When House of the Dead: Overkill was released for the Nintendo Wii, older gamers rejoiced, finally seeing some more mature titles on the mostly kid-friendly console.  However, it almost seemed too forced with the characters swearing and cursing to the point where you wanted to slap them in their face to shut up.  Although a good game, the game just didn’t satisfy my adult, light-gun craving.  It was, well, Overkill.  EA and Visceral Games is hoping to up the ante a bit with their release of Dead Space: Extraction, the prequel to the graphically intense, 3rd person shooter Dead Space, released last year on both the 360 and PS3.  Did they hit the mark in keeping the creepy, mature theme of the original, or is this just another sorry attempt at an adult game on a system targeted for kids?  Read on and we shall see!

Dead Space: Extraction is a prequel to the previous game, depicting the series of events that took place on the ill-fated Ishimura spaceship, prior to the destruction you encounter during the first installment.  This works well, in that it sets up a story arch where you know things aren’t going to turn out well for these characters.  This gives the game a sense of urgency and despair, adding to the atmospheric mood set throughout.  Since the Wii has much less horsepower than the other next-gen consoles, Visceral Games decided to switch the gameplay from a third person shooter, to a first person light-gun game on rails.  This works in its favor on multiple levels.  The first is that it creates a much more cinematic gameplay experience, almost as if you are watching an interactive horror movie.  There are occasional times where you can freely look around to try and find hidden items, but most of the time you are constrained to a limited viewing area, creating a huge amount of suspense as you turn every dark corner.  The other problem this solves is with the graphics.  Don’t get me wrong, Dead Space: Extraction is a great looking Wii title, it just doesn’t have the glitz and glamor of its older brother.  By choosing to create a light-gun game on rails, the developers were able to “cut some corners” on the graphics, making it look as good as possible on the Nintendo Wii.

After playing through the first chapter, I wasn’t sure what to make of this new Dead Space.  In other words, it started off somewhat slow for my taste.  The voice acting was pitiful (although the inclusion of some cursing was a nice touch, without going all “Overkill” on it).  The cut scenes, which are part of gameplay, dragged on and broke up the action considerably, especially during the first chapter.  However, as the game progresses, it becomes more and more entertaining and intense.  You will find yourself frantically searching every corridor during the cut scenes to find extra ammo, health, and secret text/audio logs.  The text logs are somewhat of a bore, but I found the audio logs to be a nice extra touch.  As you find them, the game continues and the audio plays through your Wiimote, giving you a brief clue or back story from others from the ship.  Other cool extras include a glow stick, that needs to be shaken (via Wiimote) to light the path in front of you, and detailed scoring for each chapter, which definitively adds to the replay value of each segment of the game.

Dead Space: Extraction was a surprise for me, which is a great feeling when playing new video games.  It started out a bit slow for my taste, but by the end, I was clinching the Wiimote, begging for more.  And even when you’re done, there are unlockable challenge levels with leaderboards (no online) that allow for a nice ‘pass and play’ feature with your friends, along with animated comics that you find throughout gameplay. I do not have the Wii Zapper or any other gun peripheral, but my instincts tell me this would be slightly easier/more enjoyable to play with one.  It just is somewhat awkward shooting a gun on screen, when in reality you’re just pointing a remote at the screen.  Definitely distracts from really getting into the game. I was originally going to give this game 3 out of 5 ninja stars, but the damn game just kept growing on me.  It 100% deserves the 4 out of 5 rating.