Metareview: Dead Space: Extraction (Wii)
by Ben Gilbert 
{ Sep 30th 2009 at 2:11PM }
- GamePro (100/100): "An experience that's more captivating and engaging than any light-gun game I've ever played before. [The story] mirrors Dead Space's thoughtful dialogue, characterizations and pacing which is a good thing all around."
- GameDaily (80/100): "Although we questioned EA's decision to do this, as well as bring Dead Space to the family centric Wii, everything clicks and the game's surprisingly enjoyable. Instead of conjuring up a cheesy narrative (as seen in other shooters like Ghost Squad), the developers put a lot of effort into the story and its characters."
- Eurogamer (80/100): "Gameplay is straightforward, yet it's a refined familiarity, borrowing numerous elements from the original Dead Space in abundance while wrapping them around the well-worn demands of a typical on-rails shooter ... One area that definitely benefits from the on-rails nature of Extraction is the overall pacing. Sometimes you creep along agonisingly, other times it feels like the enemy onslaught is never going to end. There are few occasions where you don't come away feeling like your scraped through by the skin of your teeth, and even on the game's lowest 'Normal' difficulty, there's a definite sense of achievement when you get through."
- Giant Bomb (60/100): "Extraction's marketing campaign would like you to think of it as a 'guided experience' that whisks you through the dramatic beginnings of the series' horrible space-monster outbreak, but in blunt terms, Extraction is an on-rails shooter. Blunter still: it's a light-gun game. These days, that's not a style of game serious game players usually gravitate toward. But keeping the genre's inherent restrictions in mind--not to mention the limitations of the Wii hardware -- Extraction is really pretty good, for what it is."
Gallery: Dead Space: Extraction
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
RKN @ Sep 30th 2009 2:13PM
DSG!!!!
Zoot Suit Jedi @ Sep 30th 2009 2:42PM
I missed her.
Ashkental @ Sep 30th 2009 2:44PM
I missed her more than you
Zoot Suit Jedi @ Sep 30th 2009 2:52PM
Nuh-uh.
charlie b. @ Sep 30th 2009 3:28PM
up yours, poozers. i'm marrying her!
she totally screamed when i asked her.
THE WICKER MAN (BWF) (GT: Dalek Prime) @ Sep 30th 2009 3:29PM
I think this picture needs more DSG. An opportunity to photo shop her face all over this thing was missed. Or, photo shop her head out entirely.
Yours-
Wicker Man
C.F.O. D.S.G. Committee
green11420 @ Sep 30th 2009 5:08PM
Amazing
Erluti @ Sep 30th 2009 2:13PM
So did GiantBomb rate it down BECAUSE it was a rails-shooter? Now I have to read their review...
Duke @ Sep 30th 2009 2:15PM
They don't appear to have been too forgiving with that score eh? I gotta read it too now!
Erluti @ Sep 30th 2009 2:16PM
Ah, they gave it 3/5 stars. And they seem like they mean "average" with that score, and not "piss poor" like most other reviewers.
JXCgunrunna @ Sep 30th 2009 2:18PM
I was thinking the same thing. They may have a template for on rail shooters and just put the title and premise into the template. Other than that, it looks like this will be worth picking up for 30 bucks or so.
TwistedBishop @ Sep 30th 2009 2:30PM
If you read Brad Shoemaker's review, he was very positive towards the game. A 3 out of 5 stars rating means a lot differently than "60%". At least as how the currently corrupt rating system on other sites judges 60%.
johnnynumber5 @ Sep 30th 2009 2:39PM
On what planet is 3/5 different than 60/100?
Mr Khan @ Sep 30th 2009 2:40PM
Giant Bomb's scores translate especially badly, much like 1up. 3/5 sounds infinitely better than a 60/100, despite being proportional.
That said, GiantBomb is one of the more hostile places out there for Wii owners (and that is REALLY saying something nowadays), which makes the perfect score they gave Punch-Out!! all the stranger.
Bananarama @ Sep 30th 2009 2:43PM
On earth. Star reviews generally don't follow the same scale as a % grading scale which most out of 100 scores are. Movie reviews do use the whole range of scores, where 1 star is bad, 2 is ok, 3 is average, 4 is good and 5 is great. Out of 100 scores use the same grading as in school, where anything under 60% is horrible. So they really only use 59-100, so a 3 is really more like a 75 or an 80.
Huey2k2 @ Sep 30th 2009 2:45PM
People forget that game reviews are just opinions of people. Not everyone is going to enjoy every "good" game the same.
You also have to keep in mind that a 3/5 on Giant Bomb means the game is good but not great in any specific way. Personally I think that Giant Bomb is the best review site on the internet.
