Extermination

"Call the!... err, you get it."

Extermination was Sony's attempt to compete and cash in on the uprising survival-horror genre. In this game, their in-experience clearly shows. Sony tried to add in a plot-twisting story, nice detail, a nice mix of audio, and extra simple playability, but they did not succeed much.

Visually, does this game take PS2's power to the limit?

I was disappointed when I first got a glimpse of this games visual interface during gameplay. Sony cleverly covered up this game's dull looking surroundings and characters with a some-what descent looking opening movie. When right getting into gameplay, you'll notice that the surroundings are pretty sketchy. The random boxes, trucks, or anything that has been demolished either inside the boring and dull buildings, or the snow and the boxes that litter the areas look pretty dull.

Character and monster models are mediocre at best. The leading characters Dennis and Roger are enlightened with rich details. But that's all the real nice things I can say. The monsters look gruesome, but are missing that certain something to really frighten you. Overall, the certain atmosphere that you need to create a good survival-horror game just isn't here. Graphics are important, but it's really hard to get scared by the poorly designed bodies that litter throughout.

Audio is one of the main keys in survival-horror games. Is this game's audio really going to scare the crap out of me?

Disappointing. When first hearing the laughable voice acting, I said ''Could get this any worse?'' Man, I shouldn't of said that, because it does. The music is non-existent, and doesn't build up any real suspense for what little frightening things this game has. The sound effects are average, but little is heard when playing except for random gun shots being shot just out of pure boredom.

The voices are pretty pitiful. They show no emotion what so ever, so this tends to get pretty hilarious when the characters are trying to be emotional, but sound just so boring and dull.

Does this game compete with Resident Evil's award winning gameplay?

Playing this game takes a lot of getting used to. Even if your a god-gamer at survival-horror, or just a newcomer exploring the PS2 department.

Controlling Dennis, the leading Character, is like steering a snow mobile. Turning left is just a general direction of where you want your character to go. Sometimes he does the way you want him to, sometimes not. The horrible camera issues also don't help this at all.

That brings me to the most miserable part of this game. The horrible camera. With the random and cluttered objects and things through out the area, the camera ALWAYS get's stuck in the most miserable of places. You can press R1 or R2 to center the camera right on you, but it helps little.

The weaponry system and item system is there, but lacks any creativity. You can pick up plenty of different types of first-aid kits, and keys to unlock doors. Throughout that game, you will also come across to numerous diaries/logs etc. to find out any solutions to puzzles, but most of them are pointless. But, even though some are pretty pointless, they have to be obtained in order to get through a certain point of the game.

One thing that this game has is it's ''Infection'' meter. If you get the ''bug virus'' infected into you by one of the monsters, it will be like poison... your health will wear and tear. The stupid thing is, that it's pretty hard NOT to get infected during the first few hours of the game, and the fact that you don't see any medicine your anything of the sort to get rid of the infection, you just have to stop and use one of your health packs to get your health back up. But after more walking, it will just start the decrease again.

Weapons are hard to spare. At the starting, you are equipped with a knife and an semi-auto rifle. You pretty much play through have the game with these weapons. There are upgrades you can pick up, but do very little in shooting accuracy, range, or power.

At times, the pure amount of bugs with the camera and enemy AI will just frustrate you. During the game, you are faced with a huge creature. You can climb up ladders and such to dodge it, but it won't matter anyways, because the monster will get caught behind some object somewhere, wide open for you to shoot it right to death.

The story is bland, and un-interesting. Granted, they tried to put up with some noticeable plot twists, but as I stated before, the preposterous voice acting just ruins the emotional portion of the story. It starts out on an Airplane headed for a secret fort in Antarctica. You, Dennis, are going through a tough time with this girl named ''Cindy''. I don't want to state what the problem is, because it is somewhat of a spoiler. Your plane's engines explode, and you are crash landed in an un-inhabited part of the building. There are some twists and turns, but practically half the game you are just exploring.

C'mon, this game must have something good about it.

Well, Sony tried. I'll give them that. But this game just fails in too many areas to be enjoyable. Newcomers to the genre might have a good time, but once they play the Resident Evil series, then they will notice this games many flaws. If Sony attempts to make a sequel, they have a lot more to learn about this genre. -Shin (11/24/01)

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/27/03, Updated 05/19/03