Available on Xbox Live and Steam for a good few months now, the new-and-improved HD version of the Team 17 Amiga Commodore classic now comes bundled in a one-disc triple game set. Everyone put on their rose-tinted spectacles now.
Back in the early 90s, when the world was still using floppy discs that were actually floppy, the Alien Breed series were a gaming phenomenon, encompassing three top-down shooters that saw you guide two space marines through alien-invested spaceships in a manic fight to survive, to kill or be killed, to hammer the fire button as hard as possible, as much as possible.
Needless to say, it was a huge Aliens rip-off, but that never stopped you from enjoying it in all its gory glory. A prettier, shinier, Unreal Engine powered re-envisioning of all three classic shooters should be a joy to blast through, then. Annoyingly, it just isnt.
The missions in the originals saw you dash madly from A to B. These ones require you to go back on yourselves again and again for absurd plot reasons press this button to open this door, then this button, then go back to beginning to his another switch, and so on which makes an already repetitive run and gun game even more so.
Then theres the music, which really doesnt manage to scare in the slightest, and the saving / checkpoint system, which will regularly see you gnashing your knuckles in frustration as you forget to save just once and suffer the consequences hours later.
The graphics, however, are very good, the tilted camera control gives you a great view of all the blood and guts, and the co-op / multiplayer is reasonably engaging but all in all, this is a slightly disappointing attempt at reinvigorating a beloved old franchise, and if Team 17 are aiming for a proper follow-up, theyre going to have to try a little bit harder.