I'm going to give a more detailed review of Dead Space. I have now beat the game twice - once on story mode, then once on medium in new game+. Now I'm on an impossible mode play through. Impossible mode is the same difficulty as hard mode, except that if you die once, it drops you down to hard. Obviously I'll be using cloud saves to get around that requirement, although I'm just at Chapter 3/12 and I haven't died yet. You also can't start it in NG+.
Overall, I would say it is an enjoyable game, but definitely has some flaws. There are a lot of weapons and they all play differently, but there are only a few that are good, and the first gun is easily the best. I don't think they've scaled the currency/upgrades very well. It actually took me more than 2 full playthroughs to max out all of the upgrades, but most of those came in the back half of the second playthrough. I didn't feel like I was as upgraded as I should have been during my first run.
Also, I don't really understand the optimal way to kill enemies. The game is pretty clear that you are supposed to shoot limbs off, rather than just aiming for headshots. It seems totally random whether it takes 1 bullet or 10 to down the enemy, and the same holds true once they are downed (weirdly, headshots seem more effective at this point?). It hasn't been too bad on impossible mode, but I've been abusing all of the environmental abilities to blow stuff up, so that I only need 1 bullet to kill an enemy. I don't think that will work in the later chapters.
The overarching story is good, but the one thing I didn't like about it is that the entire game felt like it had the same narrative: "something on the ship is broken, go fix it". Then you fix it, and it becomes "something else on the ship has broken, go fix it". I'm not sure what else you would do with this setting, but it wore thin after a few chapters.
Most of what I have said has been critical, so I'll list off a few positives. Firstly, the combat is pretty satisfying because it feels weighted. The game is very well made and doesn't really have any glitches. It's nice to see a linear game - I think it's hard for every developer to resist the temptation to make massive open worlds with many repetitive tasks. I also think the few bosses in the game are pretty creative, and I like that they don't really force a boss after every chapter. They only appear when they're appropriate.
As a free PS+ game, this is a no-brainer. If I had to pay for it, I probably would say it's a $30-$40 game. It also would be better if I only had to play it once or twice, but I'll always prioritize trophies over my own sanity haha
