Shockingly competent.

Stop and ask yourself if, conceptually, a rail shooter spin-off of Dead Space exclusively for the Wii sounds like a good idea. It shouldn’t. It’s the kind of pitch that, by all rights, should have been thrown out of whatever boardroom it was first floated in. An M-Rated game on a console for children, based on a series that only existed on the competition’s hardware, and being made by the original developers despite being a completely different genre? Get real. Consumers agreed; there’s a reason that this game only pushed four-digit copies in its release week. But if you’re one of the nine thousand true sickos who heard that premise and thought it sounded promising, then welcome aboard. I did too, and you’ll be pleased to know that what’s here isn’t just passable, but also somehow manages to clear the Herculean task of being pretty alright.

While the business decisions behind putting this game out may be pretty questionable, I’m not an EA shareholder, so I don’t really give a shit. What I do care about is the fact that, from a gameplay perspective, turning Dead Space into a rail shooter kind of makes sense. What was Dead Space originally, if not an action-horror shooter with a focus on extremely tight, precise hotspots that needed to be aimed at? It almost sounds like a better idea to make it into a light gun game than to bind that concept to a gamepad. Of course, the primary struggle was going to be in developing a tight, universal pacing to be followed while also keeping a lot of the heft of the original combat mechanics, and Dead Space Extraction mostly succeeds in this.

The main complaint that I imagine most people are going to have is that this game is slow. It is ridiculously slow. A full playthrough is probably going to take you around six hours, which is pretty breezy by the standards of most games, but may as well be Pride and Prejudice when you compare it to other rail shooters. The House of the Dead 2 is an arcade quarter-muncher that only takes half an hour to beat; Sin and Punishment is an often-grueling affair designed from the bottom up for at-home play, and even that’ll cap out at around two hours tops. Six hours is a monstrous length, and a lot of that time is going to be spent with your character standing around gormlessly while the supporting cast looks into camera to talk at you like you’re Gordon Freeman. Shifting the perspectives around to multiple characters does pull a lot of weight in keeping things from getting too stale, though, and the game does manage to wrap itself up in time before it fully overstays its welcome.

Where Extraction really shines, however, is in how the characters of the weapons have transitioned to the rail shooter format. Dead Space’s original lineup of guns had a lot of personality to them, with each one serving a very strict purpose; the Plasma Cutter being an exceptionally strong all-rounder kind of invalidated most of its friends, but the Ripper still excelled in close-quarters, the Contact Beam worked to let you kill whatever you pointed it at so long as you could charge it up, and the Line Gun cleaved through packed enemies like three hundred amps through butter. All of these have been brought over faithfully into Extraction, with the only notable change being the reigning in of the Plasma Cutter and a few extra additions: the Rivet Gun is a heavy-but-bottomless single-shot projectile thrower, the P-Sec pistol works like your traditional spammy rail shooter handgun, and the Arc Welder is a chain lightning gun that cooks multiple enemies about as well as the phrase “chain lightning gun” should imply. Upgrades that you find in the wild seem to only affect ammo capacity, which is a little boring, but it’d be tough to think of a better way to implement them. Besides, you activate the alt-fires in this by turning the Wii remote sideways, which is so stupidly cool that I can’t help but love how the guns are handled. This is the kind of game begging for a Plasma Cutter peripheral that you can pop the Wiimote into.

It’s the kind of game that I can’t imagine anyone having an opinion at all more critical than “eh, it’s okay”. It’s simple, and a little over-long, but what’s here is perfectly serviceable. I’ll probably never play it again, if only because of how much downtime there is; that might be a killing blow for something in this genre, considering how replayability tends to be extremely valued in a rail shooter, but I don’t mind it being absent here. What’s here is solid, and that’s enough for me to be satisfied with it.

