The Commodore Amiga is enjoying its peak popularity. Developers, predominantly in Europe, are recognizing the brand of computers as the desktop gaming platform, with more still joining the scene. One of them is a newly founded company based in Wakefield, England, called Team17, formed from a merger between publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7. For the year 1991, Team17, which will become one of the oldest-living independent game studios in the United Kingdom, enters the Amiga scene to develop hit titles for those computers. Its second project, Alien Breed, will prove to be the company's best-selling franchise for years to come until Worms in 1995, spawning sequels and reboots.
Alien Breed is a science-fiction shoot 'em up game released originally for Amiga. It is best described as "Alien meets Gauntlet". Set in the future, two peacekeeping space marines in an unstable galaxy return to their space headquarters via the lightly-armed IPCC Miraculous for a break after a routine six-month patrol, but are ordered to first examine another space station - a high-security research center - that had just cut off all transmissions to the federative headquarters, where surprise awaits them. Okay, it is not an exact ripoff of the Alien franchise, specifically the Aliens film, but the game does have a horror theme, with enemies ranging from aliens with long, cylindrical skulls to tailed crab- and worm-like lifeforms, all reminiscent of the various stages of the Xenomorph from the film. Other assets are also borrowed heavily from the franchise, including the visuals and the motion tracker, which for this game has been repurposed as a purchasable navigation system for each deck of the space station. No graphic violence, though. Its gameplay, on the other hand, largely imitates Gauntlet. Across maze-like structures viewed from the top down, enemies spawn endlessly, and one must fight one's way through to reach point B, collecting resources lying on the ground along the way, in this case ammo, keys that can unlock any door but be used once, and credits. And yes, the enemies do charge at the player character in single file and disappear if they touch him, inflicting damage.
The similarities between it and Gauntlet end where Alien Breed stresses survival and using resources sparingly to escape the station. It is mid-paced and short. It starts off easy, but rapidly ascends in difficulty. Some rooms have Intex terminals the player can access. These valuable computers all dispense weapons and items in exchange for credits the player has picked up and have a built-in radar of the current deck and the player's position. The player is already equipped with a machine gun, which is useful in its own right, but my favorite is the one that fires lasers, easily killing the enemies and bouncing all over the place. I do wish that the weapons were more balanced since I find some cheaper guns like the plasma shotgun to be more effective than the flamethrower, which I wish I could say is one of my favorite weapons. As far as the items, they include the device containing the map of the deck, an ammo clip, a first aid kit, six keys, and an extra life. The map is very handy for an item that is the cheapest to buy, because one can see details of the entire deck such as which doors are locked. In addition, unlike the terminal's radar, it also displays where one's objectives are, and can be pulled up any time. Interactions with both devices are not in real time, and the terminals are the only means of acquiring a weapon and almost certainly a necessity when ammo or keys are depleted.
One of the things Alien Breed succeeds in capturing is its dark, gritty atmosphere. The entire space station is seemingly devoid of humans other than the one or two mercenaries who returned to the station, only infested by endless hordes of aliens lurking deep in corners. There is no time limit for the most part, but vital resources are limited and can easily be exhausted, especially if squandered, and one must know the way to the elevator to escape the blast of the self-destructing deck once the sequence is triggered. Even the Intex terminals' and the electronic map device's somewhat fuzzy displays have a creepy impression to them. The main menu music plays each time one sees the game over screen (which beginners can expect to see many times hours into the game), but the combination sounds awfully ominous. The constant threat of death or making a deadly error seems to convey a sense of genuine fear. It is not a real horror game, but it nonetheless keeps the tension high.
