The Dead Space franchise has been one that, in my view, been one that has defined this console generation. The first game tried to revitalise the survival horror genre and did a damn good job at it, the 2nd took more of an action game stance to adjust to the market, but tried to keep itself firmly in the horror genre; the 3rd game much to many peoples dislike was an all out action game and one that played out like a Hollywood blockbuster and forced in some pretty awful gameplay mechanics to make you have to use Microtrasactions. The trilogy as a whole though was a very solid one and one of my person favourite franchises, then you had the spin-off games...Ignition and Extraction. Ignition was a pile of shit but that's another review, so lets get on with it.
(Note) Extraction first released in 2009 for the Wii however I am reviewing the 2011 PS3 version, therefore some information may not be correct for the original version.
Extraction sets itself before Dead Space 1. You begin your journey as a miner on the surface of Aegis VII unearthing the marker, succumbing to its mind controlling abilities and killing your squad members. The action them moves onto the focus of three new characters, Nathan McNeill, a private detective; Gabe Weller, a sergeant serving aboard the USG Ishimura and Lexine Murdoch, girlfriend of the miner of whom you play as in the prologue. Extraction follows their journey as they try to escape the terrors surrounding Aegis VII and the Ishimura.
The story, as with all Dead Space games, is pretty solid and answers most of the questions as you how the events in Dead Space 1 occurred, even going so far as destroying parts of the Ishimura which are then fixed by Isaac in the first game. Extraction serves its purpose as a prequel superbly.
However none of the characters are likeable or believable and all are there to serve a stereotype, nothing any of them say is remotely interesting and the voice acting is extremely poor.
The game plays unlike any of the other Dead Space games. Rather than being a 3rd person horror game it chooses to be an on-rails FPS. Not only does this completable destroy all the horror elements by giving you considerably more ammo than in the main game but you also only have one direction for enemies to come from and you always know they are coming. Enemies will only engage in 1 on 1 combat, if there is more than one enemy on the screen it will wait for its friend to be dismembered before trying anything on you. Not to mention none of the friendly characters actually exist in gameplay, they never fire their weapons and are never attacked making some of the larger firefights a bit frustrating and some of the dialogue a bit weird as characters frequently make bad excuses for not having fired their weapons.
You can carry up to four weapons and the game is optimised to work with Playstation move, however I didn't fancy shaking a ball at the screen to play a game so I used the standard controller instead. Unfortunately you're getting the raw end of the deal if you don't use Move, aiming is blocky and actions such as using a glowstick and shaking an enemy off you become very de-tractable from the game and aren’t often as responsive as they should be, but it wasn't unplayable.
The game looks good, for what is essentially a HD remake of something its pretty good, only just below the standard of Dead Space 1 which looks very impressive even today. Characters can sometimes look a bit odd though and the game lacks much texture but it's nothing too bad for a £6 HD remake.
The sound quality is reasonable, it has the tendency to distort when things get busy and as mentioned before the voice acting is simply atrocious. But the soundtrack is good and gives the game some much needed atmosphere.
In short Extraction is pretty bad. The story is good but its nothing we don't already know from the animated film or the collectible logs in Dead Space 1. The gameplay is pretty average for an on-rails shooter and is best played with a Playstation Move and the game is presented at a very sub-par level. You can tell no stops were pulled out for this and that this was never a budget breaking game. Luckily the game is pocket money priced or completely free if you get the limited edition to Dead Space 2 which can ease the suffering a little bit.
Dead Space: Extraction is a game that not even Dead Space fans will be guaranteed to enjoy, but hardcore fans should check it out regardless.
Dead Space: Extraction – 5/10
+Good Story
+Looks Good For A HD Remake
-Sub-par Gameplay
-Awful Voice Acting
