Alien Breed Evolution: Episode 1 review

Welcome to Alien Breed, you're dropped into an (alien) world of trouble during an attack on board Leopold - your trusty spaceship - and you must battle to survive and rid the craft of its newly boarded hitch-hikers. You play Conrad and must search the now obliterated ship(s) searching for the final survivors in attempt to escape with your life.

Story

I'll keep this brief as it's pretty much the same as the opening, but will add that the stylised cartoon come noir storyboard cut scenes are simply beautiful. It's worth watching the video's not so much for the content and scripture, but just to experience the fluid and genuinely unique way the game is presented.

Story is at best, pretty shallow but that's not detrimental to the gameplay (which I'll come to next) so it really doesn't matter at all. I mean let's face it, who genuinely cares about the story of a fictional pixelated character anyway most of the time, let's just get to the action!

Gameplay

Just like Matt Hazard which was featured a short while back, this game has its roots firmly set in classic 8-bit gaming so it was vital they both catered for the 'MLG' generation, and the old folks too. By recreating environments in luscious HD and having a camera that remains static in a 'not quite top down' view blends the two worlds very nicely.

Action is taken care of with the standard FPS layout. Seems odd at first and does take a little time to get used to but it works. Movement is assigned to the left analogue stick, aiming to the right and the right trigger is the trigger of choice for shooting. Action is kept at fever pitched with a slow influx of creepy crawling alien creatures which slowly exacerbates into a full horde of weird beings hell bent on separating you and your limbs.

Basically, you're dropped in the game and must find and power up several stations to locate the elevator to progress onto the next level. With 5 levels in total, each lasting around an hour or so and with fixed save points dotted evenly throughout each mission, there's plenty of alien killing for all. Guns, ammunition, health packs etc. can all be found after unlocking certain rooms, or can be found stashed in lockers and after searching the bodies of the deceased on board the ship.

While the gameplay is mostly a simple run around and shoot aliens, open doors progress on etc, this is in no way a step backwards or too much of a retro kick for newcomers to the series. Having never played the original, the way the game looks, is presented and the easy learning curve (and difficult to master) nature of the game only aides the games introduction to the mass market. One little gripe I always have, is when the makers deliberately point out in a first game that it's only an "episode" and immediately plants the seeds that to finish the story off, you're going to need to stump up the cash to find out how it all ends. Bad Team17, *slaps wrist*.

Graphics

As I described the story cut scenes earlier as 'luscious', allow me add the words: moody, atmospheric, dark, creepy and - at times - scary. Dark hallways with flickering lights lit solely by a thin beam of torchlight are very common in these parts. Aside from a quick beep on your sonar radar and an incoming dot on your location, alien enemies are soon swarming you. It's never going to match the - what I like to term - 'Brown Factor' of Dead Space and the original Silent Hill games, it will make you jump every now and then.

Aliens are detailed enough, being so far away looking down on the action limits the detail factor, but the lighting and fire effects more than make up for any short comings with the camera issues. Actually, ignore that last comment. The fixed camera would've been an issue if Team 17 hadn't have sorted us all out with a system whereby pressing the right/left bumper flips the camera to give us (the players) the ideal aspect view of where we're going or where the enemy is approaching us from. Good call.

One thing I simply must comment on though, is the menu system. I've never had the pleasure of using such a simple but truly awesome menu to get into a game from an Xbox Live Arcade Game. The neon lighting, flickering pictures and general production costs they've put into developing in it show, and just add that little something extra that makes playing the game and starting it up that little bit more special.

Sound

It's a weird one to sum up this, there's nothing really to comment on. The cartoonistic (yeah, I just made up that word) voice characters are decent, effects are realistic and have a high quality factor,  but neither are there any "wow" moments. Not a bad thing whatsoever, I am glad to report that there's no cheesy thumping soundtrack which I initially feared. The woman on the tannoy can be a little annoying when you're stuck or clueless as what to do next and she repeats the same thing over and over, but that's not the game's problem more the 'noob' playing it. So yeah, nothing bad about it at all.

Multiplayer

An excellent inclusion is the online Xbox live 2 player co-operative mode which allows you and a friend to share a screen and take the battle to the aliens over three levels. Each one is pretty long, an average pair of team mates could take them on in around 20-30minutes each and action, controls and gameplay are all ported from the single player.

It's funny when one guy braves the hordes and dies nobly for his cause while another steals all the ammunition while hiding in a room so the aliens chase and hunt down you instead, but it's just as satisfying doing the same to them. Replay-ability is extended by including achievements including one for neither player dying which is - quite frankly - impossible (for me).

Summary

An excellent port of a classic title that I've never played rendering this sentence worthless. What this basically is, is a fine single player and multiplayer top down classic feeling arcade title, with a shallow storyline and decent gameplay. It's one of those hard to master games but easy to get to grips with. While 'go search for x to unlock y and repeat' may seem to be a pretty basic concept for this generation, it means the game sits and fits nicely within the history of the series, where its blood ties lie.

If you were a fan of the original, I'm pretty sure you'll love this. If you're after an easy to pick up and play, simple 'shoot the enemy and drop all the crap' action game which you may wish to share a few times online with friends, this is it. A real triumph of an arcade game in this idiot's opinion and worthy of anybody's 800 points.