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Dead Space: Extraction
Wii
A Rail Shooter with a Decent Story, Who Knew?
4/5 stars
Dead Space: Extraction by no means advances or innovates the rail shooter genre, but instead takes its best elements to make an all-around solid game experience.
For those who have played the original Dead Space, you will find yourself on familiar ground. Several times during the game you'll be shooting enemies in the same spots on the ship and surface as you did in the first game. If you haven't played the first Dead Space, you will likely be a bit confused as to what is going on and it will probably be much more difficult finding the most efficient way to kill the enemies on the screen. So, I highly recommend playing the first game before taking this on...which is unfortunate considering that this game is a Wii game and Dead Space came out on the other two consoles.
This rail shooter has much more of a story than others I've played. House of the Dead, for example, is basically running through a city and buildings shooting who knows what. This game, on the other hand, includes a lot of dialogue and more characters than you will believe. This is a prequel to the first game. In the first game you are thrust into a terrible situation. In this one, you get to see how it happened as you follow several characters as they try to escape and survive it. There are several subtle references to unitologists and the marker, and while you do learn more with audio and text logs, odds are you'll find it more annoying than anything unless you enjoyed and can remember the story from the first game like I did.
Game play follows your typical rail shooter. Fortunately for the Wii, it's set up perfectly for this. Using the Wii Zapper makes you feel like you're back in a classic arcade. You have to shake the nunchuck to reload which takes some practice and doing a melee attack is a bit uncomfortable too, but other than that the controls are solid.
All the guns from the original game return here, including the plasma cutter, rail gun, flame thrower, and so on. There are also a couple new ones, including a pistol. I actually enjoyed the first game and the lack of a basic pistol, but that's me. With that said, you end up having to choose what guns to have in the middle of the level because it only lets you have 4 at a time. That's annoying since there are many more guns than that, and you're forced to live with your decision until you stumble on another gun. Don't worry, there's still stasis in this game which allows you to slow and freeze enemies briefly and you can still pick up and throw explosive objects at enemies, too. There's minimal unnecessary camera shake which is nice after playing the Resident Evil rail shooters. The game doesn't try to make you miss, but it's still annoying when you're going for ammo and you miss because the game gave you a tenth of a second before panning away from it. There are, however, several times where you are actually given control over where you look in a level so you can have a chance at picking things up so it's not all bad on that front.
Co-op is included in the game, so you can one friend with you which is fun. Since it's a rail shooter things don't change, just an extra set of cross hairs on the screen. The two of you will share your health, but ammo is separate which I found a little odd.
This game doesn't have a ton of replay value because of all the dialogue. As far as I know there's no way to skip it. So, playing another half hour level won't be nearly as fun since you're trying to find all the items or get a higher score and you have to listen to dialogue you've heard before. But, the first time through is quite enjoyable. I like the Dead Space environment because it focuses more on taking out enemies limbs instead of always going for head shots. The variety of guns gives you options on how to attack certain levels. The story adds to the first game without ruining it. Also, character deaths happen frequently so don't get attached to anyone in particular.
This is a must play if you're a big fan of Dead Space.
4/5.
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