Second impressions

[TigerQuoll]

#12081

I threw a few hours at this game back in the late 90s, but it never really got under my skin enough to make me want to finish it.
This is the first time I’ve played it again since then. I have thought about it many times though – there’s a lot that’s interesting about it. The main thing for me being that it feels very much like a 2D platform game that’s trying to be a 3D FPS. In that sense, it was actually kind of ahead of its time, with a control scheme that uses the keyboard for movement and the mouse for aiming which FPS games wouldn’t really make standard for a few years yet.

As mentioned elsewhere, the level editor (which I haven’t used yet this time around) seemed very well implemented from memory.

But in the end, this time as last time, I’m just finding that the gameplay doesn’t pop for me. The visuals are all dreary and muddy and the combat lacks a bit of weight and satisfaction. I’ll probably give it another go for a bit, but I don’t think I’ll spend too much time with it this month. It’ll just go back to being a game I think about every now and again, and all the new and interesting things it did with the genre.

[Zacktorial]

#12186

I love the control scheme, and the atmospheric visuals and sound work for me. Where the game really suffers is the level design, which seems to be almost entirely based on surprise. The enemies aren’t super varied, so to keep the game “interesting” they just spawn a bunches of them randomly.

Level 4 is where the game starts to verge into trolling. Level 3 is the level that starts to teach you that those cocoon looking things will spawn xenomorphs later.

Level 4 has this one spot in particular where there is one cocoon but then like a dozen xenomorphs spawn. You can just hear the designers saying, “lol, gottem”.

I hate that they introduce a game mechanic and then almost immediately subvert it. Like, give me a little time guys. Not that it’s ever really relevant, because of course they also just spawn the xenomorphs all over the place, no cocoon needed.

[slamo]

#12231

I kind of have mixed feelings about this one. The control scheme is really clever and opens up the game to some unique situations you normally wouldn’t see in a run ‘n’ gun. The weapons are mostly good, although the starter laser weapon gets outclassed by the enemies fairly quickly. I also enjoyed the powerups, especially the jetpack (the speed bonus was good too but hard to use effectively).

I do agree that the level design, specifically the battle setups, is where the game loses me. At first the game is pretty fair but quickly devolves into spamming as many enemies as possible at you. Some of their projectiles really tear through you quickly and are not reasonably dodge-able. I feel like I had to get lucky or know what’s coming ahead of time to win some encounters, which I’m not a big fan of. One lesson I had to learn was that it’s not always worth trying to kill everything, sometimes the best thing you can do is just run.

While some encounters left me thinking “What do they expect me to do?”, the frequency of save points was enough for me to save scum my way through almost all of the game on Normal difficulty. I’ll admit to some transgressions: on the second to last level I had to lower the difficulty to get through the last part, and I hacked the game to give me more flamethrower (?) ammo for the final boss.

Overall, I’m glad I played it but will probably not recommend it for most people unless you’re a big fan of the run ‘n’ gun genre.