The combat is difficult and frantic, requiring precision shots against an enemy content with flailing everywhere at all times. It sounds like a chore, but when you’ve got the Plasma Cutter in hand, Dead Space is unlike any other game before or since. Instead of dumping ammo into a monster until it fell over, you had to utterly annihilate the Necromorphs, chopping off limbs and curb stomping the remains until they stopped trying to gouge your eyes out. Despite only being an engineer looking to fix the Ishimura spaceship, Isaac is more equipped than most to deal with the Necromorph menace, as his Plasma Cutter can melt through Necromorph limbs like a hot knife through butter.ĭead Space’s method of taking down its enemies was unlike any other. The sci-fi horror series’ trademark Necromorphs are some of the most terrifying enemies in all of gaming mutations with spikes for limbs and a penchant for stabbing you in every orifice and organ. Get the balance just right though, and you can create a horror game that scares and delights in equal measure, and none nail that feeling more than Dead Space’s Plasma Cutter. Go to the other end of the spectrum and you practically remove the horror elements entirely in favour of a vaguely spooky shooter.

Make the weapons weak or remove them entirely and you’ll create a tense, oppressive atmosphere that’ll terrify players for weeks to come. The tone of a survival horror game is often dictated by the strength of the weapons you get to play with. Well, we’re deciding to celebrate all of the best ones, and today it’s the turn of Dead Space and Isaac Clarke’s trusty Plasma Cutter. Gaming is filled with a host of iconic weaponry, whether they’re huge tools of destruction or something that challenges you to rethink your environment.

Dead space 2 original plasma cutter