow firing speed make it a nightmare in close encounters.

I've heard that the force gun is excellent for giving yourself some breathing room, then switching to another weapon to pick them off. What I like about the line gun is that if you have a bunch of them coming at you, the shot can go through more than one of them.

The one enemy that I had a really hard time with are those wall mounted ones, which spit out other enemies... I just have a really hard time hitting the tentacles to kill them. There are actually a few spots where you really need a long range weapon, either the default gun, the line gun, or the rapid fire gun, since the saw, force gun, contact gun, etc. are pretty useless from far away.

And I still think the flamethrower is useless...

I used the line gun with the wall mounted ones. Some with vertical and others with horizontal orientation.

I only used 3 weapons, default, line gun and pulse rifle. In my next play I'll try the others that most people seem to hate, force gun, flamethrower.