RobLink (Alex Kidd incarnate) @ Sep 30th 2009 2:49PM
I think that's part of the problem with a 100 point scoring system. Not everyone grades it as a school grade - some award an average game 50%, and when combined with the 70% aveage scores on a site like Metacritic, it can skew things wildly. 5 stars is nice and easy to understand, and in order to ascertain the differences between two 3 star games you actually have to *gasp* read the review. Whish is something that should be standard amongst those of us who are fans of the medium (let's not forget that Metacritic is meant for the more casual fan who just wants a quick yes or no answer).
johnnynumber5 @ Sep 30th 2009 2:49PM
I don't see what the issue or what the problem is with converting 3/5 to 60/100. They are the exact same thing. I can understand criticism when it comes to assigning a numerical value to sites that use letter grades but not proportional numbers. No matter how you slice it 60% is still 60%. The whole purpose of Metacritic is to offer consumers a single place to come and see all media reviews in one place. Thats a fantastic service for us consumers and I use the site all the time.
At the end of the day you only need to read the reviews and not solely go by the numbers and their collective averages. I'm sure everyone has played a game that was rated low on metacritic and loved it and likewise played a highly rated game and hated it. The numbers themselves are just another way of expressing that particular persons subjective opinion on that particular game.
TwistedBishop @ Sep 30th 2009 2:59PM
60% by any other gaming site, where 7 or 70% is considered "average", is a kiss of death reserved for trash. We're all familiar with this. A 3/5 stars review sounds like what it actually MEANS: above average.
Massmass @ Sep 30th 2009 3:04PM
Because the scores are not statistical but rather representational (That is there is a curve on the perception of a 1-100 score), 60/100 isn't an accurate translation for most readers.
Does it matter? Actually, it can. Game companies have made it clear that they sometimes follow the scores, almost more than the opinions of reviewers. So anyone logically rating a game throws a curve into the mix and it can affect sales and the future of the franchise.
Then again, if scores sold games there'd be plenty of solid games selling like crazy that are currently being under appreciated by the masses, and others being banished to gaming hell like they should have been.
Still, the industry should come up with a standard score. Either 1-100 or stars, etc. Better yet, ditch the scores and force people to, you know, actually read a review of the game and decide for themselves...
Erluti @ Sep 30th 2009 3:09PM
@johnnynumber5
Bananarama basically summed it up. The 3/5 stars system is more generalized and reveals the subjective nature of reviewing. 3/5 stars generally means "It does what it came to do, so if you like this genre, you'll like this!" Where 1/5 means it's generally trash, no matter what you like about it's pedigree. And 5/5 means it's really good no matter what your preferences are.
And on the flip side %s are generally used for objective scoring of things. Like on a test at school, where things actually have point values and the goal is for most of the criteria to be accomplished. Then 60% is passing, 75% average, and 100% is flawless.
So if you try to mix the apples and oranges review styles, you end up with 3/5 looking like a 60% that is saying "Just barely playable" when it means something totally different than 3/5 stars.
Rocketboy @ Sep 30th 2009 3:29PM
The worst part about the 100 point scale, is it's needlessly precise. Is a game that ranks 60 quantifiable different then a game that ranks 61? 5 Stars are all you need, with three being an average (but not bad) game.
johnnynumber5 @ Sep 30th 2009 3:49PM
Actually the problem lies within the 5 point scale itself because it is simply so generic that it can hardly diffirentiate anything. If it was a 5 point/star scale with fractionals it would be more precise but 5 stars by itself is lazy and lethargic for a professional reviewer. Thats basically saying there are only 5 possible scores for any game. Every game is either a 20, 40, 60, 80 or 100 with nothing inbetween. So, the problem isn't with the conversion itself but with the scale of the original review. Still, no matter how you slice it 3/5 still equals 60%. If the reviewer wanted more flexibility and less generality they should switch to a 5 point scale with fractionals, 10 point scale with fractionals or a 100 point scale. You can fault Metacritic for giving the proportional representation of the review.
johnnynumber5 @ Sep 30th 2009 4:06PM
You **can't** fault metacritic ...
fixed.
Erluti @ Sep 30th 2009 5:10PM
The *BEAUTY* of the 5 point scale is you can't differentiate anything.
The granularity of 100 points for an opinion is not only unnecessary, but misleading. If there was some sort of rubric to see how one can quantifiably determine a game to be a 93%, by all means, use the 100 point scale. But like I said before, the 5 point scale gives you a general idea of if you'll like it based on how much you like that type of game. But if you need more insight than "A decent rail shooter? I like rail shooters, I'll get it...", then you READ THE WHOLE REVIEW.
johnnynumber5 @ Sep 30th 2009 5:24PM
Except that you can quantify the difference in a score of say 93 and 87 based off the review itself. Having everything you review fit into only one of five categories is substandard at best. You could just as easily have metrics for 5 categories with 20 points in each of them varying by genre and have some symbalance of a proper review. As I said one could also create fractional points to give flexibility. Graphics, gameplay, sound, controls and replayability can encompass virtually any genre of game and subset of features. You can use those categories and coorelate the appropriate subset depending on the games feature set.
If one arbitrarly pulls numbers out of a random void no scale is going to matter because it's flawed to begin with. The problem for me with a 5 point scale is it's generality. You see it just the opposite and round and round we go.
Still you can't fault metacritic for a reviewer using an antiquated scale. They're math is correct whether something is lost in translation or not.
Bagels: Almost certainly not as stupid as you think. Also, Memes. @ Oct 1st 2009 12:14AM
I thought that 100-point systems and Star ratings were incompatible, simply because a star rating grows exponentially in quality with each new star.
