Here we are at the end of the first week of my "Summer of Punishment" challenge. If you missed my first post last Tuesday, I basically announced that I was going to attempt to play a good portion of my games on their hardest difficulties available. Some of these games include the Devil May Cry series, Ninja Gaiden series, and some other random games such as Bionic Commando and Dead Space. Overall this week, I didn't encounter too much frustration or rage, and it went by pretty smoothly. The first game I jumped into, and the game that took up most of this week's time, was Dead Space.



I started playing Dead Space last Wednesday on Hard, under the assumption that it was the hardest difficulty available. I got about an hour and a half into the game before I found out by looking at some of the achievements online that the hardest difficulty was actually Impossible. I also found out that the only way to even access that mode was to select it immediately after you finish the game. Problem was, I had already started the game over the first time I beat the game on Medium. So, I ended up having to play through the entire game over again on Medium to unlock Impossible mode. I was originally going to play through the game on Impossible mode normally, but Isaac Clarke issued me a challenge in response to my tweet. The people who developed Dead Space challenged me to complete the hardest difficulty in their game with only the first weapon you get, the Plasma Cutter. So, of course, I felt obligated to do it.

I started the game with only one advantage, the Military Suit you get for completing the game. I had no upgrades to any of my equipment at the start, and I had no credits to start with. I only died 5 times during the course of the playthrough on Impossible, 1 time while stumbling upon a group of Swarmers by accident, 1 time while fighting a ridiculous amount of Necromorphs in the large hall on the USM Valor and getting hit by an Exploder, and the last 3 times while fighting an Enhanced Brute for the first time.

Overall, I'd have to say that Impossible mode was somewhat easier than I thought it would be, even though I only had one weapon to use. The most difficult thing about it was making sure I had enough health and ammo. Since I only had one gun, running out of ammo meant death if there were Necromorphs around. I also recorded 3 videos while playing through for the first time on Hard mode and uploaded them before I found out that there was an Impossible mode. The first video is embedded below, and the remaining two videos can be found here and here.



Also, just so I have something to show for it, here are the achievements I got for completing the game on Impossible with on the Plasma Cutter.





I also played quite a bit of Mega Man 9 the last day or two and I've already defeated half of the Robot Masters, including, Concrete Man, Galaxy Man, Jewel Man, and Plug Man. I'm stuck on Tornado Man's stage at the moment. I am only playing through the game normally, since I feel that it is hard enough. I am aware though that there are increased difficulty modes available for the game, but to get those I would have to purchase DLC, and I'm playing through the games as they are. I died a countless number of times already since it's a Mega Man game and the only way to get good is to learn the levels. I have been doing better than usual though, and that might be because I've been listening to some awesome Mega Man music remixes instead of the music in the game. I'll try to finish this game within the next week or two. I like playing it in between other games better than playing it on it's own.



Finally, I played through the first 3 missions in Devil May Cry 4 on Dante Must Die mode to get myself used to the game mechanics again. I haven't played this game in a long time and I'm totally out of my element with it. I played this for a couple of hours yesterday though and started getting good at it again. I had previously beaten Son of Sparda mode, and was about to start Dante Must Die mode, but never got around to it. Berial was easily the most difficult gaming challenge I had the entire week and he was a bitch and a half to kill, but I managed to beat him. Totally not looking forward to playing this or any of the other similar action games since I'm getting my ass kicked at them. The hardest difficulty I'll play through in this game is Dante Must Die mode, even though there is a very difficult mode called Hell or Hell. In that difficulty, all of the enemies are more difficult than they are in Dante Must Die mode, and they can all kill you in one hit. I'm not even going to get into that since I know I'll never be that good and I'll never finish it.

Well, that's all I've got done this week. At the moment I'm taking a break and playing some Battlefield 1943, which is amazing. Go pick it up for XBLA today or PSN tomorrow for $15. It's worth every penny. I've also been tagging all of my "Summer of Punishment" related tweets on Twitter with #ASOP. If any of you want to read a feed of them, you can check it out here. See you all next week!

RECAP:
Introduction