User Review : Alien Syndrome

Ups

• Addicting loot-whoring and leveling
• Easy-to-use ranged and melee combat
• No need for merchant when you are pretty much one

Downs

• Lazy presentation
• Hard-to-control camera
• Boring level design

Real Review: Alien Syndrome

At one time, there was actually an arcade game named Alien Syndrome. If I'm not mistaken, this was during the 80's and it eventually got ported to most of the home consoles. While most of the home ports were hated by fans of the arcade, they were good games in their own right. Around the same time, Gauntlet had come out and was a change of pace from other games at the time, with weird level portals and a non-linear style mixed with RPG elements. At some point, someone wanted to remake the game and use Gauntlet as a influence and what we get is an RPG that shares a lot of elements with Midway's famed franchise.

You are Aileen harding, some chick who holds a gun or big staff-thingie and kills aliens. Don't expect a good story because the one that's here sucks is is disconnected from the gameplay. What you need to know is that aliens came on this big space ship and nobody else but you can stop the alien syndrome. Again, sucky story.

The question is, do you play a game for the story or for the GAMEPLAY? I hope you picked the latter, because this game does most of the gameplay fairly well. As an RPG/Gauntlet clone, you start the game out by picking one of 5 different classes. A sniper, flamethrower, tank, etc. and that pretty much effects the weapons you'll be using and some character stats. The Gauntletey part of this is that the menu for character selection is the same. 4 strips going down, showing that 4 characters can play together. You pick your character and pop in. One you get in the game, you quickly realize something else: the gameplay seems all too familiar. Basically, a bunch of aliens pop out, you shoot them, move on. Doesn't that sound familiar? Gauntlet, maybe?

Let's not forget some gameplay differences before calling it a sci-fi Gauntlet rip-off. For one, leveling up lets you choose what stats your character can upgrade themselves in, along with a skill that can help you through the game. Speaking of which, these skills are very handy through the long time you'll be playing the campaign. At the 20-hour mark, I encountered another boss that I figured was the end boss. A pathetic boss to compete with my character, I must say, but I defeated it quickly. Little did I know that I would have at least another 30 hours ahead of me. For a Wii game, that's pretty big. Include replay value for all of the character classes and you have yourself a lot of extra game time on this. And you won't encounter a merchant throughout the entire game. Nope; you're your own merchant. You kill and enemy, take his tech, construct better armor or something with more interesting stats connected, salvage the other crap. Normal stuff, but you'll at least be happy that the look for a merchant is unneeded.

My problems with the game first came with the camera. The thing's atrocious. You're supposed to turn the nunchuck left or right to turn the camera, but whether or not I was doing it right or it wasn't registering the turn, I don't know. It seems random and unnecessary, especially since the view is just barely shy of a top-down camera. Basically, you see something at one camera angle, you'll see it on all others. Also, the game never explains how to use med-kits and energy restorers (energy is need for shields and the typical plasma rifle ammo) and I had to figure out how to do it myself. To save others the trouble, left and right on the d-pad.

The presentation is pretty mediocre, which is a damn shame since the gameplay was pretty good. Graphics look like PSP (this is a port of that game...) and aren't very colorful. The weapon sounds are pathetic. I swear, the only sounds you'll hear are "pew pew pew" or "boom boom boom". It's embarrassing. The music is pretty sucky and completely forgettable and the voice acting is average. Perhaps the only two good things are the disc image and enemy designs. Other than that, the presentation was lazily done and kinda sad.

In the end, I was actually pleasantly surprised with the refined gameplay. While it is essentially Gauntlet with a sci-fi setting and a few RPG elements thrown in, it is pretty fun for a while. The gameplay is quite repetitious, but good in terms of dungeon-crawling, loot-hunting RPG's. The critical reception for this game was bad, and I don't understand why. Is it because the lack of EXTREME bias and a missing stick up my ass helps me enjoy the games better than others. The fact is, Alien Syndrome is fine to play if you deal with repetitive gameplay, as it packs a lot of value in the content. If you're in a loot-whoring mood, but can't find a decent sci-fi RPG, rent this game for your Wii and see if you like it. It has its problems, but in the end, it's a good game in my book.

Score: 7.5

Score

6.0

Graphics

5.6

Sound

9.0

Gameplay

7.0

Fun Factor

Overall

7.5