Dead Space Extraction – An Inspired Take on a Conventional Genre

March 14th, 2010

dead-space-market

Dead Space Extraction is the most progressive of its Wii rail shooter brethren, and probably the most groundbreaking title in the genre in recent memory. The proportioning of gameplay states (which tends to emphasise atmosphere and storytelling) along with a diverse myriad of other mechanics culminate in the realisation of a different breed of rail shooter, one which I think is long over due. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m going to talk about the various points which make Dead Space Extraction unique, however, if you need a refresher, or haven’t yet heard of this title, the video review below lend a hand.

Narrative and Atmosphere

As much as Visceral Games attempts to dissociate their game from the term, Dead Space Extraction is fundamentally a rail shooter. Perhaps a better way to describe it is a rail shooter with lots of narrative and atmosphere. Guesstimating for a second, maybe 40% of the game is purely narrative and atmosphere setting, the 60% is representative of the time you’ll spend shooting at things. That might sound measly, particularly considering the 7 hr length of the main story, but Dead Space Extraction marries the atmosphere, narrative and shooting so well together that each part feels necessary to complete the experience, in turn justifying the excessive amount of passive play time. (And anyways, theres an entirely separate mode which contains nothing but shooting).

Some might interpret this change in agenda as a fundamental change to the genre, but it’s not, structurally there’s just greater padding between the shooting sequences. The re-proportioning does, however, give Dead Space Extraction a unique feel and in fact gives credence to the “guided experience” mantra put forth by EA’s PR folk.

Each of these 3 main gameplay constituents supports and justifies the presence of the others. Since it’s difficult to explain on paper here’s a list of examples to back up my case:

The proportion of shooting sequences increases as the story, and panic therein, progresses
The atmosphere draws the player into the environment which makes the shooting more engrossing and meaningful
The inclusion of a narrative and supporting class of characters add realism and a human element to all the horror and necromorph dismemberment
The narrative and atmosphere setting allows the action to breathe into phases of warming up and cooling down
Since the atmosphere supports the shooting, moments of suspense and jack-in-the-box scares don’t feel cheap, they bleed into the gameplay
Traditional rail shooters are very rigid, every turn of a corner leads to a shoot out, Dead Space Extraction surprises the player with its lack of shooting, shooting therefore becomes more important and suspenseful

Patented Dead Space Elements

Dead Space sported a few nifty mechanics set around the Resident Evil 4-themed framework which splintered the franchise off in its own direction. Fortunately these original elements have been adapted to Dead Space Extraction and work a treat.

Strategic Dismemberment

A real game changer, I think. In the Dead Space games the most effective way to down Necromorphs (the angry, disfigured space mutants) is to blow off their limbs. “Strategic Dismemberment”, as it’s called, adds a new dimension to the traditional shooting formula, since what was once a single main target (head shot) is now shared amongst the limbs. This change allows the individual design of the space mutants to be more meaningfully characteristic. They’re not all zombies, they have limbs in different places, some short, some large, and that affects the traditional method of play greatly.

Paralysis

Paralysis is a supplementary mechanic which supports the dismemberment. As firing holes into your foes’ head (or body) is no longer suffice–instead players needs to bang off several specific parts of the body–targeting requires greater precision than usual, the action therefore needs to slow to support the required boost in precision. The paralysis technique allows the player to temporarily freeze their enemies so that they can dismember with ease. Surprisingly, this little addition breathes a great deal of strategy into the shooting as it’s a finite, self-charging resource which ought to be used tactically. Also, the other Necromorphs tend to que up and wait their turn while one of their buddies is right in your face, so the paralysis allows the player to take control of the pacing of the alien onslaught, it gives them strategic wiggle room.

Grabbing Objects

Many rail shooters have a grabbing mechanic, however Dead Space Extraction does it a little differently. The grabbing mechanic isn’t technically the same as the shooting (place reticle over and fire to pick up an item), but an actual reach into the screen (via some white light super power) followed by the object floating in front of you, think Elebits instead of, say, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles. Although a very simple trick it allows for some nifty applications such as dragging debris, scavenging for items and tossing gas cylinders.

Zero Gravity

Zero gravity sequences are fixed chunks of gameplay which mostly involve no shooting (save for a single boss battle), where the player scans the environment for a predetermined landing area and pushes themselves towards it. Occasionally they’ll need to clear space debris obscuring their path. These sections do a great job at relaxing the pace without withholding the player from interaction.

Alternative Fire

Alt fire isn’t anything particularly new, but Dead Space Extraction puts an interesting spin on the formula. To initiate alternative fire, you simply tilt the Wii mote 90 degrees. With some weapons, the types of fire correspond to the respective Wiimote orientation, for example with the line gun or plasma cutter holding the Wiimote horizontally will send out a horizontal slice, while holding the Wiimote vertically will send out a vertical slice.