Adding to the fear is the game's difficulty, because of which I was hooked onto this game for days. Find plenty of keys, stock up on ammo, and shoot in the direction you move. Sounds simple, except it is not. Enemies from all directions do not stop spawning off-screen. Aliens may pop out through openings in places one would least expect or feel safe. Ammo must be conserved, and it is sometimes better to flee overwhelming forces than to fight them and risk letting one grab the player character by the arm. Traps and one-way passages abound. It is usually worth exploring rooms that are entirely optional but contain resources, credits, and maybe an extra life, though not without danger up ahead. One is better off leaving many doors locked to save keys, let alone controlling their impulse to unlock them. Speaking of doors, there are fire doors of which it is actually an easy mistake to make to lock oneself on the wrong side. Pay too little attention to your resources depleting, and you can expect to encounter significant challenges. These mistakes are often fatal, accounting for many game over screens received by the careless player. It is great because the game demands that the player defend oneself against hundreds of deadly aliens _and_ use their resources economically. In this Doom-like scenario where everything that moves is an enemy, the experience can be lonely, but thankfully a second player can join the first at the start of the game to take part in the carnage. While two mercenaries means double the firepower, their inventory is not shared (except for credits if that option is turned on beforehand), and the two must save some resources for the one who needs them more.
Alien Breed has only six levels, which is partially compensated by its difficulty. It indeed took me days to finally complete all of them, and I was incentivized to come back each time I lost the game. However, after finishing it, the incentive is gone. I explored most of every map there is. I can predict the remainder of the rooms I had not explored and the experience to be had there to be familiar. The only thing left I could do is to replay the game for a higher score or play it with a friend. Once one familiarizes oneself with the six levels and where one needs to go, it takes less than an hour to beat the game. It is short, as in really short, and it would be a while before the player returns to beat it again. Moreover, there are some minor but annoying bugs such as clipping into a wall and staying stuck there, leading to a loss, but these bugs are so rare and even rarer the more severe they get that they should not interfere with the long-term enjoyment of the game.
VERDICT: Alien Breed is not the most original game that exists. Far from it. There have been many science-fiction thrillers before and since, including the Alien franchise it shamelessly borrowed from. The Gauntlet subgenre of shoot 'em ups had already been tried to death. Its derivative concept is easily forgettable and overshadowed by more original works. However, it was just one title that fully demonstrated what Amiga was made to be: a machine with console horsepower that produces games with semi-photographic visuals, realistic or digitized sound, and it did so while delivering an experience not easily replicated on other platforms at the time. It is a game by the greats of Team17, and while the thrills of decimating the alien breed last too short to make it replayable in the long run, the horror series' chaotic, havoc-wreaking gameplay was the team's selling point until Worms, its other chaotic, havoc-wreaking franchise.
Alien Breed is a science-fiction shoot 'em up game released originally for Amiga. It is best described as "Alien meets Gauntlet". Set in the future, two peacekeeping space marines in an unstable galaxy return to their space headquarters via the lightly-armed IPCC Miraculous for a break after a routine six-month patrol, but are ordered to first examine another space station - a high-security research center - that had just cut off all transmissions to the federative headquarters, where surprise awaits them. Okay, it is not an exact ripoff of the Alien franchise, specifically the Aliens film, but the game does have a horror theme, with enemies ranging from aliens with long, cylindrical skulls to tailed crab- and worm-like lifeforms, all reminiscent of the various stages of the Xenomorph from the film. Other assets are also borrowed heavily from the franchise, including the visuals and the motion tracker, which for this game has been repurposed as a purchasable navigation system for each deck of the space station. No graphic violence, though. Its gameplay, on the other hand, largely imitates Gauntlet. Across maze-like structures viewed from the top down, enemies spawn endlessly, and one must fight one's way through to reach point B, collecting resources lying on the ground along the way, in this case ammo, keys that can unlock any door but be used once, and credits. And yes, the enemies do charge at the player character in single file and disappear if they touch him, inflicting damage.
The similarities between it and Gauntlet end where Alien Breed stresses survival and using resources sparingly to escape the station. It is mid-paced and short. It starts off easy, but rapidly ascends in difficulty. Some rooms have Intex terminals the player can access. These valuable computers all dispense weapons and items in exchange for credits the player has picked up and have a built-in radar of the current deck and the player's position. The player is already equipped with a machine gun, which is useful in its own right, but my favorite is the one that fires lasers, easily killing the enemies and bouncing all over the place. I do wish that the weapons were more balanced since I find some cheaper guns like the plasma shotgun to be more effective than the flamethrower, which I wish I could say is one of my favorite weapons. As far as the items, they include the device containing the map of the deck, an ammo clip, a first aid kit, six keys, and an extra life. The map is very handy for an item that is the cheapest to buy, because one can see details of the entire deck such as which doors are locked. In addition, unlike the terminal's radar, it also displays where one's objectives are, and can be pulled up any time. Interactions with both devices are not in real time, and the terminals are the only means of acquiring a weapon and almost certainly a necessity when ammo or keys are depleted.