We ought to go back to a time where studios the size of Visceral could take a shot at making something out of their comfort zone without immediately going out of business.

props to visceral for actually trying to make a decent wii spinoff. i suppose that’s a low bar, but still, not many studios were clearing it at the time. a totally different genre with a whole new set of mechanics to suit the hardware and yet it still feels like a proper dead space game, much more so than if they had tried to do a crummy port with the wii’s technical limitations. still feels fantastic to play, with combat and collection that is surprisingly deep and challenging. rock solid controls and mechanics in general. not much to complain about, really; definitely one of the best wii games

it's a whatever rail shooter. the wiimote is precise, like always, so it makes for a good controlling experience, but the story is not interesting enough to account for the massive downtime between shooting sections. the characters might be the most stereotypical cliche characters of all time, and all the subtlety from the original game is completely gone. remember that one part of the original where you can faintly hear twinkle twinkle little star, so quiet you're barely sure if you didnt just imagine it? now you crawl through a dark tunnel while you hear scary twinkle twinkle little star blaring at you! it gets very annoying how hamfisted the "scary" parts are, even if the original dead space didn't always succeed at being scary, at least it wasn't completely reliant on shit like bad jumpscares (theres one midway through the game that feels like a comedy sketch its so bad) and "oooo scary childrens music!" just stick to the main series, only check this out if you really wanna play every game with dead space on the box.

The story was kinda eh and graphically.... I mean it's a Wii game so you're not gonna get anything amazing out of it. But with that being said the lighting looks really good and it sounded really good, I think this might be the best sounded Wii game.

Gameplay-wise it's perfect, Dead Space is the perfect IP for an On-Rail-Shooter, and it's on the perfect console with the Wiimote aka God's gift to shooters.

As a prequel, it works a lot more than like the 2 other prequels to Dead Space 1, and as its own game, it works extremely well.

Dead Space is a surprising new gaming franchise from EA that was actually original, in depth, a just really amazing. The whole story behind Dead Space is just so surreal thanks to all the different forms of media from movies to books to comic books. Dead Space is an alien artifact that somehow unleashed a deadly race of aliens onto a planet colony and found its way to the Ishimura which is a planet cracking ship.

Dead Space: Extraction sets itself between the comic books and the first Dead Space game. Think of this as what happened before Isaac Clarke entered the Ishimura. Extraction may initially throw you off guard since it’s an “on rails” FPS kind of like old arcade games. This may turn Dead Space fans completely off since you don’t have control of exploration. While this does hamper the score a lot there is so much fun and fright to be had in Extraction.


The main focus in Extraction is getting the hell off the Ishimura and finding a shuttle. You play as several characters throughout the game, but your main guy is Nate. He is a P-SEC officer who is working with his sergeant to get as many people to safety as possible. You really only see your reticle to the main focus is to point and shoot. The controls are really great and laid out for both regular use and the Wii Zapper (or any other gun attachment you may have) so I will be reviewing this game off of the Zapper control scheme. You have a lot at your hands besides weapons and this includes your Stasis (slows down objects), and your telekinesis which will pull objects towards you. You also have a swipe attack for melee and cutting things throughout the game.

Most of your weapons arsenal is tools and all the weapons from the original Dead Space are back with lots of additions. Some of these include the P-SEC pistol, welding gun, and nail gun. The nail gun is standard and has unlimited ammo, but each weapon has a secondary fire. For example, the pulse rifle has a shotgun blast that must be charged, the P-SEC pistol has a spray shot, and the flamethrower can shoot fireballs. All of these weapons will be needed and strategically used for certain situations.


Most of the game plays through the creepy and eerie story with the character moving on his/her own. While this is immersive and cinematic it can be boring sometimes since several minutes can pass with just looking around at nothing. The game moves at a slower pace than you would want, but it fits the atmosphere. There will be times when creatures will grab you out of the dark and you must shake your Wii remote to turn on your glow worm. You will hear strange voices and creepy visions that pop up out of nowhere. While you’re roaming these halls you need to act fast and use your telekinesis to grab ammo, upgrades, health, audio/text logs etc. All of these are tallied up at the end of each chapter and you are scored.

