Alien Breed

Written by Kyle Coare in PC Game Reviews, Wednesday 27 August, 2008

Not All Aliens Are As Nice As ET!

This game is a conversion of one of the all time great Amiga games, originally released in 1991 by Team 17, this version was released later in 1993 and boasted a few extra levels and more graphics and colour. The game is a top-down action shoot 'em up, where you control a guy on a space station and lots of evil aliens are trying to take over the world, this storyline is pretty much stolen from the Aliens movies, but then again theres no harm in that!

If you've played any of the old classic Gauntlet games then you will be right at home here, this is quite obviously "inspired" by these games! That's not to say that its a bad game, in fact it takes the original ideas from Gauntlet and adds a lot of nice touches to them.

if you've not played them games then I'd better tell you a bit more about this game hadn't I?

The game is viewed from above the player, so you can see all around him, you start with a puny little gun, and must search the level for an exit of some kind, this is the basic idea behind it anyway.
When you start you are only given a limited amount of ammunition for your gun, so dont be too trigger happy, as there isn't a lot lying around! There are a lot of tense moments in this game where youve run out of bullets and you have about 10 aliens bearing down on you, it can get your heartrate going quite fast!

One of the best features of this game is that there are computer terminals that you can log into, on these terminals you can buy upgraded guns and special tools that help in your battle with the aliens.
These are not cheap though, but this is okay as there is quite a lot of cash lying around the place for you to collect, its funny how people always leave money and ammo in disused space centres.

You must also collect keys, to open doors, these are again not that widely available so you really should try to conserve them a bit or you might find yourself in a bit of trouble with the little green men. Some of the levels have time limits, these are very tight and add a lot of tension to the levels, even though the normal levels don't really need any more tension!

In total there are 18 levels, these are huge and will take a lot of time to explore, but as the design is so good you wont get bored of them quickly.

There is also a two player mode, this can be quite frustrating and a bit limited, as you must keep both players on the same screen at all times, but its still a fun mode of play if you've got a few mates around.

The aliens at the start of the game are fairly simple to destroy, and wont pose too many problems, but as you progree through the levels they soon get a lot more vicious and devious, and you find the game gets quite difficult fairly quickly.

Okay the graphics are very dated, but then again they still have enough to let you know what is going on around you, they are fairly colourful and crisp. For a game so old, it also has some very nice lighting effects, whilst not mindblowing in any respect, they still give a good impression of being in a disused space station.

As I said earlier this game can become quite hard, you will have to replay some bits a few times to really get to grips with the game. Some of the timed levels have a very tight time limit which can be quite difficult to reach but that's the idea with these levels.

This is a very fun, old school shootem up, which seem suprisingly fresh even to this day, its available to buy from most online sites, or can be downloaded from various Abandonware sites.
Also if you enjoy this you should check out the sequal, Alien Breed: Tower Assault, this is more of the same with slightly improved graphics and gameplay, this can also be found in the same places as the original.

1 Comment

1. Kelvin said on September 5th, 2008 at 11:31pm

   gotta agree. the retro classics are the best!!

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