Alien Swarm

Game: Alien Swarm
Developer: Valve
Platform: PC
Release Year: 2010
Stephen's Rating: 5/10

Basic Plot

A swarm of aliens has invaded a colonized planet. A task force is sent to the planet to look for survivors but ends up finding none, and is forced to destroy the planet with a thermonuclear bomb.

Gameplay

Alien Swarm is a top down shooter similar in style to the indie game Dead Horde. It is a remake of the Unreal Tournament 2004 mod with the same name, created by the same team. Unusually the game was released as freeware by Valve on their Steam platform.

Players can play single player or up to four player co-operative over the internet. Gameplay and the story is the same regardless.

Each player picks a character class to play as. These include:

• Officer: Has an aura which gives nearby units a bonus to damage output and resistance.
• Special Weapons: Has access to the most powerful weapons, has autoaim, and can hold more ammunition.
• Medic: Can heal allies and themselves with healing becons and a healing gun.
• Tech: Is the fastest and setting up sentry guns and welding doors. Is the only class capable of hacking some control panels.

Each character class has access to class specific weapons which only they can use.

The game involves moving through various compounds, engaging alien enemies and progressing to various checkpoints.

The feel of the game reminds me a lot of the movie Aliens. The combat is in close quarters, the lighting is dark, and the gameplay intense.

Positives

Great that they released this as freeware. Anyone who downloads and installs Steam can play this game. Unusual gameplay, especially considering it used the Half-Life 2 Source engine which was designed for first person shooters.

Negatives

The view angle and controls are confusing and hard to get used to. I can't think of how else they could have done it, but it's painful to start with. The game also gets pretty repetitive but simultaneously over-difficult quite quickly.

Memorable Moments

Had some good 2-4 player games online, never completed it but spent a good few hours testing it out.