Puzzles on Demand

Inter-spliced between the gunplay are small puzzle sections where the main character has to solder wires on a malfunctioning terminal to open a door, refer to the video for reference. Generally speaking, they’re a neat distraction, however at times you’ll be forced to solder wires and fend off an aggressive hoard of Neromorphs at the same time which creates an invariably tense atmosphere when trying to steady your hand. In co-op, each player is assigned mandatory sections wires to solder which keeps things fresh.

Freelook

Another minor trick which Dead Space Extraction employs is the occasional opportunity to freely scan the environment for a designated number of seconds. These brief moments act as preparation for you to nab some equipment before an oncoming series of shootouts. As with the branching paths, this is another way that Dead Space Extraction gives players the freedom of control which is otherwise absent in this genre.

Ripper

The Ripper is a weapon with Turok-like ingenuity, a gun which fires saw blades. Sure. Big deal, right? Well actually, the player can manipulate these saw blades with the Wiimote by reaching into the screen and directing them at alien fodder. I was greatly surprised by this nasty little weapon. Again, please refer to the video to get a clearer impression.

Glow Worms

Glow worms too, are quite inspired. Basically the Ishimura lacks torches, so the engineers instead use glow worms (think glo sticks) for light. You light up the little wormy by shaking the nunchuck.

Conclusion

The final few points are rather self-explanatory and perhaps not worth the effort of writing in words, however, these smaller points combined with the atmosphere, narrative and the Dead Space franchise frills give Dead Space Extraction a distinct flavour. It’s one of those games that feels inspired by good ideas which are cleanly implemented and well thought out, a game which stands as both a great Dead Space game, but also a great rail shooter and narrative experience.

I’ve also been playing Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles recently, so please look forward to some writing (possible comparative) on that particular rail shooter. You can also find similar commentaries on Link: Crossbow Training and House of the Dead II and III: Return, if you’re interested. I’m very interested in mapping the current state of the rail shooter, so expect more to come.

Additional Readings

Developer Commentaries – Gametrailers

Dead Space Extraction – Dead Space Wiki

A Distinct Vision: Nick Earl And Visceral Games – Gamasutra

Resident Evil 0 – Varied Inconsistencies

March 13th, 2010

resident-evil-zero-rebecca

There are a couple of odd inconsistencies in Resident Evil 0. It’s a given in this series to expect a crummy plot and wooden characters, but defeating Marcus and the leech queen at the end of the game was disappointing in how irrelevant it was to what I consider to be Resident Evil 0’s core asset, the empathetic relationship between Billy and Rebecca. Resident Evil 0 defeated my expectations by delivering a un-bombastic narrative, a good story. I found myself deeply engrossed in these two characters and their journey as two strangers. They didn’t speak much and nor did they need to as their relationship developed through the pragmatic functions of the game. Including Marcus as a villain feels contrived, as though the series is carrying out it’s duty of upholding the mannequin heroes and villains trope. Continuity-wise he was already accounted for by the in-game journals and notes, there was no need to resurrect him. And overall I feel disappointed that Resident Evil 0’s great narrative was squandered by series ritual.

Marcus, as the deliverer of forced narrative, also detracts from the relationship that I feel the player makes with the environment. This association with ‘place’ is perhaps what people might call the player narrative, it’s difficult to classify since the aforementioned Rebecca-Billy relationship is also probably part of the player narrative too, although it also has fixed narrative from the director. In any case, Resident Evil 0 is a beautiful game. Sure, it may be a little monotone in comparison to Resident Evil Remake, however, I think it’s easy for the player to grow an attachment because it’s so convincing. Admittedly, I am a patch disappointed at the lack of animation gone into the stills (what is there is phenomenal), originally hearing that the stills were much more animated than RE Remake, but what is there pulls the player in with great ease. Marcus, just as before, breaks the relationship a little, we don’t care about him, we care about his estate and the activity that happened around it.

resident-evil-0-back2back

The final, and I guess most obvious, disparity regarding the plot is just the difference between the professional rendering of the environment and the vintage of the gameplay compared to the dialogue. Again, improbable video game nonsense that has the quality of a teenage fan fic, set at ends with the high quality presentation. Similarly, the tank controls and the presentation don’t match either.

Other inconsistencies are well established, like how Resident Evil 0 was marketed as Resident Evil on a train (the Under Siege 2 to accompany my Syphon Filter analogy ^_^), when in fact it’s just the B-sides of Resident Evil Remake. Seriously, the train sequences composes the game’s intro and everything after that is Resident Evil redux, mansions, laboratories and the like.

