I know Dead Space has been around for at least two years now, and I myself am certainly no expert (the "don't get cocky, kid" achievement still took me a good forty or fifty tries), but seeing as I have recently made the surprisingly short journey down the road of Isaac Must Die in the game's hardest difficulty, I have found it to my benefit to become familiar with every available weapon at Isaac's disposal for taking down the bad guys in order to complete that journey with relatively little pain (though many ghastly and horrific deaths). Since this was true for me, I am just going to assume that the majority of players immediately become comfortable with a much smaller assortment of just two or three of the seven available weapons in the game, and then stick explicitly with them. Still, as any Protector like myself has been forced to learn when combating the grotesque and monstrous forces of Evil, to know one's enemy is to know the effectiveness of one's arsenal of monster-slaying tools. So, if some of you have actually not yet been through this brilliant Resident Evil 4 clone, or if you have but are simply looking to broaden your horizons when it comes to your preferred weaponry, then allow me to describe the individual usefulness of each based on my personal experiences trying to survive the scares of the USG Ishimura's haunted interior time and again.
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1) Plasma Cutter

This is Isaac's first and basic means of self-defense in the game, and surprisingly one of the better and most well-rounded weapons, very much unlike your combat knife in any main-course Resident Evil title, which is at best a last-ditch effort for when you've run out of ammo but have a lot of herbs in stock, and at worst a means of dying with a scream of defiance on your lips. But you will easily find the plasma cutter will serve you well even in a pinch for much of the first three chapters of the game, against all enemies but the two or three hordes of the miniature crawling necromorphs (I never found the official name for them) because of its lack of radial or area damage that every other weapon can provide in some form or fashion. Ammo is hardly ever scarce for the plasma cutter, especially provided you do not buy any other weapon except perhaps the line gun during the first few chapters. For the primary two enemies that you fight in the first two chapters (and subsequently all throughout the Ishimura) - the Slasher and the Leaper, the plasma cutter is almost ideal, and nothing short of sufficient, for dismemberment, able to eliminate both types of necromorphs in six or less well-placed shots. This is also one of two weapons whose secondary function is similar to the first but provides an altogether separate use. The first shot causes horizontal wounds and is therefore intended for slowing Slashers in their tracks by cutting off their legs, while eliminating the ability of the Leaper to use its most formidable weapon against you - its tail. The second shot is vertical and will, in less frequently useful cases, dispose of the Slasher's ability to cut you to ribbons, and more importantly the Leaper's ability to move on its hands. Again, on the hordes of miniature crawling monsters that either appear around a corner on their own or come ready to punish Isaac for shooting the impregnated necromorph in a highly sensitive area, the cutter is ridiculously useless, but honestly this is probably the only enemy in the entire game that the plasma cutter has the least amount of use against. Even more, the cutter will quickly eliminate the drag tentacle when it comes (in Isaac's mind) out of nowhere at three separate points in the game to drag him to his immediate doom. By the time Isaac has his first encounter with this faceless necromorph, a few power nodes dedicated to the cutter will see him able to destroy the gigantic appendage that has a stranglehold on him in somewhere from ten to fifteen shots. Isaac will probably be dragged a good 75% of the way down the hall before he can land that many shots, even with fair accuracy, but unlike the majority of the other guns the plasma cutter at least has the firing speed, ammo capacity, and range to ensure that he can at least hit the damn thing at all.


"No! Oh god! Oh god! I don't want to die! Noooo! ......... Hey, wait. I just might not considering I have a halfway useful weapon for killing this thing."

Now, here is the best feature of the plasma cutter - it is THE BEST means for killing the final boss, the Hive Mind, without dying when you reach the stage of the fight where you have a limited amount of time before the Hive Mind drags you all the way up to its hungry mouth, as seen below about 2 minutes in.



