Alien Breed Impact PC Game

ALIEN BREED IMPACT PC Game

Alien Breed Impact doesn't bring anything new to the table but it's fun and has some exciting action movie moments. It might be a little confusing, but this is actually the same game as Alien Breed Evolution, which was released on Xbox Live Arcade late last year. A couple additions like new enemies and upgrade shops have been added.

A mysterious vessel has collided with your ship and now you are overrun with insect-like intruders. Some are inspired by the face huggers in Aliens, some are inspired by Starship Troopers, but they are all inspired by some existing work of science fiction. It's your job to play exterminator and obliterate every alien that comes your way. Oh, and you'll want to unravel the mystery of what exactly is going on while you're at it. Team17 originally said Alien Breed Evolution (and therefore Alien Breed Impact) was supposed to be a trilogy, but it hasn't mentioned the plan since.

You are shuffled from waypoint to waypoint with little in the way of exploration, so gameplay is pretty straightforward. You'll want to do a little searching for items in rooms that are a bit out of your way, but other than that you just go where the game tells you to go and shoot anything that gets in your way. This is a dual-stick shooter with the left stick moving your hero and the right stick aiming his weapons. There are some light survival horror elements to go with all that shooting. Ammo can be scarce and interacting with items in the environment will often trigger an alien attack from under the floor or from within the walls of the ship.

So Alien Breed gets its ideas from several sources, but the regurgitated themes and gameplay mechanics don't keep it from being fun. Blasting aliens is satisfying and there are enough weapons to give you a few strategic options in a fight. Your ruined ship is alive with flames, shadows, and debris being tossed around by the ongoing destruction, all powered by the Unreal Engine 3. The music and sound are also well done from the moody soundtrack to the screams and growls of the aliens themselves.

Overall, Impact sports high production values but there are a couple areas that feel a little cheap. In between levels we are fed exposition in the form of still comic book panels with voice over, but the artwork isn't so hot. It's not Dead Space Ignition bad, but it's bad. The voice acting is also amateurish.

Alien Breed Impact spans five chapters that will take you a good while to work through. After each stage your stats are calculated and a score is posted to the online leaderboards, so there is also replay value for those that want to represent. You can also play through the entire game cooperatively either locally or online. Both players share the screen and can't venture beyond where their partner can see (you also lose camera control). If the aliens get the better of you in co-op you'll respawn in a moment as long as the other player doesn't kick the bucket, too.

THE VERDICT

Alien Breed Evolution is a straightforward sci-fi game with satisfying shooting mechanics and some impressive visuals. It borrows ideas from all over the place but the interactivity of videogames always seems to make blatant imitation easier to swallow than it is in other mediums. Anyone who played the original Alien Breed back in the day will find their simple top-down shooter is all grown up with great lighting effects, an atmospheric soundtrack, and affecting cinematic events.

ALIEN BREED IMPACT