Everyone who was involved with the creation of this game should be deeply embarrassed.
The plot of Extermination focuses upon U.S. Marines Special Forces soldier Dennis Riley. Part of "Team Red Light", his squad receives a distress call from Fort Stewart, a top secret facility in Antarctica. In response, Team Red Light is sent in via parachute to investigate the facility.
Extermination has some of the worst graphics, sound, and music. In fact, I can't even recall any of the games music at all. Extermination also puts the icing on the cake with the most terrible camera, shooting and platforming mechanics I have ever seen in a video game to date. I have played games all my life and I can tell you that I had my mouth hanging open the whole time in shock at how bad this game really is.
First thing you notice, is the camera. You have no control over it. They attempted a type of "Chase-Cam," but failed horribly. Bouncing off of walls and giving you no clear shot of anything ahead of you at all. You must go into combat-ready stance to see ahead and as soon as you let go of the aiming button, it's back to the same awful place.
Combat and Aiming is another issue with this game and I will start by saying I was extremely disappointed with being forced to play with a inverted aiming system. Not everyone is good at inverted controls and I am one of those people. There was no option to change it. Next I will talk about the auto-aim feature which sounds nice doesn't it? You hold R1 and you can move your targeting-laser around as you wish...Oh wait!? What's that? Auto-lock!? Great...now my R1-aiming is completely useless. It's so difficult to get the auto-lock off monsters and the camera won't let you see ahead of your character. What now!? I can use R2 to manual-aim!? Great! Except now, moving the cross-hair is so slow it's completely worthless in any situation. By the time you're ready for your shot, a monster is eating away at you.
Monsters are another issue with this game. First would have to be the lack of variety. The game starts you out with some flying bugs in which you can attempt to slash with your useless knife, but even that is so difficult to line up that you would rather just move around them. You come across a few other types of creatures like: Infected dogs, bats and humans. Each enemy has a "core" somewhere on there body and if those "cores" are struck, they will go down much easier. However, because the aiming is so beyond atrocious that it's next to impossible to hit it, unless you snipe them. All of the monster models look completely washed out and the quality of textures is extremely low, even for a game made in 2001; I found it highly unacceptable. Also, the A.I. is so boneheaded you can easily just move in circles around all of the monsters and they can never hit you.
Item placement is also a mess. You don't receive ammo at all during the game for your normal gun. There is all kinds of ammo for your other types of guns, but for your default gun? Of course not, that would eliminate the process of having to back-track every 10 seconds because you must visit your trusty "Infinite ammo machine," which is always several rooms back might I add. It got so ridiculous having to back-track to get ammo or cure my health and "infection" levels that I just quit fighting monsters all together and began dodging all of them up until I had no choice but to shoot..
"Infection" is a complete nuisance. It adds nothing more to the game other then give you another reason to head back to the "Safe Room." Most of the monsters have an infectious acid they spit at you and if it makes contact, this will cause your Infection level to rise. When infection reaches 100% your health degrades and you begin to die slowly. You can cure Infection in most save rooms, or use a vaccine. All of this is only a temporary cure and you could easily leave the save room and be hit with it again.
Battery power is a nit-pick I have with this game. I just have to mention it, because they tried to be creative. Your character carries a battery-pack with him at all times. Sometimes this activates doors and can also be used to save. You start the game with 6 bars of battery life. This can eventually be upgraded (by finding the items in boxes) to a total of 24 bars of power. My problem with this, is that it doesn't change anything. Every time you enter a save room, there is a battery recharge station. Why would it take battery power to save my progress if you put a recharge station right next to my save point? Even opening doors with it just seems pointless. Once again, this just forces you to run back and forth.
The story of this game is just a complete loss and is plagued with awful voice-acting. Which is ashame because the cut-scenes play out pretty well for a game this old. Sadly, the dialogue absolutely kills any chance this game had in grabbing my attention. Another issue here is the progression of the story. A lot like the 'Resident Evil' games, you find notes scattered about, that tell you some things about what is going on. The problem is, 'Resident Evil' succeeded by only placing them every once and a while; where as Extermination places several within every area. I remember picking up 3 in one room. This is ridiculous and I have never been so bored by reading papers upon papers of non-interesting trash.
Final Notes:
Extermination is by far one of the worst games I have played in decades. Due to the endless back-tracking, voice-acting, poor shooting mechanics and wannabe platforming; I could not even take it seriously. Everything from the opening cinema to the ending credits song, is just a complete waste and I am completely disgusted that this is considered a video game. Save the three or four bucks that this game costs and go buy yourself a burger. Avoid this garbage like the plague!