Review – Dead Space: Extraction 0

by Adam Blue • Reviews

If I started by telling you that Dead Space: Extraction is an M-rated, on-rails shooter for the Wii, you’d pretty much just ignore it and move on. Some may even talk bad about it before even playing it. So let’s pretend this first paragraph didn’t happen and read the rest of the review as if it’s some Dead Space game – a prequel to a game I assume you love. Only a handful of people didn’t like the original.

Dead Space: Extraction is a prequel to Dead Space, and starts of on the planet when the marker is first found. As you know from Dead Space, a possible alien artifact was found that may or may not have had powers to make people go crazy and create zombies. Sounds awesome, huh? The game plays out as a first-person movie. With much voice-acting, character interaction, and story elements that are more than enough to pull you in. This perspective rivaled Uncharted 2′s story for me, personally. As the story progresses, obviously the shit hits the fan. It does a good job of answering the questions brought about by the first game, and seeing the familiar (and haunting) locales is even more exhilarating.

Once the shit hits the fan – or blood, it literally looks like blood has hit a fan – the game seamlessly gives you control to shoot oncoming enemies. To keep the cinematic approach, you can only control your characters ‘arms’. You are being moved by the game for story purposes, but you have the ability to shoot wherever, use stasis, and use your gravity beam. This is where some people may be turned away at first, but even on-rails, this game is highly imerssive and requires a great deal of skill. As the game world moves you around, enemies pop out which of course you have to take down. Like the previous Dead Space, the most effective way to do this is to shoot at the limbs. This way, you can keep them back as many swarm at you. This is where skill comes in, as you have to be able to aim correctly and in a timely manner. To help you out, you have stasis which slows down enemies to buy you time. The game also offers a plethora of weapons to take out enemies.

As you play, many items will be visible around you. But you have to be quick to use your gravity beam and grab the items. These items can be health, ammo, guns, and upgrades. Upgrades make your weapons much more powerful and really help you. Each weapon has four possible upgrades and there are more than four guns, as you can only hold four at a time – so I don’t have an exact count…maybe eight? By completing the mission with good accuracy and many collected items, you can also upgrade your Rig suit, so that gives you another reason to play skillfully – it will help to have more health/resistance later on! All of this is what gives the game much replay value. In addition to co-op, playing through to collect items you’ve missed or select different paths, is just a number of reasons to play over again.

The controls here work great. I use the wiimote in a Nerf Blaster in one hand, and a nun-chuck in the other. You obviously shoot with the wiimote, but also shake in dark areas to activate your glow-worm. The nun-chuck allows for gravity beam, stasis, weapon selection with analog, and shack-to-reload. It also uses a Gears of War style reload mechanic. Shake, then shoot when the reload bar hits a specific area. This helps with quick reloading when fighting enemies – a must. You can also use mele attacks by pointing the wiimote outside of the screen and swiping the nun-chuck. This helps when breaking through barriers or knocking back enemies that have jumped on you.

The graphics are also very well-done for the Wii. While HD is obviously absent, it looks like the original Dead Space was taken, and HD was removed. Models look the same, animations are spot on, but there’s just a hint of jaggedy-bluriness that the Wii is known for. I even think the character models – especially faces – are some of the best around. While this is the one negative thing to say about the game, it does not change the gameplay and can not be faulted to the developer. They did great with what they can on the Wii.

With the many characters also comes the voice-acting. There’s a lot of talk the whole time. Like I said, this plays like an action movie. You get to know and learn about the characters, and the best way to express that is through the voice acting. While not movie quality, it’s actually the standard style found in games. So not horrendous, but hilarity is found. Again it helps move the story forward, which is amazing. Other sounds throughout are from the original Dead Space, which is unique and makes it easy to nail this as a Dead Space game.

In the end, you should definitely play this game. Because of the replay value, I say it’s worth a buy. Especially with co-op! If you are just strapped of funds, find a way to play this. Not only can I not wait for the real Dead Space sequel, but I want another Dead Space: Extraction.

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