Alien Storm

"Eating human beings and wrecking havoc on Earth was to be expected, but I could have never foreseen the raw horror of aliens assimilating trashcans."

Alien Storm was originally released in the arcades (which I have seen footage of but never actually played), and was ported to the Sega Genesis / Megadrive with some major changes made to the normal mode. It could best be described as Golden Axe with a sci-fi theme, and includes a few first-person shooting gallery levels and run 'n gun portions alongside the beat 'em up ones that make up the majority of the game. How does it compare to Sega's earlier brawler, and the ones that it had to compete with during the time of its release? Onto the review..

Graphics 8/10

Alien Storm certainly looks nice, featuring more fluid animation and better detailed sprites than Golden Axe and maybe even Streets of Rage. The background environments aren't quite as good, especially the ones depicting typical urban scenery. I like the designs of the aliens - which range from tentacle-waving blobs, to hovering insect things, to small reptilian creatures, and slugs that masquerade as garbage bins. There could have been more enemy types, though - especially in the area of bosses. Each of the heroes has a special attack that summons things like missile strikes - although I have to admit it looked better in Golden Axe. There were also a couple of instances of graphical flickering in the later levels, due to high amounts of enemies and fighting occurring on-screen. An additional fitting touch was the storyboard introduction of each level, that had things like aliens breaking into homes or chowing down on humans too slow to escape.

Sound 8/10

I liked the soundtrack, which consisted of pulsating industrial-techno beats and keep the atmosphere for a futuristic alien invasion present. The battle noise also pretty interesting - featuring lots of gun-fire from the weaponry and blurps from the dying enemies. There were also things like screams from the civilians who occasionally run by your location. Unlike the original Golden Axe game for the Genesis/Megadrive, all the death cries and whatnot do not interrupt the music.

Control 10/10

There wasn't any response lag or slowdown present in Alien storm, and the button layout scheme work perfectly. I have to warn you, though, that depleting your weapon's energy levels will have you limited to clubbing aliens instead of shooting them - forcing you to fight much closer to them and endangering yourself.

Game-play 7/10

Like Golden Axe, you will be given the choice of three warriors - and up to two players can fight at once in co-op. Despite all of the protagonists using projectile weaponry - the majority of combat is beat 'em up oriented and you have to be within spitting distance of your target to damage them. You will journey through 8 different levels defeating the alien invaders in three different methods of game-play. There is the aforementioned brawling, some fast-moving run 'n gun sections, and then some shooting gallery stages where you must smash apart the aliens and the surrounding scenery for health and other items while avoiding a couple of hiding civilians who like to walk into your line of fire. Each of the heroes handles differently, and have a unique special attack that can unleash major damage at the expense of your weapon's energy gauge. Instead of imps or wizard dropping items to replenish your energy levels (like in Golden Axe), you'll occasionally get them from small flying aliens in the beat 'em up levels or inside breakable objects during the shooting galleries. You just have to make sure (as I mentioned before) to keep a little energy left or your nifty rifles and flame-throwers won't function better than a weak clubbing device. There are 8 stages, that go by pretty quickly - and only a few of them have anything resembling a boss. There also isn't any kind of vehicle to ride or creature to mount like in Sega's earlier epic hack 'n slash. Overall, I think that Alien Storm improves on most of the things Golden Axe had to offer but lacks in a few areas and doesn't build upon the formula very much.

Replay value 6/10

Alien Storm features 2-player co-op, three selectable protagonists, and two different additional modes. These extras are a "duel" where you sequentially battle all the aliens from the game in a basic arena manner - and "versus" where two human players duke it out against one another. While neither of these included modes are very deep, it is nice that the creators bothered to toss in something extra to prolong the replay appeal.

Overall 7/10

Alien Storm is an above average beat 'em up that would have been rated higher if it had something akin to vehicles or mountable creatures and a more complex special attack system. It also needed more enemy designs, especially in the area of bosses. Even with the improved graphics, clearer sound, multiple styles of game-play, and modern setting - Alien Storm felt like a half-hearted Golden Axe clone. It's too bad a sequel never came along to improve what was lacking here, because the premise was interesting enough to crank out what could have been the fourth beat 'em up trilogy on the Sega Genesis/Megadrive. Regardless of its flaws, Alien Storm is worth owning - either here on cartridge or downloaded onto the Wii's Virtual Console.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/07