The majority of middle-class people stay in 3 star hotels and eat in 3 star restaurants, and never do they say "well this place is 5 points below an F." Perhaps something witha 4 of 5 star rating is better, but t doesn't disqualify the 3-star rated item/place.
5 star ratings are given out to the best of the best, not those that have quantified all 100 points of qualification. Sense made?
Fullmetal Salchemist @ Oct 1st 2009 3:38PM
At Mr. Khan:
They're hostile towards Wii games because most Wii games are shit. Punch-Out was a great game, and it got a great score.
I trust Giant Bomb more than I trust the bigger reviewers; after all, the website was started by a guy who was fired for giving an honest review, so journalistic integrity is not a factor.
Maulok @ Sep 30th 2009 2:16PM
"really pretty good, for what it is"
I think that's about what we were all expecting, summed up into 7 words. Pretty good + Dead Space = I'm buying.
DangerMouse @ Sep 30th 2009 2:16PM
Hey look, Gamepro gave it the same score as uncharted 2.
GOTY 2009.
Alton Brown [ XBL: LordToastington, Soon-To-Be-PSN: OrIsItAltonBrown] @ Sep 30th 2009 2:25PM
For me, that invalidates GamePro's review scale completely.
Captain Planet [Planeteer | Power of Captain Planet] @ Sep 30th 2009 2:43PM
Apparently GamePro is just handing out 100's.
Tom Kalinske @ Sep 30th 2009 2:46PM
Maybe they just really like binary...
Mr. Manly ESC Mcbeefington Ferguson The Second @ Sep 30th 2009 3:27PM
The Goty of all years is Super Dragon Ball Z according to Gamepro.
t_m @ Oct 1st 2009 7:58AM
actually the gamepro score is 5/5. Like Giant Bomb they use a five point scale.
So I guess you'd say 5* = 81%-100% which'd average out at 90%
But giant bomb's 3/5 score would be 40-60%, so that'd average out at 50%... so it's all even in the end.
Canned Pasta @ Sep 30th 2009 2:16PM
I'm enjoying this game so far... I especially liked the way the forst level played out at the end. It was a nice twist.
charlie b. @ Sep 30th 2009 2:18PM
I LOVE YOU, DEAD SPACE GIRL
i asked her to marry me. she replied with "AHHHHH." i think that meant "yes."
Ashkental @ Sep 30th 2009 2:45PM
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
She's MINE!
bongoes the Black Lantern @ Sep 30th 2009 2:55PM
Ah Dead Space Girl, causing fights among commenters with her screaming face.
*Hopes that DSG avatar shows up*
gobo @ Sep 30th 2009 2:19PM
60/100 seems like a low score, It looks much better as 3 out of 5 stars where it much better reflects the content of the review. I don't know why Metacritic has to list everything out of 100 "just 'cause."
I may just get this game, Joystiq's brief glance pushed me over the edge. I haven't bought a light-gun game since Virtua Cop 2 on Saturn, is the Zapper shell required to play this game comfortably?
Alton Brown [ XBL: LordToastington, Soon-To-Be-PSN: OrIsItAltonBrown] @ Sep 30th 2009 2:22PM
I wouldn't think so, but then again, I'm not a big fan of the Zapper, so I may be biased.
Larry @ Sep 30th 2009 2:34PM
I was was going to post about this as well. If you take the time to link to the original review and you include the text why not show the real score they gave them. It seems like an odd stance for a site that refuses to put scores on reviews because they do not want something similar happening to them on Metacritic.
johnnynumber5 @ Sep 30th 2009 2:41PM
Guys Metacritic is an aggregate review site. They convert everything to a scale of 100 to better formulate an average score. Just because you think 3/5 looks better on paper doesn't change the fact that 3/5 = 60/100. Same thing.
Mr Khan @ Sep 30th 2009 2:41PM
I think this game is hostile to the zapper. It requires independent movement of the Wii remote and Nunchuk, doesn't it?
baby sea tuna @ Sep 30th 2009 2:44PM
The zapper is terrible. The Nyko Perfect Shot is a much better alternative.
Maulok @ Sep 30th 2009 2:51PM
Mr Khan is correct, the Giant Bomb review mentions needing to swing the nunchuck for a melee attack. I haven't seen anything about an optional zapper-friendly control scheme, a la Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (awesome game, btw).
Dv8thwonder @ Sep 30th 2009 8:57PM
If 5 out 5 is 100, how in the hell is 3/5 = 60%? It should be 75!
Bagels: Almost certainly not as stupid as you think. Also, Memes. @ Oct 1st 2009 12:17AM
Yes, YES! And together, we shall PROVE that 2+2=5!
GiggMan @ Sep 30th 2009 2:25PM
GamePro is really feeling them some Dead Space.
Cody @ Sep 30th 2009 2:25PM
"GameDaily (80/100): "Although we questioned EA's decision to do this, as well as bring Dead Space to the family centric Wii"
Good lord where did this false stigma start? Is it from the crap shovelware? Wii is not "family centric". Disney is family centric.
Wii is for everyone and anyone, hence games like this.