Review - Dead Space: Extraction

Game: Dead Space: Extraction
Platform: Wii
Publisher: EA
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Players: 2
Release: Out Now

This frantic, fast-paced prequel to last year’s Dead Space has traded in the original’s third-person view for a first-person on-rails shooter similar to House of the Dead and Time Crisis. Set in the distant future on a barren planet, a human colony prepares to “crack” the land for vital resources when a strange artefact is discovered. As a team of engineers attempts to move this object, most of the colony suddenly turns insane, eventually into vicious monsters called Necromorphs that come in all shapes and sizes. You’re job, playing as a number of survivors, is to escape the horror.

Queue 10 levels of intense action, shooting everything in sight and praying you’ll make it out alive. Extraction is a wild ride from start to finish, but doesn’t play like any other light gun game. For example, aiming for the head won’t get you anywhere. Instead you have to go for the legs and arms, trying to slow the enemy down before they can get to you. It makes for a different, more exciting experience compared to what you may have played before. The pressure only builds as more enemies pile onto the screen, and you may well find yourself starting to sweat with anxiety. Other cool additions like using stasis to slow Necromorphs down, or a weapon that shoots spinning blades that you can then move with the controller only add to the experience. The first game was a refreshing addition to the survival horror genre, Extraction is very much the same, only on a new console and a new genre.

You can play through the campaign by yourself, but it’s even better to blast through with a friend in 2 player co-op. The story is constantly moving, perhaps sometimes a little too much for one level, meaning you spend a lot of time listening rather than shooting. Thankfully the plot is engaging enough to keep you interested, the voice acting is top notch, and the graphics actually manage to look quite a bit like the original game, despite being on the Wii over PS3/360.

It doesn’t end once you’re done with the story, either. There are weapon upgrades to collect, digital comics to watch, and a challenge mode that sees you trying to beat high scores. It all runs out eventually, but Extraction does what it can to keep the disc in your Wii for a while.

Overall Dead Space: Extraction works in a number of ways to deliver one of the best shooters on Wii. You may not have the control of an FPS, but the weapons, enemy types, limb slicing, and tight presentation more than make up for it. You might get more out of it if you played the first Dead Space, but that shouldn’t be any reason for you not to pick up a Wii Remote and start blasting away.