Critics "validated" Wii Dead Space

Dead Space: Extraction, the Wii-exclusive spin-off released last year, might not have set tills alight, but for developer Visceral Games poor sales didn't matter – because of praise from critics.

Sales of the Wii shooter were described as "slow" soon after release, and reports emerged that it had shifted just over 9000 copies in the US during its first week on sale.

But Extraction was a hit with critics and gamers alike. Eurogamer awarded it an impressive 8/10 in its September 2009 review, and it's currently sitting pretty on an 82 Metacritic review average.

While Visceral admits Extraction's sales were a "surprise", it didn't let it get it down.

"I'm looking forward to checking out the next game I can get on the Wii because it's a really cool system," quipped Dead Space 2 executive producer Steve Papoutsis to Eurogamer.

"It's up to what type of experience players are looking for. Whether or not they want to play on the Wii or they want to play on their PS3 or 360 or PC.

"Of course it was a surprise. But it picked up steam after the initial launch. The thing with the Wii is that it's not like the 360 and the PS3 where in terms of sales you see this giant spike at the beginning and it tails off.

"Even with Nintendo games, you'll see games like Super Mario Bros. or Mario Kart, they have a longer tail as far as sales are concerned.

"All we can do is make the best game we can make. It was great to see from a critical perspective people enjoyed it and that made us very proud. It validated the hard work we had done.

"But the rest of it is up to players, the economy and what they want to get out of a certain game system. Those forces are at play and you can't control those. We're happy with the game we made and now hopefully even more people will get to try it on the PS3."

Papoutsis is, of course, referring to Extraction's PS3-exclusive port, which features improved visuals and PlayStation Move support.

But gamers shouldn't expect a huge difference when they get their hands on the Limited Edition freebie.

"One of the things with the PlayStation Move is it's a little bit more accurate," Papoutsis said. "The other thing is the visuals have improved since it's on a PS3.

"But in general it's similar. It's not a night and day difference between the Wii version and the PS3 version. I'm very proud of the game the team created. It's an excellent game. Now we get hopefully more people to experience it on a system they have.

"The other thing with Extraction on PS3, you don't have to have the Move. You can play it with the Dual Shock or Sixaxis.

"And there is a sensitivity setting, so you can crank that up if you want to get the cursor to work a little bit faster. But for the most part it was a pretty straight map over in terms of what the controls do."

Xbox 360 owners would love to play Extraction. Why can't they, Steve?

"I don't know! I don't think it maps over to Kinect."

You can use the pad, though.

"Yeah. Sony, it just seemed like a perfect fit."

That's that, then.