Saturday 1 October 2011

Dead space:Extraction (PS3 edition)

Gamespot score:n/a

my score:7.5

(+)Pros:-Smooth cursor movement on controllers,-plenty of "jump and scare" moments,- smart use of different weapons in first person mode,-quite a blast when played with another player,-little but fun boss battles.

(-)Cons:-Unskippable conversations sometimes chop up the pace and action,-annoying zero gravity,-ends far too soon.

Gameplay time:5-10 hours





Alright, this will probably be the last of the dead space related reviews for PS3. Extraction is a nice little bonus that came along witht he dead space 2 game for the PS3, and its free of charge too. Extraction for the PS3 is a port of the Wii original, which was pretty good from what I heard. How does it fair on the PS3? Well, for my little review here, I played the whole game on controller with my brother, nothing was done on the move, although this was meant for the move itself. I dont have a move right now, and probably never will (them motion sensor games look pretty damn stupid to me).

Extraction's story takes place before that of dead space 1. It tells the tale of different individual characters and soon the story brings all of them together in an all star cast to go for a full run as a party. There are several characters, I will just point out a few of the main ones. Mcneil (not sure about spelling), a police officer , lexine (female lead) and gabe weller (friends with mcneil). These three are just some of the characters who are the first victims of the outbreak with the marker, causing the necromorphs to appear. Together they live through these living terrors and meet others who share thier fate, as they shoot and dismember all necromorphs that stand in thier way.



If you've done dismembering before, you should know how this works.

Extraction is a first person real time shooter game, someting like time crisis. You dont control your character at all, he/she moves on his/her own, and all you have to do is swing that axe or aim your guns. That being said, the altough its supposed to be a move game, the controller movements for the cursor are pretty smooth, and you can move the cursor freely as you want with no lags or slowdowns. The concept is as simple as any shooter in the world, you aim and shoot, as necromorphs appear on your screen coming from places you would never expect.

Unlike the orignal dead space and dead space 2, where you could move and pace yourself among creepy hallways to avoid unneeded trouble, extraction moves you on its own, and thus you cant control it when the character walks towards a vent like an idiot and suddenly a necromorphs jumps out, scares the shit out of you before proceeding to claw your face. The game has plenty of moments like these, and you will be finding yourself being scared quite a few times. Of course, the areas you visit themselves already reek of creepiness, if the necromorphs didnt do thier part, then there would be no point to it.


Its like they were born solely just to jump out and scare
the living daylights out of you.

Now then, onto the guns. All of the original dead space weapons can be found in extraction (not the dead space 2 exclusive ones though), meaning that theres quite some variety to play around. Theres also a standard rivet gun, with unlimited ammo. The rivet gun is the only new gun and its the game's basic weapon, meaning that you will be carrying that thing around for the entire game. Weapons are not bought, they are found. As you proceed through levels, you will find these weapons laying around, if you can spot them and react fast enough, you can use the kinesis to grab the weapons and swap them in with one your own. Its a simple process, really, and these weapons function just as the way you remember.

Using the 1st person aiming system, the weapons work slightly different though, since you dont really get to see them in person. It provides a new perspective as you work through the necromorphs. Present in this game are also melee and stasis, the latter which you have seen before. Melee attacks are just pickaxe swings that do minor damage, but work well for getting necromorphs away when they get too close to you. Combine all these and you get a kickass arsenal, plus, while the game lacks new original necromorph types, there are bosses exclusive to extraction that mix things up. These guys take more than just random blasts to take down, and while the strategy needed to bring these critters down aint much, its always a blast to finally take down a big baddie.


Much of the game's conversations are unskippable and they
provide unneccesary breaks for the action.
 Extraction however has some really annoying long unskippable conversations that like to appear in between stages. Its really awkward and stupid when you are having tons of fun blasting necromorphs, then you suddenly enter a room and someone shows up....then the two of you begin talking for 5 minutes. What? While these conversations provide insight to the story, they distract you from the fun. Also an annoyance is the zero gravity feature. Its good that they are adding more gameplay features, but zero gravity is downright nauseating. You have to point and aim your cursor, flyyy there slowly while spinning the screen, and when you settle down, enemies start coming at you from all directions. Its a headache, thats what it is, and you have to continously fly around a few times in rapid successions. Finally, the game is too short. Me and my brother cleared it in about 5 hours plus, and thats counting the about 1 hour worth of conversations.

Extraction is a nice free bonus, so even if it sucked, it wouldnt matter. But as a seperate game, its still pretty fun, and is even better when played with a 2nd player. This is included in dead space 2 for the PS3, so theres no need for me to recommend this. Have fun dismembering necromorphs in first person, be it with a controller or the move.


Happy gaming.