Dead Space Extraction is a fresh take on last year’s premier sci-fi survival horror offering, as we found out in EA’s first demo.

Even though Dead Space didn’t do as well as publisher EA might have hoped, the amount of investment in comics, DVDs and merchandise meant that it was always planned as an ongoing series. In fact, so assured of the nascent franchise’s potential was developer EA Redwood Shores, that it started work on a Wii game halfway through development of the original. We got to speak to the team that broke off to work on Nintendo’s console, and hear how they’re turning the survival horror hit into an on-rails shooter.

The first thing to note about Extraction is just how good it looks. The game can certainly claim to be one of the best-looking Wii games to date, and perhaps even more impressively, it actually compares favourably to the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 original. The human characters have all been face and motion captured from actors, while the necromorph enemies look and move just like they did in the original. We’re also promised dynamic shadows in the finished build, while the BAFTA-winning sound team has been brought over to bring the same expertise to the Wii version.

The game itself may be an on-rails shooter, but it retains the distinct Dead Space style, thanks to the puzzles, strategic dismemberment and distinct visual style that are all carried over. All of the same weapons are included, including the flamethrower, plasma cutter and disc ripper, and we’re promised more engineering tools to play with as well. The same applies for the zero-gravity sections that were so haunting in the original game, although we didn’t get to see those in action.

The level that we were shown took place aboard the USG Ishimura, the same ship from the original Dead Space. It’s chapter four, so a good way into the game, and you’ve reached the ship after escaping Aegis VII, the planet that it was supposed to be mining. We watched a developer from EA Redwood Shores play the game, and saw how the Wii remote and nunchuck were used to navigate the game. A cursor on the screen shows where you’re aiming with the Wii remote, but if the enemies get too close, you can shake them off by waggling the remote. Time it right and the regular necromorphs won’t be able to hurt you, and you can also use your telekenesis powers to slow them down or pull other weapons towards you.

You can shake the nunchuck to snap a glowstick, allowing you to light up darkened areas..

There are lots of other motion-sensitive controls in Extraction. You can shake the nunchuck to use a glowstick–allowing you to see enemies in the game’s many pitch-black sections. There’s also an active reload system, and if you time things right, you can reload faster than you would by default. We also got to see one of the puzzles–a basic line-drawing exercise where you had to draw a path between two points without hitting the obstacles and causing a short circuit. It’s not particularly taxing, and in fact the puzzle was supposedly a placeholder, but it looked to be fairly tense in the demo. You also use the Wii remote to physically open doors, which is another nice touch.

So what else is there to say about the game at this stage? There’ll be two player drop-in co-operative play, meaning someone else can grab a Wii remote and nunchuck and play as they like. There are also branching paths through each level, meaning there’ll be some replayability to the game once you’ve completed it. The development team also promises that the game will play heavily into the Dead Space mythology, rewarding those who’ve absorbed the games, comics and films, while it will also boast one big secret that promises to shock fans. We were impressed with what we saw in of the game at this early stage, so keep an eye on Nintendo Games Center for more information as we get it.

Check out the source at GameSpot