Alien Syndrome
is a classic Sega arcade game from the '80s that was quite a bit of fun when it first started off, but nothing
seems to have been improved upon for its 21st century update.
As you walk down long corridors and open spaces, you'll go through the usual malarkey of collecting keycards and
picking up powerups, while, at first, aliens slither towards you and they take forever to kill - and you still
need to kill them to gain points to increase your skills at strength, dexterity, accuracy and endurance, the
skills for which differ depending on the profession you select at the start of the game, such as sharpshooter,
firebug and demolitions expert - so it's not as if you can just say "Nuts to this" and skirt round them because
you'll never develop as a result; well, as much as you can develop because this is only a thinly-disguised
attempt at an RPG and not a real one, since the emphasis is more along the lines of an arcade game.
In addition, there's lots of things you're good or not so good at, and it's the choice of profession that dictates
these things, such as ability to melee, the strength of your armour, how good you are at combat, etc.
On the plus side, here, you can strafe left/right while firing your weapons and eventually the baddies will
break up and their smaller parts can be picked off... but then more come. You also have a robot helper called
SCARAB which will chip in and do its best, but it's not exactly Alyx from Half Life in terms of the help
it can give you.
The graphics give you the right impression that you're on a space station littered with little else but creepy
crawly aliens, but there's no particular WOW factor to it. Sound is functional with big bangs when you open up
a crate of powerups and other bits and pieces but after a few of them you soon get used to it.
All that said, in Alien Syndrome there's still very little variety and it soon gets repetitive, so all
these things which make it sound unique never really come into play in terms of grabbing your attention and making
you feel more immersed in the game.
Hence, and for the Simpsons fans amongst you, when your character dies and it says, "Aileen has perished.
Would you like to play again?"... like Lee Carvello's Putting Challenge, the only answer in this poor game
is "No."
GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
In addition, there's lots of things you're good or not so good at, and it's the choice of profession that dictates
these things, such as ability to melee, the strength of your armour, how good you are at combat, etc.
All that said, in Alien Syndrome there's still very little variety and it soon gets repetitive, so all
these things which make it sound unique never really come into play in terms of grabbing your attention and making
you feel more immersed in the game.