When it comes to creatures I can’t really recall any new forms. Every single form from the original Dead Space is here, and even some environments. The devs recycled a lot of content and this felt like a big no-no to me. While there are some simple mini-games such as a rewiring game where you can’t touch red circuits, a turret section, and some parts that have you nail stuff up to keep things out. The game is riveting and exciting, but by the time you get through all ten (long) chapters you just want it to end. This is partly due to the difficulty factor and the unbalanced ammo versus creatures problem. Scrounging ammo is very difficult in this game even on the easiest setting, and it makes you wish the devs would just stop doing that.


I however highly enjoyed this game and found it to be worth the $50 purchase. With a number of weapons, decent length and amazing helped make this game easy to chew. There is just enough mixed around for you to stay on the edge of your seat, and that’s what keeps you playing.

Dead Space: Extraction is a thrilling on-rails shooter that expertly translates the horror of the Dead Space universe to the Wii. Players blast their way through a gripping narrative, facing grotesque Necromorphs with dismembering precision through the Wii Remote. It boasts a well-paced story, intense action, and atmospheric environments. While light-gun gameplay inherently limits exploration compared to the mainline entries, Dead Space: Extraction is a surprisingly deep experience, featuring co-op, unlockables, and multiple difficulty modes to ramp up the challenge.

I am not at all familiar with the rail shooter/light gun genre of games, I think my only real experience with them is playing those Terminator and Alien arcade cabinets at my local Dave n’ Busters at my friends birthday parties. So needless to say that my expectations for Dead Space: Extraction were very low; I expected it to be just an overall boring spin-off that shared some aesthetical similarities with its older sibling. It wasn’t until I booted up the game and saw that this was an in-house Visceral Games project, that I realized there might be more to this game than I initially suspected; and boy, was I right. Dead Space: Extraction not only coherently translates Dead Space’s atmosphere and aesthetic to an entirely linear experience, but also turns the Resident Evil 4 inspired combat into an arcade-like experience that uses the same mechanics and ideas, but in a much better way.

While personally I didn’t think the atmosphere in the first Dead Space was anything unique, I still recognize that it more than than effective for other people and appreciate all of the different facets that went into building that atmosphere; the sound design, art direction, and level design are all really great and make Dead Space stand out amongst its peers. But, the challenge that Dead Space: Extraction faced was taking all of those aspects that were used to create that sense of dread, and making it work in the much more linear and restrictive format of a rail shooter. The thing is though, the way Visceral went about doing this was not a one to one translation, but instead, a B-movie horror flick reinterpretation of those original ideas. Mind you, it is much more Evil Dead 1 than Army of Darkness, as in it still takes itself seriously, but that cheese is still very much there, almost in an ironic way. Firstly, the cast of characters that the story follows is much more colorful than the ones in Dead Space 1, with each character following typical horror movie tropes; McNeil is the rough and tough PI who doesn’t take shit from no one, Eckhardt is the coward turned traitor, Lexine is the damsel, and Weller is the bastard with a heart of gold. All of these characters are entertaining to follow and their chemistry with one another is honestly pretty fun, though some of the line deliveries from the voice actors are a little off sometimes, but I think this just adds to the endearing charm of this band of misfits. As well, I find it very funny that the entire structure and flow of the games story is the exact opposite of the first game; Extraction starts you out right where Dead Space ended, at the loading bay on the planet colony, and then proceeds to hit all the major set pieces from the first game, nearly beat for beat. It creates this cool situation where the player, assuming they have played Dead Space 1, knows what's coming, or at least they know how that area is going to play out; which I guess is just the nature of prequels, but I still find it cool nonetheless.

