dead space 2 difficulty spike, help needed!

[FoxEye]

This is my first play-through, and I chose Zealot difficulty. It's been OK till near the very end, but now there's been a massive difficulty spike and I just can't get any further.

Without spoiling anything, what I'm assuming is the final level has a special necromorph (think it was in the first game too), which is ... unique.

Up until this point I've been playing very cautiously, running away when outnumbered, backtracking to use choke points with doors, etc.

But the presence of this new type means I can't hang around in any area and have to run and gun :/ Something I apparently suck at.

And to cap it all it seems the damage you take goes up at this point, and I can only take two hits now from any 'morph before taking a dirt nap. I've got the ripper pretty well upgraded, max stasis, but I'm just repeatedly getting my ass handed to me. Those spitter things which slow you down + the ultra fast ones that jump + the ones that shoot spikes + the special guy, all at the same time, is just too much

Having died for the 30th time in a row I figure I'm either doing something really badly wrong or there is a massive jump in difficulty at this part of the game...

 

[Energizer Bunny]

The ripper aint much use for crowd control in my experience. What other guns have you got upgraded? The force gun is massively useful at that stage of the game.

With regards to the Ubermorph himself, I never bothered fully dismembering him. Just knock his legs off then stasis him (important to do it that way round) and you've got a good period of time to concentrate on the others.

That said I never had the balls to do zealot so what the hell do I know.