A prequel to the PC and Xbox 360 game Dead Space, Extraction promises a new horror and shooting experience for Wii. Extraction delivers great presentation, yet it has its downfalls.
Extraction takes place before the events of the first game. Its plot ends precisely as Dead Space begins. Extraction chronicles the events in space colony Aegis VII after the extraction of the Red Marker. The story takes the perspective of several characters, but focuses on that of Nate McNeil, a local detective investigating the spontaneous increase in murders and suicides in the colony.
Extraction follows the escape of Nate and other survivors first from the planet and later from the spaceship U.S.G. Ishimura as things go from bad to worse and finally to worst.
On the presentation side, Extraction uses detailed characters and world design and great animations. The 3D graphics are top notch for a Wii game because they look almost like the original. The sound effects are well done, as are the voice-overs, which makes the Extraction experience a surreal one.
Extraction is a rail-shooter game. Yet Extraction feels more immersive than typical rail-shooter games, especially since the dialogues and events happen during game play rather than in separate cut-away scenes.
Extraction is simple to play. The Wii-mote is used to aim and shoot, while the Nunchuk is used to change weapons, reload and launch melee attacks. In two-player mode, the other player use the Wii-mote to do everything.
Puzzles are solved using the Wii-mote, usually while the players are under attack from all sides. Items are littered throughout the game and can be collected by shooting them. Various weapons are available, although players can only carry four at a time.
Extraction’s main drawback is its short lifetime. A player can finish the main game in well under 10 hours. The developers built in a challenge mode to boost replayability, but it lacks a reward mechanism.
Another drawback is the dialogues. Since they are in the game play, they cannot be skipped.
Another inflexibility is the lack of check points where you can save your status during a stage.
As it is, when the player dies, he or she must start the stage from the beginning, along with all those embedded dialogues.
In a nutshell, Dead Space: Extraction is a nice horror game with a new take on the rail-shooter genre, albeit with short lifetimes, unskippable dialogues and some random bugs that freeze the game up. It is a must play for Dead Space fans who will want to seek out the unlockable Comics feature
