Dead Space Extraction

  Another light gun shooter for the Wii. This game took I think three sessions across a month and half or so to finish. Review INC!

+'s
The Graphics were good. . . for the wii. We were already at a point where wii graphics were sorely lacking when the three current gen systems launched. At this point, the wii's visual prowess is in most cases laughable. Still, as far as wii games go, this game is way up at the top in terms of visual fidelity. The environments look good and with the exception of a few textures, this game looks solid. This is easily in the top 5 as far as the wii goes in terms of technical excellence.
Aiming controls feel responsive and accurate. Having played a number of other light gun games, I feel that this game's aiming is very smooth and accurate. Quite possibly the best aiming I've used in a game yet. Of course, this is very important for a game where the entire thing consists of pointing and shooting.
The co-op in the game feels good. The only way to play these games is w/a buddy and the co-op in this game feels perfect. You share health, weapons and weapon upgrade pickups so there's never any animosity over who picked up what in that department, but at the same time, players do not share ammo so there's still an edge of trying to grab stuff before your friend. Since it's only ammo tho, it never becomes too competitive. Good stuff.
The way the camera moves is an improvement from other light gun games. In most light gun games, the camera moves in a way that makes you feel like you're on a monorail. Just gliding along w/the occasional shake. Dead Space's camera actually makes it feel like you're playing a first person game while shooting. The sense of actually belonging in the environment instead of just rolling through it really enhances the enjoyment of this game.
The weapon selection was varied and interesting. A game based soley on shooting things needs to have guns that are fun to shoot and that's something Dead Space handled well. There are around 8 or so different guns in the game, all with a secondary firing mode and for the most part, they were all good fun to use. In addition to that, you could upgrade them by collecting upgrade nodes while playing the game. Good stuff.
Stasis mode. In the game you have the ability to put things into stasis. Pretty much, you aim at something, and shoot stasis at it and it slows down to a crawl while you aim and blast the hell out of it. This was also used in a few environmental puzzles that I admit, mostly consisted of slowing fans down so you could walk through them. In any case, this was a fun tool to use and since it has regenerating infinite ammo, there was never a reason to try to conserve it.

='s
The voice acting was solid. Wasn't spectacular but it also wasn't bad. Voice acting in video games as a whole has gotten so much better in the past few years that it's easy to disregard it when it's average. Also, all you have to do it youtube an older house of the dead game or resident evil to really get an idea of how bad things used to be.
The enemies were fun to shoot. The idea behind "strategic dismemberment" has carried over from the 360 to the wii version. Basically, the baddies in this game need to be dismembered to be killed quickly. So instead of just shooting them willy nilly wherever, you have to take out theirs arms, legs and other various appendages to put them down. This puts a little strategy into the game instead of just firing nonstop at everything w/out a second thought. The only problem is that there weren't all too many enemy types to shoot at. I'd guess, not counting the bosses, there were around 6ish different enemy types. Too low a number for a 6 or 7 hour game.

-'s
The game's story. There was story there, but it was nonsensical and boring. You'll have to ask Kevin what this game was about because I really couldn't pay attention.
The telekinetic ball ruined all tension during cutscenes. So, the TK ball is something you can use to manipulate things in game. Pulling switches and levers, picking up explosive barrels and throwing them and for collecting dropped items and opening lockers. . . sounds great except that it's this giant white ball that flys out while making this whooshing noise. Now imagine two players, both whooshing the ball out and in nonstop whenever there's nothing to fight. Also, you're allowed to whoosh around during the cutscenes as well and it's hard to take anything, or anyone seriously when you're balling them repeatedly in the face, breasts and penis. I guess this isn't the game's fault as much as it is our own but you sort of have to be whooshing at all times to try and find items that lay about whenever these cutscenes take place as well. The game would have been much better off if they took away the ability during parts where the story was being told.
There was one boss fight that just felt broken. There was one particular boss fight where kevin and I must have died 20+ times. I really want to believe it wasn't our fault but the fault of the games. You have to shoot these glowing areas on a tentacle before it hits you except that it felt like the aiming was way off. I ended up shooting the area ABOVE the glowing balls to actually have it register as a hit. Not so bad after realizing that was off, but up until then it was god awful. We actually spent around 15 to 20 min playing against this boss w/the sound off just because. . . I don't even remember why, but once the sound was off, it got a little better.
The aiming reticle seems larger than necessary. Seriously, the thing is huge. It's a giant circle with a different reticule inside the circle for every gun. I don't know why they had to make the thing so damn huge. It might not be as much of a problem when playing alone but when you're playing with a friend, there's two giant circle reticules with inner parts so when we're both trying to aim at the same thing, all I see is reticule and I lose sight of what I'm shooting at. It's crazy. . .
The game inexplicably makes me want to just curl up and go to sleep. Now, this I really don't understand, but it's a big minus for me. Every time we played this game, I started getting sleepy. Like, holy crap, I'm trying to stay awake but I can't sleepy. It's like a freaking drug. I don't get it, but it's definitely a negative.
Large sections of no action, just story, with the tk balls. I'm talkin like 10 minute plus sections of the game where you're just walking around talking to people. If the story were awesome, that'd be fine, but it's not. Also, there's tk balls flying all over the place the whole time. I just want to be shooting stuff dammit!

So, this is a wierd one for me. It's like, I know the game is good, and that it should be good, but I really didn't have too much fun with this one. If I were to just see myself play it, or see someone else playing the game, I'd prolly think it was around an 8 or something as far as light gun games go, but entertainment wise, I give this game a 2/5. It felt more like I was playing just to finish than anything else and the best thing about the game was that it was over and I didn't have to play it anymore. Oh man, and the ending was garbage.

Steve