"Uninspired game design makes up for a boring trek in space"

At first glance, Alien Syndrome may appear as a third-person Metroid Prime in presentation, but do not be fooled. The two heroines wear a suit and fight monsters in space, but Alien Syndrome is far from stellar.

With still storyboard comic book art and sub-par voice acting, the game starts by briefly introducing the player to Aileen, lieutenant of a mission to push back the Alien Syndrome. I would get more in-depth, but the details are of no interest. The minimal story in the game is a standard "men VS alien" theme and Aileen is a boring character you won't care about. You will have a choice of four different classes of characters to begin the game with. The gameplay remains unchanged, but you'll either get to fight with explosives, rifles or spears, depending on what you prefer.

For some reason, I was expecting a decent space adventure, unaware that Alien Syndrome was actually a hack'n slash dungeon-crawler, a la Diablo. I have nothing against this particular genre of games if it's well crafted, but Alien Syndrome inarguably is not. The Wiimote could have made things interesting, but controlling gun weapons with it makes it hard to aim with precision due to the top view camera angle. Melee weapons have you slash around with the Wiimote to perform combos, but they are hard to pull off. Since it's an action-RPG, the game allows for a lot of customization, that unfortunately doesn't feel satisfying. You can raise Aileen's stats as she gains levels and equip her with the gear you find, but the management system as a whole is too complex for such a limited scope.

Mindlessly button-mashing your way through boring creatures, you'll need to reach objectives on your map, defeat a monster to get a key, then head for the exit and repeat the exact same process through forty levels. You'll never see as many enemies as in Alien Syndrome. They come out of nowhere with no end and absolutely no logic in the progression of the game. It plays to no cohesion, going from a spaceship to another, defeating enemies after enemies, with short dialogue scenes in-between each level. You'll have a robot companion called a SCARAB following you around and assisting you throughout the adventure, but it tends to often get stuck behind doors and other objects in the way. The SCARAB can also craft items for you, but it's overall of not much help.

Other flaws come into play, like the limited inventory space, which only lets you carry items up to a certain weight. You'll be constantly throwing away items, or just not picking up anything because it's a hassle to stop and go through the unintuitive in-game menu every time you defeat a monster. Using healing items also is a drawback, as the only way to do so is to press the pad on the Wiimote, which is cumbersome to reach during intense action. The game also doesn't notify you when your health comes close to zero, so in the heat of the battle, you'll often forget to check your HP and unexpectedly die because of it.

Although you can move the camera around with the Nunchuk and zoom in and out, the fixed top view perspective makes you feel disconnected from the action happening on screen. It also makes everything appear small and unimpressive, including monsters and characters. The graphics are Gamecube material at best, pulling off little to no effects whatsoever. The level design is dull, and while some later musical scores are of good quality, too many levels suffer from drowsing music, making the action feel slow and unexciting.

Alien Syndrome is a boring and repetitive space dungeon-crawler that has too many shortcomings to really appeal to even fans of dungeon-crawling. The Gamecube graphics and insipid gameplay is a definite turn-off. Even with more than two players I can't see this game being much fun, unless you're really starving for endless button-mashing.

Storyline/Presentation 6
Gameplay/Controls 4
Graphics 5
Music/Sounds 7
Replay Value 5

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/07