Dead Space Extraction

Company: Nintendo
Publisher: EA
Developer: Visceral Games
Genre: On Rails Shooter

Platform: Wii

ERSB Rating: M for Mature

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Premise:

The Premise of the game is to survive the Necromorph infestation on the Mining ship and the Aegis VII colony.

Character:

The player takes control of 4 different characters: Gabriel Weller, Nathan Mcneill, Lexine Murdoch, and Warren Eckhardt. The game play does not change when the game forces you to assume these characters, but their personalities are completely different from one another making the experience different. 

Play:

 The play in the game centers on using the wii-mote and nun chuck set up. The Wii Mote acts as the gun while the nun-chuck serves many purposes: swinging it activates the melee attacks, moving the control stick changes weapons, the C button activates the stasis, and the Z button reloads.

Engagement:

The player is totally immersed when playing this game. The in-game cut scenes and dialogue is so well written it’s like being inside an terribly familiar horror movie. Even though some of the plot points are a little cliché, the player will still feel deeply for the 4 main characters But story aside, this game plays like a typical rail shooter with some unique twists: story driven, original weapons, and interesting dismemberment system. Rail Shooter games are always played in First Person View and this game is no exception. First Person View means that the player sees out of the person he is controlling. The game developers did this on purpose so they could add little nuances that will cause the player to ask themselves: did that really happen, or is my character going crazy?

Story:

The story in Dead Space is not for the faint of heart. The story begins on a distant planet far from the colony. Lexine Murdoch, a surveyor for a mining companyy, has a boy friend who goes crazy when he mines an artifact called a "Marker". The character Nathan Mcneill determines that he has to kill the boyfriend as the boyfriend was clearly out of his mind, and had murdered too many other miners. There was no saving him . Two weeks later, weird cases of murder and suicide started to appear outside the mining area in the Colony. So Nathan along with Gabriel who is another security guard go and investigate. They go to the morgue and notice that all the bodies are gone and know that something is not right. For some unexplained reason, the Marker causes everyone on the Aegis VII colony to start killing themselves and attacking others (Eventually the civilians on the colony start to turn into an enemy called Necromorph). The Necromorphs first appear in the morgue and all hell breaks lose. Nathan and Gabriel try to find an escape pod to the mother ship. Along their journey, they find the egocentric, VIP Warren Eckardt , and the strong willed do-gooder Lexine Murdoch. So now, the 4 of them try to escape. They eventually do and once aboard the mother ship they realize that the Necromorphs are onboard too. From there, the new goal is to make it back to the escape pod in order to send for help. But since the second game is already out, players know that the 4 heroes meet a tragic fate. 

Resources:

The resources in the game are very manageable, because of a piece of equipment called RIG. The RIG (which is basically the HUD) displays the characters health, current ammo, and stasis energy. Other than that, the resources in this game are typical of most rail shooters. The player has to maintain health, ammo, and stasis energy by finding hidden ammo pack and health packs. The stasis energy, however, recovers over time, if it’s not used for a while.
Challenge:

The first challenge that lies within this game is the weapons. The weapons (like previous Dead Space games) are all futuristic mining tools, with the exception of the few weapons like the battle rifle. Mining tools are used to cut rocks apart, and this concept carries over to how the player kills Necromorphs. The only way the Necromorphs can be killed is to strategically dismember their body parts, so getting the classic head shot won’t save you in this game. Besides the tools helping you in combat, you have an item called the stasis. The stasis freezes enemies to a slow crawl to help you dismember them. Another challenge is managing the in game inventory. The player can only carry 3 different weapons out of 10. Each weapon has its own unique qualities and disadvantages. For example the battle rifle has a lot of ammo, but it is very poor at cutting of the enemies body parts. Another challenge is the games puzzles. While they are simple, they are fun because you have to hack into a terminal while Necromorphs are coming to attack you. So if the player does not solve the puzzle in time, he will have to deal with a horde of angry Necromorphs. Another puzzle the game gives to the player are called “Zero Gravity”. Zero Gravity is when the gravity inside the space ship is gone and everything is floating. The player has to point and click on the safe areas to land or risk being torn apart by enemies or getting sucked out into space from holes in the ship. While the challenge in some of the puzzles is lacking, its still fun because it fits with the atmosphere of the previous Dead Space game. Also while the enemies are numerous and difficult, most of them attack in the same way. This is one of the biggest flaws because once the player figures how certain enemies attack, its easier to manage who to shoot first. All in all the game does not get difficult until the last two chapters where the main characters are trying to escape from the mothership and every single Necromorph is coming after them. In the horror movie genre it’s called their "Last Stand" The last and optional challenge this game has is called "Challenge Mode". This mode plays like an arcade style House of the Dead shooter where the player is trying to acquire as much points as possible. This mode is probably the hardest thing in the game because it never ends, and the enemies keep coming.

Where They Got Their Ideas For The Game:

The game designers are the same team who developed Dead Space Extraction’s sequel called “Dead Space” In an interview, the designers said that they wanted to create a wii specific, innovative horror game that pushed the limits. In my view, they did that. Having played the previous Dead Space, the dialogue, combat, and atmosphere is completely the same: eerie and out of this world.