Dead Space Extraction in stores this week

Visceral Games announced today that Dead Space Extraction has shipped to retail in Europe and will be shipping in North America on September 29th. Designed exclusively for the Wii, Dead Space Extraction is the first title to ship under Visceral Games’ new studio name. Dead Space Extraction is the prequel to last year’s hit horror action game set on a decrepit space station overrun by alien monstrosities.

The Wii game tells the story of four space colonists trying to escape a mysterious infection of unknown origin. Dead Space Extraction explores the origins of the necromorph invasion that threatens humanity and the universe. At the center of this group is Lexine, an important new heroine being introduced for the first time to the Dead Space storyline. As the crew continues to fight for their lives, it becomes clear that protecting her is their only hope for survival. Luckily, players are armed with an arsenal of weaponry, a control system built for the Wii, and the ability to recruit a friend to play cooperatively, a first for the Dead Space franchise.

Dead Space Extraction is rated M for Mature by the ESRB. The game will be available for MSRP $49.99 on the Wii.

Creative Minx Scores EA Deal

Creative Minx Marketing has inked a deal with Electronic Arts to represent several of the company’s various wholly owned properties for outbound licensing opportunities. Creative Minx will help EA to merchandise brands like The Sims, MySims, Dead Space, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, Dante’s Inferno and Army of Two. This merchandising will include collectibles, peripherals, apparel, and accessories, according to the company.

Creative Minx Marketing describes itself as a full service licensing and marketing agency with 20 years of experience, specializing in acquisition of major licenses, strategic brand building, target marketing programs, and promotional opportunities. The company offers such services as licensing consulting, business development, strategic market analysis, and retail development and planning.

EA Redwood Shores Gets Visceral

Electronic Arts has renamed EA Redwood Shores Studio to Visceral Games, a move that it says “better reflects the studio’s culture, identity and focus on creating intense action-oriented intellectual properties.” As you probably already know this is the selfsame studio that created Dead Space. Currently it is working on Dante’s Inferno, and Dead Space: Extraction, and two other unannounced titles.

Visceral Games is part of the EA Games Label and is being led by Vice President and General Manager Glen Schofield. The studio falls under the auspices of Senior Vice President Nick Earl who manages all Games Label studios in California including Maxis, EALA and Pandemic. Visceral Games also has a branch office in Melbourne, Australia.

Call of Duty 4 Wins Big at BAFTAs

The GAME British Academy Video Games Awards (BAFTAs) are over and the biggest winner was Call of Duty 4. The awards took place at the London Hilton on Park Lane, and were hosted by games aficionado Dara O’Briain. At this gala event some of last year’s biggest games were honored in various categories, while Atari founder Nolan Bushnell was given the BAFTA FELLOWSHIP Award for his contributions to the industry over his long and interesting career.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the biggest winner of this year’s BAFTA video game awards, picking up top honors in the Action & Adventure, Gameplay, Story and Character categories - along with the only category voted on by players - the GAME Award of 2008. Dead Space also did pretty well, landing awards for Original Score and Use of Audio, while Super Mario Galaxy won the Best Game award this year.

A full list of the categories, nominees and this year’s winners can be found after the break (winners highlighted in bold).

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LittleBigPlanet Sweeps Interactive Achievement Awards

The 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony is over and the big winners of this year’s awards were LittleBigPlanet, Fallout 3, Dead Space and Left 4 Dead - but mostly it was Media Molecule’s big night in the spotlight, leaving every other big name franchise released in 2008 eating its dust for most of the night.

Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet was the big winner of the night, sweeping the Overall and Console Game of the Year awards, in addition to multiple awards for Outstanding Achievement in art direction, visual engineering, character performance and game direction. The PS3 exclusive also won the Family Game of the Year Award and the Outstanding Innovation in Gaming Award.

The other big winners of the night, (garnering more than one award) were Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3 and Dead Space. Two indie titles, World of Goo and Braid, scored awards as well. A full listing of all the winners can be found after the break.

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Dead Space Extraction Announced

As was reported in its earnings call earlier this month, Electronic Arts is bringing Dead Space to the Wii, but promises that the new horror action game set on a desolate space station won’t be a rehash of the original. Dead Space Extraction will be a prequel that reveals the events leading up to Isaac Clarke’s mission on the USG Ishimura in the original Dead Space. Dead Space Extraction will attempt to utilize the motion controls of the Wii Remote with a the game’s trademark first person action to create what they hope is a new action-horror experience for Wii owners.

Dead Space Extraction chronicles a series of horrific events of a handful of space colonists desperately struggling to escape from a horrific infection on the Aegis VII mining colony deep in the furthest regions of space. The game introduces new characters, weapons, enemies, puzzles and co-operative multiplayer gameplay.

The game is scheduled for release this fall. It is good to see EA getting serious about the Wii.

Kym Worthy and the Evils of Video Games

I touched upon this yesterday in The Rundown, but today let’s analyze the particulars. This week Wayne County, Michigan Prosecutor Kym Worthy released her list of Top 10 Violent Video Games Played By Teens. The list, which is actually a rehash of the Mature rated section of games from the National Institute on Media and the Family Video Game Report Card for 2008, feature’s a who’s who of the most popular “M” rated games in North America. The link between “teens wanting to play these particular games” is tenuous at best, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

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