The 1001 write up for Dead Space Extraction hypes it up, as you'd expect, before ending with the line "A shame, then, that it bombed on release."
Was it because the Nintendo Wii wasn't the right fit for a gory first-person trip through Dead Space? The 1001 write up says such a game could only have happened on the Wii, but a few years later it'd be ported to the PlayStation 3 with its Move controllers, though that wasn't known at the time.
Did it bomb for being an on-rails shooter, an oft-ignored genre albeit one that could make use of the limitations the Wii had? Was it just not a good game in the eyes of the masses? Was it on the 'wrong platform'?
Whatever the reasons, the 1001 list is all about highlighting must-play video games, whether they were adored by the masses or not. Have we all missed something special in Extraction?
Frustrations
I've not got Dead Space Extraction for either the Wii or the PS3, so my options for playing it are rather limited indeed. Wii emulation has proven to work in the past, though it does come with some quirks and issues that are a right pain in the arse in some situations.
PS3 emulation still seems a distant dream to me, but apparently, Extraction was the first game to get fully up and running on RPCS3, which sounded promising, but I think even this old, faithful machine will cry out in pain trying to get started with that.
Fun Times
Wii emulation it is then, with a mouse, keyboard, and Xbox controller filling in for various Remotes and Nunchuck inputs. It's not the way to play, let me tell you that, but that's what we're going with.
Extraction takes place before the events of Dead Space, filling in some of the backstory to events of the first game for fans who can't get enough of audio logs and industrial tools turned into brutal weaponry.
In a neat little touch, we are not playing a third-person action-adventure, but an on-rails FPS. We are Sam Caldwell, and outside these crew quarters on Aegis VII is a Red Marker, a giant alien structure of unknown origin that may or may not have a link to Earth. Think 2001: A Space Odyssey, because it's basically the same thing.
We're not a soldier, remember, so our default 'weapon' is a big ol' bolt gun for driving bolts into metal and stuff. Our tutorial is to fix a rail line so that the Red Marker can be grabbed and brought inside for further studying. A simple affair.
It was never going to be easy, was it? Why does alien technology have to be so fussy about getting moved, or touched, or looked at by us humans?
Everything is on rails, of course, so it all gets to look cinematic and flashy, as far as Wii limitations allow it. It means we don't have to worry about where to go, because we'll be whisked there as and when needed. It also means we've got to keep our eyes peeled, as each level will award us a number of stars based on how well we do, how accurate we are, what hidden things we pick up with our gravity gun and so on.
Anyway, we can see crates and pickups in the darkness now, and as you can see, the controls for the gravity gun are simple enough. You can even use these things as a form of offence, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a puzzle or two that makes use of it, too.
It doesn't take long for Extraction to show its horrific side, as our colleagues are turning mad and zombie-like for unknown reasons, and they're not giving us a chance to talk things out.
Your primary tool (now weapon, I suppose) packs quite a punch if you can aim and time your shots. With only 3 rounds and a slow reload, though one that can be sped up with a well-timed jab of the Z button on the Nunchuck, combat can be a tense affair.
I don't know if higher difficulties speed these guys up or let them hit harder, but I was already taking damage to the first enemies of the game, and there's only going to be more, tougher opposition up ahead.
Further Fun Times
I absolutely did not think that tougher opposition was going to come in the form of a metal barricade that could easily have been moved aside or crawled under or hopped over, though.
Buttons are easy: the B button is the trigger, my left mouse button is usually the trigger, so let's map those together. Movement is a little trickier, but we can map D-pads and analogue sticks to an Xbox controller, or WASD, and use them at the same time as the mouse. So far, so good, if a little funky and janky.
Actual movement sensors, however, tend to be the worst to find solutions to. You can assign inputs to tilts, rolls, and shakes, but how a specific game will register these inputs is anyone's guess. I usually map everything to do with shaking to the space bar. Why shake like a maniac if I can just press or hold one button? It usually works. Not here.
No amount of inputs would get me past this bloody barrier until I accidentally triggered something and jumped across the gap beyond it.
I hoped that would be a minor problem I'd have to face - I don't particularly want to melee any nasty opponents if I can help it - but around the next corner was another one of the bastards that needed knocking down, and absolutely nothing was working.
Well, they sure stopped me. I was at this barrier for minutes, spamming every input I could think of, in whatever random, vaguely human-like input I could think of, in an attempt to batter this barrier with a melee attack mapped to who knows what input.
When emulation works, it generally works very well. When it doesn't, it looks like this: the saviour of the story gets stuck behind a waist-high obstacle.
Final Word
I always knew this might be an issue, and was disappointed that it was such a problem, but there's no point in complaining too much - I am, after all, supposed to be playing Dead Space Extraction on proper hardware.
But will I? Dead Space was a nice surprise that I wanted to play more of. Extraction gave me very little to latch onto and get stuck into. As a fan of story-driven games, the very nature of an on-rails shooter should mean that I'm able to focus on the story and almost literally be swept along with it, and for fans of Dead Space, this is all canon, all backstory for the first game. It should be pretty good.
And yet, perhaps because of emulation woe, I just haven't found myself interested in it. It's looked alright but has felt generic. Sam has a girlfriend who expects to see him later. I bet we won't. We've found and are attempting to extract a big alien mystery, but its similarity to 2001 is so on the nose that it feels like the easiest set up they could use to get players started on their journey.
It all feels like a side-quest for those who really want more Dead Space to explore, rather than an example of an on-rails shooter done right - but remember that I say all of this having only seen everything up until the second flimsy barrier of the lengthy tutorial opening.
This might be a great little game, making full use of the on-rails shooter mechanics to push the Wii to its limits and provide an action-horror experience that the Wii isn't known for. Until I play or watch it, I don't know. Do I track down a copy of Dead Space 2 on the PS3, or Extraction on the Wii? Do I finish Dead Space and see if I even care about its world before diving into this bit of backstory?
I'm not too sure right now, but I think I ought to play a fair bit more of it, somehow, to give it a proper write-up. Maybe we have all missed out on something special.
Fun Facts
Progression in Extraction is rewarded with a motion comic version of the Dead Space comic miniseries.
Dead Space Extraction, developed by Visceral Games, Eurocom, first released in 2009.
Version played: Nintendo Wii, 2009, via emulation.