Dead Space: Extraction

A wii exclusive sequel to a xbox/PS3/PC horror game? And a lightgun game at that? It sounded like a recipe for disaster, an example of why the wii hasn’t lived up to its potential and has become the least used console I have ever owned. I was all set to ignore its existence until I saw a review or three and ended up picking up a copy to see if they were justified in their comments. Imagine my amazement when ….

It turned out to be good! Not only good, an example of how wii games should be done.

The reason for its success is simple: the developers have looked at what the wii can do and tailored the game to fit it to a T. They haven’t taken the lazy route of sub-standard graphics, crappy mini games, and an ordinary game with glitchy waggle controls bolted on. You use buttons for functions like reload or stasis, aim with the wiimote, and very occasionally activate your melee attack or your portable light by shaking the nunchuk or wiimote respectively. That’s it. Simple, effective, perfectly functional.

Dead Space: Extraction is something of a showcase for how I believe plot and storytelling should be handled in games. There’s a strong cast, a strong narrative, and they’re there interwoven with the gameplay. They’re inseparable. The characters drive the gameplay which advances and relates the plot. The plot isn’t a load in inane drivel and, while it has some holes, it’s well thought out and works. Nor are the characters walking clichés. It’s also one of the most cinematic games I have played. The original Dead Space was excellent in this regard but IMO Extraction has it beaten. The voice acting and motion captured performances are top notch, the direction is fabulous, and the scenes you get to play through are highly ambitious for any first person game, on rails or not. It’s evident that bags of care has gone into making the first person viewpoint as realistic as possible. You can see your body any time that you would expect to in real life, and as you move about your view bobs and sways to match instead of giving the generic ‘head bob’ effect found in most games where you never feel like more than a disembodied camera floating along on some kind of magic tide. When you find an audio log it plays on the wiimote’s speaker, an effect which sounds corny but which works well.

Extraction is highly ambitious for a lightgun game. It could take the easy route of dumping waves of enemies in front of you and leaving it at that. After all, that’s what the genre is about. For the most part that’s what happens: necromorphs appear, you strategically dismember them, you advance. It’s the way you advance that makes it special. Bouncing and gliding through zero gravity, or clambering through pipe filled service tunnels, or sprinting along ducking from cover to cover occasionally turning back to see if your comrades are still alright. There’s the odd bit of puzzling, lots of talking while doing things, a few sections where you have full control over your view, and multiple occasions where the path branches and you need to choose which way to go.

The game has excellent graphics for a wii title, and goes to prove how lazy most developers are on this platform. A lot of the resources must have been shifted across from the original game with some alterations to poly counts and texturing.

Many areas are recognisable from the original game. While there are a lot of new areas you do travel through some key areas from the original. One of the early levels is rather like playing the original’s final level in reverse. Sometimes the events you play out in Extraction set things up for the original game; I used to wonder what had happened to the poor doctor whose head was lying on the opposite side of the room to his body, or who had removed the power cell from a specific room, or why the turrets were shut down. Now I know.

For all that it’s good, this isn’t a pleasant game to play. It’s a true horror game in the sense of provoking a feeling of horror and disgust, not in making you jump out of your seat and feel afraid. There’s lots of unpleasant events throughout, the enemies are disgusting, and the combat is full of gore and flying limbs. The plot is happy to kill characters with no warning and in messy ways right before your eyes, whether they are minor characters you’ve only just encountered or more major.

Extraction features a healthy co-op mode. It’s drop in/drop out too so it’s simplicity itself to get going and player 1 can continue if their partner wants to stop. Basically player 2 has a slightly reduced version of player 1’s controls (player 2 only uses a wiimote, not a wiimote and nunchuk combo) and plays in the same manner as player 1. The functions they are missing are not that important; they can still use up to 4 weapons, stasis, reload at will, pick up items with telekinesis, etc.

At 10 levels long, with each level clocking in at around 20-40 minutes, Extraction is not a long game. It’s a perfect length IMO as I found that by the last couple of levels I’d done enough necromorph blasting. For those who want to make the experience last longer, there’s a challenge mode and each story mode level can be played on 4 different difficulties.