On any difficulty setting, any Dead Space veteran will know that this timed event part of the fight is the only part that you have any need to worry about, unless you are sharp as Robin Hood, and the plasma cutter - while not the most powerful - is aside from the pulse rifle the only conceivable weapon to use for this incredibly awkward archery contest that the Hive Mind battle becomes. Altogether, the plasma cutter's only disadvantages are that it is not the most powerful weapon (being the first, naturally), and is not the most suited for when multiple enemies are closing in because of its lack of splash damage, although it can still perform decently in such situations. In firing range and ammo capacity it is second to none, and only loses to the pulse rifle in terms of firing speed. Overall, it is the second best weapon in the game.

Rating: 8.5 / 10
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2) Line Gun

The line gun is our heavy hitter and quickest neutralizer of large hordes of incoming necromorphs (especially the fast-moving Twitchers) for its ability to sweep legs out from underneath monsters in just one or two shots - multiple monsters if enough power nodes are dedicated to it (although you may find power nodes just a little too rare and expensive in order to stake them almost solely for a weapon that you will likely be using in relatively few and special enemy encounters when compared to the ripper or the plasma cutter). Although much slower to hit its target than the plasma cutter, the line gun cuts a large swath that is especially perfect for eliminating the much-controversial Lurker enemies when they attack from the ground or ceiling (if on the wall, to where the arrangement of their exposed appendages does not provide for an accurate shot from the line gun's horizontally-oriented beam, the gun's secondary function as a timed bomb can still suffice for severing the enemy's tentacles, as it isn't hard to get a good estimate of how long it takes for the Lurker to go from bang to bullets in order to throw the bomb in a timely manner).The ammo capacity and reload speed are rather poor, however in most situations Isaac will have driven back his opponents far enough and reduced them to a crawling speed if he made his shots count the first time, so even in dire situations with multiple enemies these should still not prove to be such a disadvantage. Against the amazingly fast and powerful Brutes and the daunting (not to mention outrageously terrifying) Guardians, the latter of which I have come to dub as Wall Masters in my hatred and disgust of them, the Line Gun generally fails as an effective weapon unless you can make good use of its secondary fire, not really because the Brutes are fast so much as both Brutes and Wall Masters have their points of vulnerability arranged on their monstrous bodies so as to practically negate the capability of the Line Gun's horizontal beam to cleanly separate limbs from their hosts. The only way to slay a Brute without wasting an ungodly amount of stasis and ammunition is to lop off its arms, which of course are located on the left and right sides of its body, and the majority of the Wall Master's appendages also extend from its body at 45 to 90-degree angles, so this rules out the line gun. However, I have recently discovered that the actual fastest and most painless means of turning the once formidable foe that is the Wall Master into a sissified one-shot suck-fest of a monster, lies in the line gun's secondary function. If there is just one particular niche occurrence that the seemingly useless secondary function of the Line Gun serves well in, it is its ability to sever every last tentacle on the wall-dwelling beast outright with just one well-placed bomb thrown directly into the center of its chest. Now, I never tried to use the line gun on the Wall Master in this way without upgrading its damage capacity by a few grades first, so I am not certain that it will work in one shot if the line gun is used when it is brand spankin' new. Still, it seems to me to be well-worth the dedication of as much as ten power nodes in order to up the line gun's attack power to a sufficient level in order to reduce the number of headache encounters in one playthrough of Dead Space by a solid number of seven, as there are a total of nine Wall Masters that you will have no choice but to fight, with four of them being paired together. You will have to be quick and land your shot as soon as you can before the number of smaller necromorphs that the Wall Masters cough up get out of hand, and then use a few more blasts from the line gun's primary fire to mop up the one-tentacled demon spawn afterwards, but it is more than worth it. The biggest disadvantage of the line gun is its horrendous capacity for getting you killed in the final boss fight, as you can very well guess if you have been through that fight yourself or watched the above video. I only tried to use the line gun against the Hive Mind once in a personal trial of self-discipline for fighting the murderous ghouls and beasts in the world of survival horror, and it took me several half-hearted attempts. It's hard to have much hope in winning a battle, game over after game over, when you already knew well before the battle that your weapon of choice is essentially a self-inscribed death wish which just happens to also shoot bullets at your foe. ... But it's just a mock front that thinly veils the words it really wants to tell Isaac, "What? You actually want to survive this fight and escape off of this planet with your life? Well, screw you."

