Review: Dead Space Extraction

Developer: Visceral Games

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Ok, so we all knew us Wii owners weren’t going to get the same Dead Space treatment as the more powerful consoles. But you know what? Visceral have done an absolutely stonking job.

Dead Space: Extraction is actually a Wii-exclusive prequel to the 360/PS3/PC Dead Space game. Things kick off when your crew is dispatched to retrieve a marker, which are alien columns that no-one seems to know the purpose of. After the marker is moved all hell breaks loose on the colony, you start hallucinating and everyone starts talking and gibbering to themselves. Your characters then get a shuttle to the Ishimura spaceship where the exact same thing is happening. The game takes a twist whereby you never know when you, (by that I mean the character you are currently controlling) will meet your maker, as you play the game from various different people’s experiences.

The game is an on-rails experience and you can choose the path at a couple of points through the game which adds a bit of replay value. Though, that said, the levels you play through are huge. Graphically for a Wii game this is an excellent show of what a studio can do given a bit of time and support; the skin textures actually look like they should (take note CSI developers!) and the animation is crisp and clean without fuzz. Weapons actually feel powerful when you shoot them and the fun that can be had with the ripper as you direct the shiny metal disc of death is far too satisfying.

Most notable however is the sense of atmosphere they’ve managed to create with this game. One or two shocks do come at certain points throughout the game, usually when you’re trying to charge your glow-light by shaking the Wii-mote. Having things scuttling towards the screen up a ventilation shaft in the dark is quite unnerving.

My problem with Dead Space Extraction is the difficulty level is set way too low: easy appears to be very easy and Hard is easy and so on. Also, I don’t rate the unlockable content very highly. As you progress through the game you’ll unlock various bits of a very badly drawn comic. It all looks like concept art, but concept art that I’ve drawn with my feet. Other than the main game which admittedly should take you a while to blast through, find everything and complete the challenge missions you unlock, there’s literally nothing else to do, which is a shame really. I mean you can keep aiming for the 5 star ratings on each level but that’s about it. I would be tempted to put up the rating a bit with a few more modes.