If you have a wii and liked Dead Space then it’s a definite should buy. If you’ve got a wii and like games with a strong narrative, or horror games, or lightgun games then likewise you should get it. If none of those apply then you should at least consider it.

Here’s a minor spoiler which illustrates why this game is so different:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

On one level you have to cut your own arm off. It’s left to you to realise that this is the only way to free yourself and escape; the view just focuses in on your trapped limb and a 20 second countdown timer appears. It takes multiple swipes before the limb cuts through and you see your flesh become more and more mangled as blood crystals fly off into space (you’re in zero gravity at the time). Finally you’re free and, howling and screaming in agony, your character painfully drags himself along to the door, through, and closes it before blacking out. You experience this in a viewpoint which bobs and sways exactly as your own would if you were to do similar manoeuvres in real life.

I can’t remember experiencing anything like it in another game. Normally you wouldn’t get trapped. Or someone would rescue you, or you’d remove the object pinning your arm and the game would conveniently gloss over the fact you’d been badly hurt.

Wow. That sounds fantastic.

Until I got to the part where you mention that it's just as unenjoyable as Dead Space because OH GOD NO WHERE DID THAT THING *pew pew* ITS STILL ALIVE *pew* OH GOD IT JUST GOT WORSE *pew pew* NOW THERE ARE THREE OF THEM *start -> menu -> exit* it's too scary.

:/

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

Wow. That sounds fantastic.

Until I got to the part where you mention that it's just as unenjoyable as Dead Space because OH GOD NO WHERE DID THAT THING *pew pew* ITS STILL ALIVE *pew* OH GOD IT JUST GOT WORSE *pew pew* NOW THERE ARE THREE OF THEM *start -> menu -> exit* it's too scary.

:/

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So ok, its kinda like the first one. Yeah yeah, portal and so forth. The movie was good. Oh sweet, I'm past the tutorial, time to get into the ga...wait. what the? oh god, no no nO!!!!!!

switch off monitor, hold power button down

The story of me playing doom 3. I can't get past where you activate the computer. I'm too scared.

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Wow. That sounds fantastic.

Until I got to the part where you mention that it's just as unenjoyable as Dead Space because OH GOD NO WHERE DID THAT THING *pew pew* ITS STILL ALIVE *pew* OH GOD IT JUST GOT WORSE *pew pew* NOW THERE ARE THREE OF THEM *start -> menu -> exit* it's too scary.

:/

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So ok, its kinda like the first one. Yeah yeah, portal and so forth. The movie was good. Oh sweet, I'm past the tutorial, time to get into the ga...wait. what the? oh god, no no nO!!!!!!

switch off monitor, hold power button down

The story of me playing doom 3. I can't get past where you activate the computer. I'm too scared.

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Really? These games aren't scary. Doom 3 made me laugh because of the idiotic devil-chuckling that accompanied the usual vent-popping (it happened every other minute, it seemed like).

Admittedly, I haven't played Dead Space or Doom 3 in the dark with full volume.

Extraction is more "You can hear something and your viewpoint is looking around, yup, here come the necromorphs you were expecting" and it's not scary or tense in the least. There's none of the gentler mind games like the voice singing twinkle, twinkle little star right on the edge of hearing. Your character isn't alone either; you spend the vast majority of the time with at least 1 other survivor, sometimes as many as three. The feeling of loneliness and isolation is gone.

You may like to add salt to that though. I only found Dead Space to be tense for the first 5 levels and then because it kept giving me System Shock 2 flashbacks. Games just don't scare me at all, with the exception of the aforementioned SS2.

I probably should have read your full review more carefully, you actually explained what you meant.

But still, Dead Space is too scary for me (heck, the Ravenholm level in Half Life 2 really tested me).

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But still, Dead Space is too scary for me (heck, the Ravenholm level in Half Life 2 really tested me).

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Poison headcrabs?

Worse, the fast zombies that come from the poison headcrabs.