The combat also had to shift in order to accommodate the rail shooter genre, and similarly to the story and atmosphere, I think it works way better in this game. Dead Space 1 was very liberal with its use of the necromorphs, which is the norm for the horror game genre. But, what I ended up having a problem with is that Dead Space tried to have its cake and eat it too by having those traditional horror elements, but with combat that is comparable to Resident Evil 4 and 5. This doesn’t work because any tension that the game tries to build up is immediately dissolved once the player realizes that the guns and equipment available lets them absolutely make clowns out of the enemies. Extraction fixes this problem by fully embracing its RE4 roots and just sends droves upon droves of necromorphs, and just lets the player use their arsenal to its fullest extent. The plasma cutter is just as satisfying to use as it is in the first game, the force gun goes from being too good, to actually being used for its purpose as a “get off me” tool, and the flamethrower has gone from just ok, to being the most satisfying and effective weapon in the game; lighting hoards of necromorphs on fire when you get overwhelmed and watching the drop like flies is so much fun. There is even a new pistol that, while initially not sounding that good, ends up becoming a great workhorse tool because of how handy the alt fire is. All of this is elevated even more by the masterful use of the Wii Remotes motion controls; as expected from a light gun, the Wii Remote is used to aim and shoot at enemies, but the game also utilizes the controllers that I would have never expected. The joystick on the Nunchuk is what is used to switch weapons, and not the D-pad like I had originally expected; this creates a great sense of fluidity during combat encounters, making the swapping of weapons like second nature, rather than an inconvenience like it normally does. As well, I particularly like how, to switch to the alt fire of weapons, you tilt the Wii Remote to the side; much like how the Nunchuk makes the switching weapons smoother, this use of the motion controls makes the atl fires so much more usable because you can just switch to them effortlessly on the spot.

To close out, I would like to mention a couple of criticisms of the game. For a Wii game, it runs fine, it sometimes stutters slightly when there is an abundance of particle effects on screen, or when there are a lot of enemies. While I do overall like the use of motion controls, the way they are used for the power saw is just not good; much like how it operates in Dead Space, the weapon fires a buzz saw that the player can then parade around with and cut off necromorph limbs like a chainsaw. In Extraction it still functions like that, but the saw can also be moved along the Z axis, which doesn’t really work because it is very hard to tell how far or how close an enemy is on screen. Overall though, I thoroughly enjoyed Dead Space: Extraction, it is a fun and innovative take on both Dead Space’s original genre, as well as the light gun/rail shooter format.

Written May 30, 2010

In the latest installment of Visceral Games' hit Dead Space series, Dead Space: Extraction has you playing through the events leading up to Isaac Clarke's arrival on the USG Ishimura in the original, but trades in the third person view point for a more cinematic on-rails experience EA refers to as a “guided shooter”.

Dead Space: Extraction has you playing through the eyes of various characters in their struggles from the extraction of the Red Marker on Aegis VII to a slight overlap with the original. All the characters you play seem to be suffering from a form of dementia brought on by the activation of the marker.

Although it is a rail shooter, EA's term does actually fit it well as there are a few parts where you have a choice of what path to take and the ability to look around at given points and pick up items, health and ammo packs, tape recordings, notes, etc. The pointer did seem to be a bit oversensitive and the camera had a nasty habity of whipping around without notice. Visceral put a bit of effort in the controls as the Ripper, for example can be moved forward and backward by moving the Wii Remote closer or farther from the screen.

Visceral even put much effort into one department most Wii developers have been skipping out on up until now: graphics. Saying Dead Space: Extraction is pretty would be an understatement. Extraction easily overshadows around 90% of the Wii library in terms of graphics. Shading is quite excellent and the textures surpass a lot of what I've seen from certain developers.

Extraction not only switches up the rail-shooter genre, but also changes what you've come to expect from a game on the Wii. Its graphics are good, and it fills in a lot of Dead Space's backstory, and even provides a good starting point for people to begin with the franchise in case they missed out on the original or don't have a platform to play it on.

Conozco poquísimos juegos de disparos, pero la impresión que me dio esta obra es que es ¿Bastante correcta? No sé, siento que tendría que jugar a más para tener una opinión más elaborada.

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I know very few railroad shooter games, but the impression I got from this one is that it is quite good? I don't know, I feel I would have to play more to have a more discerning opinion.

