EA and Visceral have spent some considerable effort on their prequel title to last years "Dead Space". Both the graphics and presentation values are higher then the average Wii title. Visceral and Eurocom have also put some good effort into making this a very unique light gun title.

While the developers and EA will be quick to call the title a "Guided First Person Experience", the reality is that the game is very much a light gun shooter. While there is some good effort to broaden the definition of what a light gun shooter is here, it is still very much an on-rails event. There are a number of exciting things being done with the title to add much more then the simple point and shoot nature of the genre. You can grab and throw objects with the "A" button, as well as freeze enemies with the "C" button the "B" trigger is obviously made for firing your gun with the analog stick on the nunchuck being used to cycle through the different weapons. You can hold "Z" and swipe enemies with your Knife as well.

Obviously a big part of "Dead Space" has always been the setting and atmosphere. Visceral and Eurocom have gone to great lengths to not only make the title visually great on the Wii, but also seamless. cut scenes happen in real time, much like the Half Life series. A good deal of motion capture and facial capture has gone into the title. the characters you do see and interact with on screen animate very well. The enemies are also a bit more varried then your dime-a-dozen zombies and robots. These creatures are multi-limbed, sturdy, and relentless in their pursuit of your demise. You will see them try to flank you and weave around your line of sight rather then come straight towards you hoping to die. The boss in the demo in particular had a unique gameplay element tied to him. He would either charge you or throw up gobs of what appeared to be infected chicken livers at you. If he threw up, you would have to grab the projectile vomit with Telekinesis and hurl it back at him. If he charged you, you had to wait for the perfect time and freeze him right in front of you, giving you a chance to run behind him and shoot his exposed back. Both times this required a bit of thinking as well as skill. This is probably the most promising aspect of the game. There are puzzles within the title as well, though not in the demo on display. The boss however offered both a challenge that required critical thinking and perfect timing. If most of the game is like this, then it will be a good step forward for the genre as a whole.

The game offers a quick jump in, jump out gameplay system. The life bar is shared in co-op, but the ammo is not. The game calculates the ammo set to give to a second player when jumping into a game mid level. You can only carry four weapons at a time, so you will have to plan accordingly when finding a new weapon in a level. Enemies are also more sensitive to certain weapons which also adds another layer of depth. Some weapons also have multiple types of shots. Different weapons also have different ways of being used. For example, some weapons need to be charged by holding the trigger down before firing, and some require you to hold out the weapon and move around the reticule on screen to use. A lot of effort has been made in just about every aspect to either change or greatly expand the traditional conventions of the light gun shooter genre. I won't lie though, I would much rather prefer a real "Dead Space" title for the Wii. The light gun genre is already pretty crowded on the system, however, if you only buy one light gun shooter this year, "Dead Space Extraction" should be it.