Still, if for nothing other than its incredible potential against the one most formidable non-boss opponent on the Ishimura, the Wall Master, the line gun has my vote for third most useful weapon in the game.

Rating: 8.0 / 10


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3) Pulse Rife

The pulse rifle would be one of my more favorite guns for its function as the one automatic weapon in the game and its ability to please watching crowds as I use it artistically blast the living hell out of one ugly necromorph and gracefully leap out of the way of the incoming attack of another necromorph, retreating to a tactical corner of the room where I may safely and quickly target my next opponent in order to repeat my personal interpretation of Swan Lake (With an Unlikely Space Rifle). But nevertheless, its one major drawback cannot be ignored if Isaac seeks to survive off of the meager amount of cash he can find around the ship: the extremely high rate of ammo consumption that is rivaled only by the flamethrower. Ammo itself is not that expensive, but still runs out surprisingly quickly because of the pulse rifle's sheer lack of fire power, which is understandable seeing as it is an automatic. The pulse rifle is extremely fast, but hardly a nasty customer to the necromorphs. For some reason, it does not even seem to dismember weaker enemies like the Slasher and the Leaper as readily as the plasma cutter, and it practically fails altogether against enemies whose appendages are smaller in diameter, such as the Lurker or the Wall Master. The secondary fire - a sort of hailstorm of bullets that randomly fire above Isaac's head in all directions at a constant rate as long as he has the ammo to consume - is a joke, as it consumes ammo like a plague but hardly provides an effective means of driving back the enemy when he is surrounded, as the shower of bullets is nowhere nearly concentrated enough to cause big damage to even weaker enemies as they are closing in. There is enough concentration to hold off individual enemies with the primary function, because of its high firing rate, but unless you are hitting the points of vulnerability, it will take very last bullet Isaac has to kill off even just one necromorph. Unless you have the bullets to shell out money on, which I sincerely doubt on a normal playthrough that you do, then the pulse rifle is for nothing more than to make fights loud and intense (it makes a pretty cool sound when being unleashed on enemies), and should not be included in your current arsenal of weapons with the plasma cutter already on hand for free. Now, granted, the pulse rifle is actually probably the second best weapon apart from the ripper for slaying Brutes, due to the joints connecting their arms to the main body (acting as their weak points) being very large in area, and also holds the claim of being the only other effective means of surviving the Hive Mind fight apart from the plasma cutter. But again, since you already have the plasma cutter for free, it is better to save your money for another suitable fourth weapon. So, the pulse rifle comes in at fifth place for best weapon.

Rating: 5.0 / 10
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4) The Ripper

As its name suggests, the ripper is generally the best means for dismemberment of any non-boss enemy in the game (as the Leviathan and Hive Mind are not technically killed by this method due to lack of appendages). It also easily rivals the line gun in terms of keeping multiple enemies at bay during extended horde fights, especially when you devote the power nodes necessary to extend the ripper's attack power and duration time. As you may know, the ripper works by shooting a fast-rotating saw blade that stops at a certain distance and holds via remote control for a certain period of time, during which Isaac can use the angle at which he holds the gun itself to move the blade back and forth across the legs of incoming enemies, which, if you want to stop enemies in their tracks or at least slow them down, are the parts of the enemy body that you must go after first and foremost. In skilled hands, and with a few notches accounted for with power nodes, then it isn't uncommon to be able to cut the legs off of three or even four enemies with one blade. Ammo always seems to be plentiful when you have the ripper in your possession, and also gives you perhaps the most bang for your buck of any weapon should you need to purchase ripper blade ammo from the store. In terms of general use for all enemies, the ripper is the most ideal, only proving entirely inefficient for Wall Masters, the Leviathan, and the Hive Mind for its limited range. Although, the shortened range is at the same time the beauty of the weapon, as you do not want the remote-controlled saw blade (that just sounds funny) to travel too far in a horde fight lest the blade just end up flying past your opponents and rendering itself entirely useless, just hovering there in the air while the necromorphs continue to charge in at you.