Dead Space Extraction is a fun on-rails prequel DEADSPACE game that takes place before the very first DEADSPACE and connects directly with DEADSPACE 2.

The starts with the outbreak of the MARKER infecting the scientist and unitologists in the area where the marker was found.

In the first level you play as Sam Caldwald who has a girlfriend named Lexine Murdoch. Sam Caldwald is one of the first to deal with the outbreak by being directly incontact with the MARKER on Aegis VII. He wears armor/mining suit similar to that of Isaac Clark however with open visor. Him and his friends go crazy and you see it from his perspective as he has to kill his friends before they go insane.
Sadly Caldwell succumbs to the voices and is promptly shot by the protagonist Nathan Mcneill who's a detective.

Mcniell meets with his soldier/police friend Gabrielle Weller and they go through the outbreak attempting to get off AEGIS VII with Lexine. Gabrielle and Lexine are both characters that appear in DEAD SPACE 2 as they have married eachother after the events of DEADSPACE 1 and during 2.

They meet with the Executive Director of Colonial Mining Affairs Warren Eckhart during the outbreak when saving him.
The crew goes through the game attempting to get off AEGIS VII, and once they do, they end up on the original ship from DEADSPACE, the ISHIMURA. There they meet Nicole (Isaac Clark's wife) who helps McNiell, Murdock, Eckhart, and Weller to find a life boat to get off the USG ISHIMURA however stays behind to try and help survivors.
In Chapter 6 Lexine gets seperated from the group and ends up meeting Karen Howell who is a bontanist of Hydrophonics who meets with McNiell, Weller, and Eckhart before they're attack by a giant tenticle necromorph called The Urchin.
Karen Howell saves Lexine from a giant armored necromorph called the Brute, before they meet with McNiell, Weller, and Eckhart. Howell activates the tram (train) so they can escape to the nearest life boat, and McNiel asks Eckhart to protect Howell while they clear the way ahead.
Eckhart and Howell have a conversation where Eckhart ordered for Unitologist to established in all parts of the ISHIMURA and AEGIS VII, and he's the reason for why the outbreak happens as those who become Necromorphs are believers of what the MARKER is saying.
Eckhart is revealed to be the cause of all of this, and allows for Howell to be killed by the Giant Tenticle from DEADSPACE. Eckhart returns to Nathan, Lexine, and Gabrielle lying to them saying "Howell sacrificed herself to save me, she locked the door."

Weller decides it's best to split up to find a life boat and decides that Lexine and McNeill need to go to another area and check if theres a life boat there.
Weller and Eckhart find a lifeboat, and clear out the Necromorphs in the area. Weller later destroys 4 braces that are holding the lifeboat and door in place to escape, and he destroys them while leaving Eckhart in the office space alone. When Weller returns he sees Eckhart relaying a message to other scientist/unitologist of the USG organization on how Lexine is immune to the effect of the MARKER and that she needs to be tested on for further research.

Weller confronts Eckhart and Eckhart shoots him, however Eckhart is later attacked and killed by a Leaper Necromorph.
Lexine and McNeill meet up with Weller and McNeill has to go and shut down the final canon, in order to allow themselves to escape the ISHIMURA. After deactivating the cannon in zero gravity, McNeill encounters a giant space breathing necromorph called the Spider. After killing the Spider, it shoots one last attack at McNeill for permanent damage. This attack causes McNeill to have to cut off his arm... sadly he's already dead at this point.

Lexine and Weller have 1 final stand against hordes of Necromorphs of different varieties waiting for McNiell to arrive. They think hes officially dead before a 1 armed McNeill shows up and all 3 get off the ISHIMURA.

Weller asks what McNeill is going to do next, and he says "I'm officially retired."
(which is both funny and sad as to what McNeill's fate actually is).
Before that, a transmission comes in from the USG Kellion after finding the distress signal from Nicole and from the ISHIMURA.

Lexine attempts to get in contact with the Kellion but the transmission doesn't go through. The USG Kellion being the ship Isaac Clark is on, starting the events of DEAD SPACE.

