Dead Space Extraction Preview: What The Wii Can Do

The level I played felt complete, but the game has a little more development time before release.

What Needs Improvement?

The Graphical Callbacks: This is the risk. Dead Space Extraction may be one of the best-looking games on the Wii, but parts of the game take place in parts of the Ishimura already rendered on more advanced systems in the first game. Extraction’s chapter seven version on the hydroponics area unavoidably looks inferior to what wowed me when I was there on my PS3. Extraction fares better with its enemies, whose gangly limbs animate as they did before and just beckon to be dismembered, as is the series’ trademark act of violence. (There’s your gore, Fangoria guy!)

What Should Stay The Same?

The Controls: In my brief time with the game, I didn’t mind not being able to control my character’s movement. I can’t tell how much I’d mind on a re-play when I was experiencing the same guidance through the same levels all over again. After all, last year, I walked around the Ishimura freely. I learned that Extraction’s co-op controls will work in a few ways: Supporting a pair of Remotes and Nunchuks, or a Nunchuk/Remote combo for player one and Remote-only for player two …. or a two-player, two-Zapper configuration. I played with Remote and Nunchuk and had a good time waving the Nunchuk for melee attacks and pushing my Remote toward and away from the screen in order to have the spinning sawblade of the weapon The Ripper slice through enemies. Here’s the control config as a chart:

The Structure: I’m used to going through a Dead Space by the chapter. That returns here. I didn’t see a fancy heads-up display hovering in front of my character’s face, but cutscenes still suggested there’s a lot of story interspersed with the game’s action.

Bosses: I liked the first Dead Space’s bosses, as conventional as some of them were. They never required a lot of re-fighting and had obvious weaknesses that were fun to exploit. During my time with Extraction, I watched two other people at my demo battle a hulking mini-boss in a blazing furnace room. They used a stasis power to hurl back projectiles and then blasted weak points, avoiding their enemies’ rampages. It was simple, but in the dark, visually interesting world of Dead Space it looked fun and smartly attenuated.

The Constant Interactivity: Like any good on-rails shooter, there’s lots of stuff to shoot in this game. Sometimes to kill. Sometimes to pick up. There’s even stuff to blast in the cutscenes for those who don’t feel like listening. Shoot the background to find your targets.

Final Thoughts

EA is making a game that will visually impress any Wii owners who want a darker shooter and have never played Dead Space. But the game can’t shake the fact that it can’t look like it’s predecessor. Can a new game in the same universe have the interest in its prequel narrative and the strength of its gameplay trump graphical limitations?

That’s a big gamble for EA. So far, it looks like things are going as well as can be expected.