• Posted December 7th, 2012 at 04:45 EDT by Mike Harradence
• 2 Comments

Welcome back to PSU.com’s on-going Badass Bosses series, where we extoll some of gaming’s most memorable scraps to grace a PlayStation format. Last time around we scrutinized God of War III’s epic Cronos fight, which saw Kratos go toe-to-toe with a skyscraper-sized behemoth. For our latest entry, we keep things firmly fixed on PS3, with a look at Dead Space’s final boss – the Hive Mind.

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Poor old Isaac Clarke. Not only does the stoic space engineer have to slog through a nightmare of guts and ghouls aboard the doomed Ishimura, but he can’t even catch an escape route without some great hulking beastie rocking up to foil his plans. In this case, we mean the Hive Mind. Towering over our hero, the Hive Mind is the mightiest of all Necromorphs; as the name suggests, it is responsible for controlling the intelligence of the lesser creatures, and is located on Aegis VII. The creature itself was created out of experiments with the Red Marker some two centuries before the beginning of Dead Space.

Residing inside a massive creator, the Hive Mind resembles an oversized arthropod, complete with multiple tentacles and a gaping maw filled with two rows of razor-sharp teeth. No prizes for guessing how it attacks, though it kindly demonstrates its prowess by smashing Kendra to a pulp before turning on Clarke. It’ll also lob explosive matter at you and attempt to throw Clarke off balance by hammering the ground, though it’s the tentacles that you really have to look out for. In addition, Pregnants will assault you from all directions in an attempt to distract you from your massive adversary.

As with any hulking monstrosity however, the Hive Mind does of course have a weak point – several, in fact. During the first phase of the fight, you should target the exposed mouth organs; however, this is easier said than done as the creature will grab you in an attempt to devourer Clarke, forcing you to take aim at the organs while suspended upside down in mid-air. After these have been eliminated, have Clarke aim for the explosive sacks in its chest, which temporarily reveal themselves in between attacks. Destroying these will vanquish the behemoth once and for all.

Even after escaping however, there's one more surprise for Clarke as he cruises through space. We'll leave that for you to find out, however...

Stay tuned to PSU.com for more Badass Bosses in the coming weeks.