Games You Might Have Missed: Extermination
It May Not Have Sold a Ton of Copies but It Doesn't Mean it Isn't Worth Playing
Welcome to the first edition of Games You Might Have Missed. A look at games that didn’t necessarily sell a lot of copies but may be worth a few bucks and a few hours.
In this first edition, we look at the survival horror third-person shooter Extermination. The game was released in 2001 by developer Deep Space and published by Sony Computer Entertainment as a PlayStation 2 exclusive.
Let’s take a deep dive into the world of Extermination.
Did You Miss Out on Extermination?
Gameplay
Extermination puts gamers into the boots of U.S. Marine Corp’s Force Recon member Sergeant Dennis Riley. The game is played from a third-person perspective and features many survivor horror elements such as limited resources, and plenty of backtracking. Riley’s primary weapon is customizable and can be modified and upgraded with found parts as the story unfolds.
A traditional health bar is utilized in addition to an “infection rate” gauge. Gamers can become infected by creatures in the game through bites, poison projectiles, and other means. In addition, stepping into a puddle of water that has been infected by the creatures adds to the infection rate. The higher the infection rate, the quicker the health bar deteriorates. Health items, especially those that fully eliminate infection are scarce.
The game has a limited supply of ammo available and encourages gamers to only fight when absolutely needed.
Plot
Riley and his Team Red Light team members are dispatched to a secret research facility designated as “Fort Stewart” in Antarctica. Their plane suffers mechanical failure, and the team ends up scattered around the facility after parachuting from the plane. As the mission begins, Riley and his partner Roger Grigman are grieving the recent loss of their teammate Andrew. Dennis and Riley regroup shortly after the game starts and enter the facility to find it torn apart as they comment that “It looks like a warzone”.
As they try to restore power to the facility to get across a drawbridge, Roger is bitten by a bug-like creature that causes him to rapidly mutate into an unknown creature. A woman in a full hazmat suit and gasmask takes Roger down from a catwalk and advises Dennis to get his team out of there and tell the government that their little experiment had gone wrong.
Dennis goes in pursuit of the woman and after defeating more advanced versions of the mutated creatures, he catches up with her to discover it was Cindy Chen, the girlfriend of his fallen comrade Andrew.
The next objective for Dennis is to get to Building B of Fort Stewart which was the designated rendezvous point for the team. Along the way he enters the Water Filtration Plant where he meets a badly injured Carl Morris. Morris, a higher up at Fort Stewart explains that something is off with the water at the facility but dies from his injuries just after warning Dennis about the water. Dennis begins to suspect that the water is infected and causing the strange, mutated creatures the team has encountered.
Once Dennis reaches Building B, he regroups with Major Mike Madigan who is the commander of Red Light. The newest orders from The Pentagon are to trigger three detonators spread throughout the facility to activate the self-destruction of Fort Stewart. As the team splits up, a creature is seen drinking from a water tower. A fight breaks out between the creature and the Marines where the tower is broken open, the water takes a life-like form until it is frozen by the Antarctic air.
The relationship between Dennis and Cindy is also flushed out as the story progresses. Cindy blames Dennis for Andrew’s death. Dennis tells her that he promised Andrew he would look after her and will do it regardless of how she feels. As the game goes on, Cindy opens up more to Dennis and starts to forgive him.
As Dennis works to activate the detonator, he and Cindy start to assume that the bacteria that causes the mutations are susceptible to freezing temperatures, as evident by the frozen infected water earlier. The cold won’t kill the bacteria (discovered to be named HO213) but it will freeze and preserve it so it can be destroyed. They also discovered that if the master strain nicknamed Origin is destroyed, all the bacteria will die, ending the threat of HO213.
As Dennis goes to regroup with Madigan and a few other Marines he finds an injured teammate named Filel who claims Madigan shot him. Dennis finds Madigan who informs Dennis that Filel was a CIA operative and was supposed to be the sole survivor of the mission. Dennis enters a final fight with a further mutated Roger and is victorious. After the fight, Madigan confesses that he knew about the bacteria the entire time and was given a classified objective to destroy it, while Felil was ordered to retrieve and preserve it by the CIA. Madigan heads to the coolant reactor to destroy it along with the infected water being processed through it. Knowing he won’t return from the objective; he designates Riley as the leader of Team Red Light and gives him a disc to decode.
Back at Building B, Cindy deciphers the disc and learns that a project named “Extermination” is a test of the bacteria HO213’s potential and that all facility staff and the Marines are test subjects to see the power of HO213.
With one detonator left to activate, Dennis heads out of Building B once more and meets Dr. Yan Falken who has become obsessed with HO213 and refers to it as his child. Falken dies when he is struck in the head by a piece of debris as the facility starts to crumble. Dennis activates the final detonator and heads back to Building B to retrieve Cindy and Gary, the other loan Red Light survivor.
The three board a carrier as Fort Stewart explodes and the master strain Origin assumes its final form chasing down the carrier. After a brutal fight where Origin takes on multiple forms, Dennis destroys the master strain, ending the bacteria once and for all.
The game ends with Dennis and Cindy reconciling their relationship and Dennis promising to help Cindy with anything she needs.
Promotion
A demo and in-depth trailer were featured as part of the Winter 2001 PlayStation Underground Jampack disc. The video feature went into the creation of the game and how some of the motion capture was done.
Critical Response
Extermination was met with mixed to average reviews from most critics. Most of the criticism was aimed at the clunky feel of the voice acting and gameplay. Positive aspects pointed out were the soundtrack, action elements, and originality it brought to the table.
Should You Play It?
If you enjoy games such as Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, and other games of the genre you will likely enjoy it. The game blends the core survival aspects of the early Resident Evil games with the more action-based Resident Evil games such as 4, 5, and 6.
If you want a 6-8-hour survival horror game with a bit of a twist and challenge, Extermination is perfect for you.
Plan on giving Extermination a try? Have a hidden gem of a game you love? Leave a comment below!