The swiveling head of his Plasma Cutter may as well have been engineered by the Gillette razor corporation for how effective it is at shaving the stubborn limbs off necromorphs no matter which way their bodies are angled. To its credit it does differentiate itself with a melee-heavy focus in its opening hours complete with axes and stun batons, but while going toe-to-toe with two-headed titans isn’t a complete swing and a miss, the slightly fussy timing of the melee mechanic means as a feature it lands as more of a glancing blow than a knockout punch.īy the midpoint of Dead Space, however, Isaac is truly spoilt for choice when it comes to creative killing. The Callisto Protocol is saddled with an ordinary ordnance limited to pistols, shotguns, and an assault rifle, which feel satisfying enough to shoot but are ultimately indistinct from the firearms featured in any number of other action games. Much like Dead Space, Striking Distance Studios’ prison break game involves prison-breaking the arms and legs right off its mutated inhabitants, but the tools you’re given to get the joint-severing job done just don’t have the same kind of panache as Isaac Clarke’s iconic arsenal of repurposed mining implements.

Dead space game over animations