One of the things Alien Breed succeeds in capturing is its dark, gritty atmosphere. The entire space station is seemingly devoid of humans other than the one or two mercenaries who returned to the station, only infested by endless hordes of aliens lurking deep in corners. There is no time limit for the most part, but vital resources are limited and can easily be exhausted, especially if squandered, and one must know the way to the elevator to escape the blast of the self-destructing deck once the sequence is triggered. Even the Intex terminals' and the electronic map device's somewhat fuzzy displays have a creepy impression to them. The main menu music plays each time one sees the game over screen (which beginners can expect to see many times hours into the game), but the combination sounds awfully ominous. The constant threat of death or making a deadly error seems to convey a sense of genuine fear. It is not a real horror game, but it nonetheless keeps the tension high.
Adding to the fear is the game's difficulty, because of which I was hooked onto this game for days. Find plenty of keys, stock up on ammo, and shoot in the direction you move. Sounds simple, except it is not. Enemies from all directions do not stop spawning off-screen. Aliens may pop out through openings in places one would least expect or feel safe. Ammo must be conserved, and it is sometimes better to flee overwhelming forces than to fight them and risk letting one grab the player character by the arm. Traps and one-way passages abound. It is usually worth exploring rooms that are entirely optional but contain resources, credits, and maybe an extra life, though not without danger up ahead. One is better off leaving many doors locked to save keys, let alone controlling their impulse to unlock them. Speaking of doors, there are fire doors of which it is actually an easy mistake to make to lock oneself on the wrong side. Pay too little attention to your resources depleting, and you can expect to encounter significant challenges. These mistakes are often fatal, accounting for many game over screens received by the careless player. It is great because the game demands that the player defend oneself against hundreds of deadly aliens _and_ use their resources economically. In this Doom-like scenario where everything that moves is an enemy, the experience can be lonely, but thankfully a second player can join the first at the start of the game to take part in the carnage. While two mercenaries means double the firepower, their inventory is not shared (except for credits if that option is turned on beforehand), and the two must save some resources for the one who needs them more.
Alien Breed has only six levels, which is partially compensated by its difficulty. It indeed took me days to finally complete all of them, and I was incentivized to come back each time I lost the game. However, after finishing it, the incentive is gone. I explored most of every map there is. I can predict the remainder of the rooms I had not explored and the experience to be had there to be familiar. The only thing left I could do is to replay the game for a higher score or play it with a friend. Once one familiarizes oneself with the six levels and where one needs to go, it takes less than an hour to beat the game. It is short, as in really short, and it would be a while before the player returns to beat it again. Moreover, there are some minor but annoying bugs such as clipping into a wall and staying stuck there, leading to a loss, but these bugs are so rare and even rarer the more severe they get that they should not interfere with the long-term enjoyment of the game.
VERDICT: Alien Breed is not the most original game that exists. Far from it. There have been many science-fiction thrillers before and since, including the Alien franchise it shamelessly borrowed from. The Gauntlet subgenre of shoot 'em ups had already been tried to death. Its derivative concept is easily forgettable and overshadowed by more original works. However, it was just one title that fully demonstrated what Amiga was made to be: a machine with console horsepower that produces games with semi-photographic visuals, realistic or digitized sound, and it did so while delivering an experience not easily replicated on other platforms at the time. It is a game by the greats of Team17, and while the thrills of decimating the alien breed last too short to make it replayable in the long run, the horror series' chaotic, havoc-wreaking gameplay was the team's selling point until Worms, its other chaotic, havoc-wreaking franchise.
