Those who see the Wii as a cute little box with cute little games might be surprised — or even terrified — by “Dead Space: Extraction.”
The science-fiction horror game from Electronic Arts takes Wii fans where they rarely go: a bloody, unsettling world on the edge of sanity.
The game is actually a prequel to the 2008’s “Dead Space,” in which your character battled alien creatures who inhabited and grotesquely transformed the bodies of the crew members of the starship Ishimura. “Extraction” starts on the Aegis VII colony, where excavations have uncovered a strange artifact that seems to cause colonists to go insane. It’s not long before the insanity and the alien Necromorphs spread to the Ishimura.
Game play is very smooth, even though you are on a rail. The timing is very good — a key to success for games that don’t permit free movement.
As in the original game — which was available only on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 — you must rely on “strategic dismemberment” to take down enemies. Apparently, alien-bearing zombies need to have more than a head removed before they’ll stop tearing at you. You can use any number of sci-fi industrial tools to separate appendages from bodies with a gruesome display of blood.
The settings and characters are well rendered — and suitably creepy.
The game earns a hard M-rating for brutal violence, gore and profanity.
Platform: Wii
On the Web:www.DeadSpaceGame.com/Extraction