As DEAD SPACE EXTRACTION ends... DEAD SPACE begins.

McNeill's fate is later revealed in DEAD SPACE 2 to have turned into a Necromorph after his injury from fighting the spider, confirming that he succumbed to the infection/injury, and final shot of Lexine shooting a Necromorph confirms Lexine killed Necromorph McNeill... he got his retirement.

The game is an on rail shooter with various different weapons to use from the iconic DEAD SPACE series:

- Plasma Cutter (Horizontal and Vertical switch)
- Line Gun
- Pulse Rifle
- Force Gun
- Flame Thrower
- Ripper
- Contact Beam

Also featuring 3 new weapons:
- Rivet Gun (Nail Gun)
- P-Sec Pistol (Futuristic Revolver)
- Arc Welder (Shoots Electricity)


The game features different variants of the Necromorphs, along with 2 New Version of Necromorph Bosses.
These variants being:

- Standard Necromorphs
- Leapers
- Ubermorphs
- Exploders
- Lukers
- Pregnants
- Swarmers
- Fliers
- Brutes (Only 1 is encountered in this game)

And 2 new Boss variants of Necromorphs:

- The Urchin
- The Spider


The game is very repetitive in terms of the on rails and tends to be a bit cheap in terms of when you get hit, but still can be very fun. The story is a great addition to DEAD SPACE as a whole as it clears up a lot of loose ends and ties DEAD SPACE and DEAD SPACE 2 together very well.

I highly recommend playing this game or watching a youtube video instead to experience the story. Had a great time with DEAD SPACE EXTRACTION, all before I play DEAD SPACE REMAKE.

If you want to play DEAD SPACE EXTRACTION purchase the DEAD SPACE 2: LIMITED EDITION as it comes with DEAD SPACE EXTRACTION on the disc. Copies on eBay go for about $15-$25, get it quick before the prices spike.

I really liked DEAD SPACE EXTRACTION.

Apart from dodgy boss fights, this absolutely fucks.

I'm streaming my way back through the series and decided to add this in there since I never got around to it, and suddenly everyone was coming out of the woodwork to tell me that it's great and I'll have a good time. They were right, and I cannae believe I'd never heard any chat about it all these years.

I'd just assumed it must have been shite since it never came up when I was discussing the series with anyone. A game I knew nothing about other than it was a rail shooter. But it feels great to play, some solid shooting, and adds loads to the overall lore (aye that's right, I said lore, it's good to like lore again and you can't do a damn thing about it).

I've fallen deep into Dead Space, more than I did all those years ago when it first released. They've got me doing the Leo point at a name in a text document. It feels good.

Un spin-off así como una precuela del 1er juego, que tiene todo lo que hace tan bueno al juego original a pesar de que tenga un gameplay completamente distinto: en lugar de un survival horror en 3ra persona es un shooter sobre rieles. Muy entretenido así como un tanto desafiante, tiene multijugador local para 2 jugadores y un modo "desafío".

Genuinamente sorprendido de lo buenos que son los controles, aunque no muy fan de que para cambiar el modo de disparo se tenga que inclinar a un lado el wiimote, hacer esto mientras apuntas no es muy cómodo. Además tiene gráficos bastante buenos para ser un juego de Wii, aunque a veces el framerate tenía bajones justo cuando había un escenario muy amplio o había muchos enemigos en pantalla, no afectaba demasiado a la experiencia pero era bastante común que pasase.
Si me tuviese que quejar de algo, es que no puedas equiparte las armas que desees cuando seleccionas nivel(pero si se puede hacer en el modo desafío). Además el doblaje de algunos personajes no era tan bueno, por ejemplo Lexine, su voz sonaba bastante sobreactuada.

Y dentro de los extras trae unos comics "animados"(que no destacan precisamente por su dibujo) que te ponen mejor en contexto sobre lo que causó el incidente, el complemento perfecto si ya jugaste el 1er juego.