Format: XBL Arcade
Unleashed: Out Now
Publisher: Team 17
Developer: Team 17
Players: 1-2
Site: http://www.team17.com
You wait years for a sequel to the Alien Breed franchise, which made its name on the good old Amiga, and then a ton all arrive at once. We have had Alien Breed Evolution for the 360, which was recently followed by Alien Breed Impact for PSN and PC. Impact is the exact same game, but Team 17 used it as an opportunity to refine gameplay features.
Alien Breed Assault is a new set of levels and a continuation of the Evolution/Impact storyline with the addition of the gameplay features added in Impact. That’s almost it but as with Impact, Team 17 have used this version to offer some incremental changes to the overall experience. Don’t expect anything revolutionary though.
Basic gameplay is still dominated by ‘go here’, ‘go there’, and ‘oh, now please can you go back there again’ missions. It can get tiresome, but as long as you know that’s what you are going to get and accept it then, as with the previous games, it carries it off well.
The game has adopted the new concepts from its PSN cousin which are the ability buy ammo, health packs and upgrades to improve your character throughout the game. However, ‘Assault’ has also added some of its own progressions. These are visual and narrative in practice. The game has always been viewed from the top down, using the Unreal 3 engine which harks back to its Amiga roots where it was a 2D top down shooter. In Assault the camera often pans much lower and closer to the player character, teasing us with the idea that this could be a fully functioning third person shooter. Sometimes this happens down very tight corridors, and the ability to rotate the camera is removed. In one scene you are on a stairway (near the beginning of the game) and you have to make your way to the top. The camera goes DS Zelda-like with the way the perspective works. This new visual style certainly breaks up the overall experience but also, at times, shows the weakness in the character animations and sub – AAA budget applied to making this game. However in the round, the game certainly brings you closer into the world you are exploring and helps to make it easier to buy into. Team 17 have also inserted ‘end of level’ baddies in the game, which again changes the formula of the previous releases a little.
We have always liked these games at Critical Gamer and we are not scared to state that. For the cost to download this, it is value. However, Team17 need to be careful not to go too far away from the game’s comfort zone. We would much rather see Co Op modes based in the actual campaign, or allowing players to split up rather than Team17 pushing the game engine to it limits. One thing we think would make this a killer download would be a full online multiplayer mode. Ideas such as humans versus aliens, humans versus humans, deathmatch, capture the flag, all within the Alien Breed game engine.
Any chance of that for episode 3 guys?
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