This was the one game I really wanted to play coming into E3 ’09, and play it I did. I’m here to tell you that Dead Space: Extraction is possibly the best “rail-shooter” in the Wii’s library and manages to capture everything that made the original game so damn freaky and unique. It looks gorgeous, plays great, and freaks me out.

Extraction is the canonical prequel to EA’s Dead Space (as is the comic…and the animated movie) and tells the story of how the planet’s colonists were driven insane by the Marker before being overtaken by the Necromorphs and subsequently infecting the giant mining vessel, Ishimura. The player does not step into any one role. Instead, you occupy the shoes of several crew members throughout the course of the game, so your viewpoint of the action changes over time. Control is best described as a combination of the Dead Space interface and the control scheme of Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. Weapons are mapped to the D-pad, and you use the A button to pick up objects in the environment with your Kinesis ability. Statis, the time-slowing ability from the original game, is activated with the C button, but just like the original game, you have to be careful about how you use it. The game’s arsenal closely matches that of the first game and includes such favorites as the Plasma Cutter, Line Gun, and Flame Thrower. You also get a pistol-like weapon that has unlimited ammo, but is the weakest gun in the game. Best to conserve and use the better guns. When attacked by a Necromorph, you can use Statis on it, blow its limbs off (again, the best way to kill these critters), or fight it off with on-screen prompts if you’re grappled. A quick motion with the Nunchuck activates a melee attack.

The guns are great because you can turn the Wii Remote ninety degrees to use the gun’s secondary fire mode. With the Plasma Cutter, doing this merely alternates the beam between horizontal and vertical. With the Flamethrower, you blast a big ball of fire in one shot, and with the Line Gun, you drop a mine. Honestly, this action isn’t all that intuitive for everything besides the Plasma Cutter, but it’s something I eventually got used to. Just like in Dead Space, the game’s story is told through text and voice logs that you pick up and read or listen to in-game. Since Extraction takes place before the events of Dead Space, the in-game story is more dynamic, and you’ll often encounter other characters in your fight to get off the ship.

Necromorphs pop up all over the place, and I found myself scrambling to shoot off all the legs before the bodies got to me. There were only a few areas in the original Dead Space where Isaac was overwhelmed by enemies, but if the demo was any indication, you’ll get pummeled a few times per level. And while I only saw two enemy types, trailers have shown other canonical creatures and a few new baddies.

Extraction looks fantastic. The environments and enemies, in particular, are almost carbon copies of their next-gen counterparts. The developer has done an incredible job of showing off the power of the Wii and making Extraction as true to the look and atmosphere of the original game. The sound is similarly excellent, with great voice acting and more spooky ambient noise than you can shake a Necromorph’s severed arm at. The game launches on September 28th, and I’m pumped.