Extermination

Sony—PS2


Mysteriously depopulated military base? Check. Giant bile-spewing leeches? Uh, check. Biological experiment gone horribly cuckoo? You betcha.

Extermination photocopies a page of the survival-horror handbook that gave us games like Resident Evil—not to mention vintage sci-fi like The Thing. But it puts a twist in an otherwise played-out genre with a dose of Xanax-defying anxiety.

You’re an earnest U.S. Marine plunked onto an Antarctic base that’s plagued by infected subhuman vermin. Your goal: Find the contagion’s source without contracting the disease, and pulp the nasty critters in the process. Your weapon of choice ? a machine gun worthy of the Sharper Image, accessorized with a handy flamethrower and grenade launcher ? won’t protect you from illness, unfortunately. Should you get infected, you must race frantically to an inconveniently located decontamination lab before you dissolve into a puddle of oozing pus.

Smooth mechanics keep the game’s action fast and furious: You can fire and tear through the complex, graphically engaging world without the sluggishness and backtracking typical of the genre. The game is a quick hit of twitchy, anxious fun. But if it’s briefs-soiling terror you’re after, you’ll find more fright in a Barney & Friends Halloween special.
—Alex Porter