Ohhhhh, boy ....

In that case, what sucks is that you have to register in your mind the fact that your shot has gone too far (which can surprisingly be difficult to acknowledge when five or six different enemies are just one second away from f'ing up your life), and then shoot another blade to cancel out the first, which, if you are already stuck in a corner and cannot put any more distance between yourself and the enemy, will prove just as useless as the first shot, and by the time you acknowledge that and switch to another gun, it's probably already over for you. So, there's that, and the one fact that this gun will absolutely fail to serve you in any remotely reasonable way during the Hive Mind fight (the secondary fire is a straight shot for such battles where Isaac fights at a distance, however the shot still travels significantly slower than the plasma cutter) are its two notable disadvantages. However, there's not a more suitable weapon for painlessly eliminating entire hordes of miniature crawling necromorphs and the obnoxious appendages that individually attack you once you have eliminated the Divider enemy. Overall, this is the fourth best gun in the game, nearly tying in with the line gun.

Rating: 7.75 / 10
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5) Flamethrower

You'd think that from the pictures below and just the sheer fact that it is a flamethrower would make this one of the more choice weapons in any survival horror game, ... but not Dead Space. It looks cool, and can even make for some interesting horde fights like the pulse rifle, but is still definitely one of the most disappointing select guns in any shooter I have ever played in terms of actual performance, which is of course the most important factor when it comes to Isaac's survival. It consumes ammunition even more quickly than the pulse rifle, and for what you can get out of one clip (25 fuel), it is also very expensive. Now, this gun is so incredibly useless that I only played through Dead Space once with it already fully powered up, and it still easily took more than one clip's worth of fuel to take down the majority of enemies at the beginning of the game, such as Slashers and Leapers, so I can't imagine how much this gun probably just laughs at you in its own disembodied voice on how quickly you are going to meet your doom when you have its basic form equipped without any upgrading. It's amazing how weak this gun is in terms of damage capacity, although I will admit that the range is surprisingly decent. To tell the truth, I don't even see how a little bit of fire can even dismember an enemy in the first place, but, whatever. This gun is purely for your own entertainment and nothing more (and it doesn't take much to entertain me when onboard a haunted ship); it's pretty darn useless, ranking at dead last.

Now, to be fair, the flamethrower actually does give you a fighting chance of defeating the Hive Mind during that timed event, at least more so than the ripper or the line gun, for its secondary function is sort of a fireball that travels in a fairly long arc and causes successive damage to the enemy, holding it in place for another short duration of time, kind of like the phosphorus ammo for your shotgun in Bioshock 2. It only consumes 10 fuel per shot as well, which is far more reasonable than the primary fire. This isn't nearly as kosher a way to slay the final boss as the plasma cutter or pulse rifle, mind you, but it's still more doable than the line gun (and the ripper gun I found to be just utterly impossible). If you ever wish to try it because you are a glutton for punishment at the hands of demonic beasts like I am in survival horror games, then I suggest throwing just one fireball the Hive Mind's way for each of the two points of vulnerability that you intend to leave intact before the monster picks you up into the air by one leg whenever he decides it is chow time. This way, you have already caused sufficient damage to the two remaining "eyes" without actually destroying them and setting the Hive Mind off before you are prepared. Afterward, while Isaac is up in the air, he will only need to hit each "eye" one or two more times (and it isn't easy to make contact with the flamethrower) before destroying them and being released from the Hive Mind's grip.




"Look at me! I should be totally badass with this thing!"

