Dead Space: Extraction Preview

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Many of the enemies you face will look familiar - there are slashers, reapers and lurkers, for example - but there's also a host of new weird-looking things hoping to cause you trouble. "It wouldn't be a Dead Space game if we didn't have a bunch of giant monstrosities, pus-filled sacks and stuff like that," observes Papoutsis. Just like in the previous game, facing the monstrosities will be made a little easier thanks to your Stasis power, which lets you slow down time and dismember enemies limb from limb.

If it's still too much of a challenge you can rope in a friend to help as Extraction has an offline co-op mode. It's designed to be as accessible as possible, so the second player can drop in or drop out at any time. There will be plenty of opportunities to work together by taking on distinct roles - one of you might be solving a puzzle, for example, while the other provides covering fire. But what about a competitive aspect - will there be a points system so you can see who was the better player when missions are over? "I'm not talking about that today," says Papoutsis, with a twinkle in his eye. "Ask me next time."

Perhaps the most obvious difference between the original Dead Space and this prequel is visual. There's no doubt about it: Dead Space Extraction is a Wii game, and it shows. It's not that they haven't made the effort - full motion capture was used for the body animations. They even went for facial motion capture too, sticking more than 30 markers on each actor's face. It's a shame, then, that they still look weird and wooden compared to what we're used to from the more powerful consoles.

At least the monsters look good; properly horrible and very nearly scary, all dangling limbs and gaping maws and bits of flesh that clearly used to belong to something else. It's good to see a Wii game with real gore and a decent amount of violence. But will enough people agree? After all, MadWorld offered plenty of blood and guts and slicing people in half with chainsaws, and only 89,000 copies were sold in the US. Isn't Papoutsis worried he's going to all this trouble to make a game many Wii owners won't be interested in, or won't even be old enough to buy?

"As a game developer, what I worry about is making a fun game," he says. "I'm excited to be working on Dead Space. I worked on the original and what's important to me is delivering an experience that's in line with the Dead Space universe. I think it's important for us to make a fun game, and hopefully people will enjoy it."

Say aaaarrrrghhhhh!!!

Which is all very nice, but what if only 12 of them buy it? "If only 12 of them buy it, that would probably be pretty bad," concedes Papoutsis. "But I'm a gamer. I want a variety of different games. I love to play on my Wii, and all the other systems, so I want people to make stuff like this for me. There's a lot of opportunity with the Wii to bring in new design elements, and it's helping game designers to try different things. I just hope people continue to make games that are a little bit more hardcore."

Here's hoping Dead Space Extraction will be good enough to sell loads of copies. If that happens, perhaps more developers will feel that hardcore Wii games are worth the investment. And perhaps EA will be able to buy some cushions.