To conclude my extended commentaries of Resident Evil 0, I figure that it’s worth mentioning the forced sexism imposed by the game since it is a disparity of sorts. This sexism is the justification for the partner zapping system. That is, each protagonist is assigned traits which differentiate them from their partner and therefore forces the player to utilise each characters strengths. These traits can be inferred as sexist, on two levels. The first being that Billy is stronger than Rebecca, both in health and the ability to push large crates, while Rebecca can mix herbs and chemicals. Yeah, that’s pretty blatant in assigning gender stereotypes. The second point is a direct consequence of the first in that since Billy can take more hits, it’s best to use him most of the time since after all this is a game of survival and using the character with the most HP is the the wiser decision. Unfortunately, the unintended—second!—consequence, on top of the first, is that since Billy becomes the default character for tackling enemies he needs to store all the important items, and Rebecca is thereby relegated holding duties. So what is Resident Evil asserting? That women are only good for holding things?

james-marcus-resident-evil-

I don’t honestly believe that Resident Evil 0 is sexist, it’s just an interesting observation to make. Theorising for a minute though, I reckon Capcom probably wanted to remedy this issue (not just for sexism’s sake but to keep a balance between the usage of each character) by prescribing Rebecca with her own solo sections without Billy. There’s the first part of the train sequence before they team up, the entire factory area and it’s extremely useful (although not mandatory) to use her for the first floor of the laboratory. Overall, these constitute maybe a quarter of the game, which is pretty significant.

Conclusion

This posts marks the end of my Resident Evil 0 coverage, I also wrote a post 2 years ago on Resident Evil Remake and although it’s shit, maybe you wanna check it out. You know, despite some pretty significant flaws, I really enjoyed Resident Evil 0 as it partly mirrors the atmospheric game of solace I mentioned in The Ideal Prince of Persia. Try it out, I think you’ll dig it.

Resident Evil 0 – Twin Phenomenas

March 12th, 2010

wesker-and-birkin-re0

In Resident Evil 0 there were two “phenomenas” which occurred during my play time that have no relation to the patented “partner zapping” system.

Calculating Progress by the Inch

Sure, it’s probably no Demon’s Souls, but as a game in tune with survival, Resident Evil 0 sure does make you respect each inch of progress. Because resources are so scarce and the chance of wasting precious resources so opportune, minor developments feel like large triumphs. The fear of stifling one’s progress goes hand in hand with the fear of being scared. What I’m trying to say is that the “survival” and the “horror” sure do go well together. ^_^

This also bears a metaphoric likeness to my personal experiences as a kid and maybe your’s too, that is, if you’re anything like me, ie. big scaredy cat. When you had to get up and leave your room in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, it was a pretty big deal, right? You’ll sit their in bed spooked, because you’re so frightened that you become more observant of the sound around you, and psychologically it takes on an imagined life of its own. Finally, you summon the courage to go, you know that you can’t hold it in, it’s not worth it, so you open your door and run down the hall trying hard not to survey the darkness, otherwise if you stare for too long *insert childhood nightmare* will jump out at you. You finally make it to the toilet, do your business, make the fast escape back to the bedroom, climb into bed and only once under the covers breathe a sigh of relief. Resident Evil 0 sort of reminded me of this experience as a child, in part, it’s a simulation of the experience. You’ll check the map, section out the unexplored areas from the safe zones, plan a route which’ll return you safely to a save point. Just as when I was a kid, anytime I see (think I see) a monster of some sort (I mean, one more dangerous than a common zombie), I’ll flee immediately to the nearest door. You kinda tense up in these moments of running down the hallway, the difference being that one is primal fear and the other is more a fear of survival. Once I return back to base, I usually feel pretty relieved and even though I’ve only walked down the hall and bagged a few new items, I feel impulsed to save my game, to seal that progress in amber. Fortunately I could see what was going on, I could see how Capcom were playing gamers right into their hand, intending for them to needlessly save. I avoided this a lot actually and always found myself throwing away ink ribbons. Take that childhood fears!

resident-evil-0-scorpion

As a side note, the route planning aspect I mentioned is very interesting as it matches well with the detective feel to the game, personally speaking, I think it gives the player an independence and I really appreciated that.

Tactical Item Dropping/Littering

The absence of the bottomless item box and the inclusion of a second partner, forms a new phenomena of its own, which I’ll dub “tactical item dropping”, I like the sound of “tactical littering” better, but it doesn’t suggest function so much. Anyways, I digress, tactical item dropping is the phenomena whereby you leave items in the environment based on a strategic purpose. This phenomena isn’t emergent or anything, it’s basically imposed on the player, since the limited 6 item slots per character offer little flexibility. Basically, guns, ammo, health and puzzle items you want to keep with you as much as possible, however, sometimes these pile up, in which case you’ll leave some items and set off to use the others, hopefully returning with free spots in your inventory. The trick is to leave items in “safe zones” so that you won’t have to waste bullets or health retrieving what you’ve left behind later. In many ways, the strategic item dropping enhances the route planning nature of the game and creates a stronger distinction between safe and unsafe areas.This all adds to the co-operative tang to Resident Evil 0.

resident-evil-0-train

It sounds a little overbearing and I have no doubt that Resident Evil 0 was strong criticised over it’s strategic item dropping. There’s a great deal of micro-management involved in the process which can be a little burdensome at times, considering how many menu you have to sorta through, however, I rather enjoyed it.

The items that you drop are shown on your map too, which is handy as upon leaving an area as you’ll refer to the map to see what you’ve left behind and discover a sort of tracing of your history based on the trail of items strewn in your path. Each item is indicative of a sacrifice you had to make, so the symbolism here is important.

Additional Readings

Resident Evil 0 – RE Wiki

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