Rating: 2.5 / 10
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6) Force Gun

I had always shied away from using this gun for the first several times I played through Dead Space, if for no other reason than the name alone sounds completely non-threatening, but after completing several rounds in which I had more than enough money to buy the force gun, upgrade it to its full potential, and buy all of the ammo I needed, I found this gun to kick more necromorph ass than all of the other guns in the game combined. Granted, like the flamethrower and the contact beam, my only experience with the force gun is with its max capability in all categories, so I have no idea how it fares against enemies on a normal playthrough, with few or no upgrades. But still, I find it hard to believe that this gun could do much worse than what I have seen with my own eyes when it tore up every Slasher, Leaper, Lurker, and Twitcher that I encountered in one or two shots (usually one if you took any care at all to aim for the limbs). It even will dispatch Wall Masters almost as easily as the line gun's timed bomb function, for, while you would have to get dangerously close with the primary shot, the force gun's secondary shot acts in a similar manner to the line guns, and doesn't even take as long to detonate. The blast from the primary shot is a sort of cone-shaped shot that extends outward from Isaac and nearly encompasses the entire frame of enemies such as Slashers and Twitchers, causing severe radial damage. If it does not kill them in one shot, the force gun exercises its namesake by pushing the enemy over backwards, giving you a few seconds to breathe if you need it. At its full potential, the force gun even only took once dose of stasis to defeat the Brute (and I am talking about the more powerful version that you see Hammond fight), as it only took four shots concentrated at one of its arm joints immediately after using stasis for the monster to kick the bucket. ... Loser.

Even the Leviathan isn't too difficult a boss to defeat with the gun's limited range because its sheer firepower makes up for it just that much. The primary shot will easily take out the three mobile tentacles before each one can even make the move to sweep across the room and crush Isaac if he immediately runs up close to fire at the appendage's proximal end and leaps away. Every one will go down easily, and then the secondary shot will be sufficient for destroying the center "eye" in just a few shots, since it remains stationary in the Leviathan's case and therefore will not require fancy aiming. This does mean, of course, that the force gun is right up there with the line gun and ripper in terms of uselessness against the Hive Mind. This one single enemy, however, is really the gun's only disadvantage. Otherwise, this is the number one best gun in Isaac's arsenal.

Rating: 9.0 / 10
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7) Contact Beam



If this weapon did not perform at third place in efficiency against the Hive Mind, then it would probably rank down there somewhere with the flamethrower. While the line gun performs the worst at reload time, the contact beam, despite its kind of uniquely awesome name, cannot put up a continual assault against necromorphs worth crap. I don't know exactly what the beam itself even is or does (some kind of high-powered laser?), but if you hold down on the fire button for about two seconds and then let go, then Isaac will release a concentrated, straight-line shot that is sure to dismantle nearly any of the more common necromorphs onboard the Ishimura in just one shot. The problem is that you have to wait those precious two to five seconds, completely defenseless, before even being able to build up an attack as powerful as the force gun's, so this contact beam is utterly useless against fights involving any more than a single enemy. Since it is generally meant for painlessly working your way through single encounters, you can bet the ammunition is the most expensive yet - 2000$ a pop. Because of its precision and range, however, it works almost just as well against the Leviathan and Hive Mind as the plasma cutter. You have to be extremely precise when shooting the individual appendages off of Wall Masters, though, due to them being smaller in size, and this will prove to be a most time-consuming and costly endeavor. Meanwhile, the little brats that the wall-dwelling beasts cough up won't be giving Isaac the benefit of that time, so this weapon is completely out of the question against them.

The secondary function isn't bad for its area-of-effect damage; in fact, if multiple enemies are closing in so fast on Isaac that he needs something to stun every last one for a quick regroup - even to so much as have a second to change to a better weapon - then the secondary shot works well for that. It's just weird. I don't really understand what happens. It looks like Isaac sets down some kind of bomb that instantly explodes and throws everything immediately surrounding him back a short distance, but causes Isaac himself absolutely no harm even though he was standing the closest. .... Whatever. It makes no less sense than "remote-controlled circular saw blades", but it works. This is the sixth best weapon in the game, just one class above the flamethrower, but still several notches above it on the 10-scale.

Rating: 4.0 / 10

So basically, the starting weapon is the second best one?
I haven't played Dead Space, I suck at those kind of games.

I personally found my two favorite guns to be the Ripper and the Plasma Cutter. I always had those two on me at all times. The Force Gun and Line Gun were secondary. The seem to be a bit too slow for me. And in a game like this, every second counts in battle.

I got to say though that I really am digging most the new weapons in Dead Space Tee Em 2. The Detonator being one of my new favorite weapons.