Reviewed: August 17, 2007
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
SEGA
Developer
Totally Games
Released: July 24, 2007
Genre: Action RPG
Players: 1-4
5
5
5
5
5.0
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Alien Syndrome is part action shooter, part RPG, and in the same vein as Gauntlet, best played with friends…a lot of them. Sure, it’s possible to slog through the alien-infested, futuristic world of Alien Syndrome alone, but it’s a pretty repetitive experience, and one that gets exponentially more difficult with each additional member missing from your team.
Of course this is only hypothetical since Alien Syndrome requires four copies of the game and four people with PSP’s and a lot of time to waste. I have none of these, so I can only compare my experience to that of my editor playing the Wii version (who is playing multiplayer) and what I have read in the forums. So while Alien Syndrome might be infinitely more fun and a higher scoring game when played with friends, for the purpose of this review, I’ll be treating it as a solo action-RPG.
You begin the game much like any other RPG, by selecting a character class that determines stats, skills, and other abilities. And much like all other RPG’s, these stats and abilities will increase as you progress through the game and kill countless alien slime.
One nice feature is the SCARAB, a mobile weapons shop that also doubles as a gun turret. During your adventure you’ll collect countless items from corpses and chests. Most of this seems like worthless junk until you scrap it for resource points, then SCARAB can create new weapons, armor, ammo, and even med kits. It’s a pretty cool concept – too bad it’s attached to such a lame game.
You’ll have a fairly restrictive weight limit in Alien Syndrome (until you boost your strength) that will force you to spend more time micromanaging your inventory than actually playing the game. It gets really annoying when you are about to die in combat and need to have SCARAB manufacture a med kit but you can’t carry one until you drop a few dozen grenades you can’t use anyway since you don’t have the proper explosives skill.
Alien Syndrome is part exploration and part combat…mostly combat. Exploration is nominal since you’ll simply wander repetitive rooms and passages killing thousands of aliens that come in about 100 various forms. After you have killed your 200th giant slug (that spawns into four mini-slugs when shot) or your 100th half-torso acid-spitting corpse crawling across the floor you’ll probably be done with this game.
Combat is either weapons based or you can engage in melee combat with a variety of staff weapons. Aiming on the PSP is problematic – aim where you are facing or strafe - so you’ll probably have a much easier time doing melee and from what I’ve been told, the PSP is much better at doing combos than the Wii.
Ultimately, Alien Syndrome is just one giant RPG grind fest where you blindly follow orders which lead you to some waypoint on the opposite side of a generic map with a few hundred (or thousand) alien slugs and other baddies waiting to block your progress. There is a large selection of weapons and upgrades and lots of cool items, but there just isn’t enough of an actual game to make you care about the details.
Alien Syndrome is dark…not evil dark…low lighting dark. And while this might be useful in showcasing a few dozen of the games blindingly cool special effects, it doesn’t make for compelling gameplay. The textures are repetitive as are the objects that populate the levels. There are also some framerate issues to deal with, especially when there are several monsters on the screen – which is almost always. The game also slows down when you turn and rotate the screen.
Despite 100 styles of monsters and aliens most look very similar and they get as boring as the game really fast. The best parts of the game other than the special effects are the HUD, comic style intermissions, and some cool icons in the SCARAB screen. I’m sure this looks better than the Wii version but only because it’s being compressed to a much smaller screen.
I was impressed with the sci-fi flavored musical score as well as background themes that got downright creepy at times and dynamically shifted with the action.
There is some quality voice acting for a few parts in the game and a lot of excellent sound effects for the various weapons and melee attacks. You’ll quickly come to dread the sickly squishing of those giant slugs, even before you see them.
Assuming you can stand to play this game alone expect 20-25 hours of repetitive action. If you are a true glutton for punishment you can revisit the experience as any of five classes or three difficulty levels, but I can’t see why you would.
The true fun, what little there is, lies in the multiplayer game, but for maximum enjoyment you’ll need three others with their own copies of the game. That’s $160 just in software. You’re better off playing the Wii version and dealing with the glitches specific to that system.
I’m going to guess this game will fly off the shelves when it hits $20, and rightly so. There is a fun and compelling multiplayer game lurking beneath the mindless combat and level grinding that boasts a few subtle nods toward Diablo, but you don’t want to play this alone and you don’t want to have four people paying full price for what is arguably a budget-quality title.
For me, and I’m guessing most others with similar attention spans, this is a weekend rental at best. Give it a try if you must but save your purchase dollars for something with more polish and substance. Alien Syndrome just comes off as one of those cheap Sci-Fi Channel movies they show on Saturday night and will hold your interest for about as long.