Game Preview:Alien Syndrome

Publisher: Sega
Developer: Totally Games
Platform Available: Wii, PSP
Release date: Q2 2007

The Alien Syndrome franchise celebrates its 20 year-old birthday this year, and in the meantime, Sega is giving this age-old franchise another shot at the gaming market. Alien Syndrome, which is due to hit both the Wii and PSP soon, is a top-down action shooter that puts you into the shoes of Lieutenant Aileen Harding and as her name suggests, she is one tough woman. The game takes place thousands of years into the future and humankind is having the need to explore new planets and to make them inhabitable. The story begins when one terraforming station somewhere out there goes quiet and after repeated failed attempts to communicate with the personnel there, Harding is sent to investigate the mystery. Of course, things always seem to go wrong, and before you know it, Harding starts battling wave after wave of aliens.

There is more depth to the game than meets the eyes as demonstrated by the RPG-like elements. As the game progresses, players will be able to increase the abilities of Harding through the collection of resource points from defeated enemies, which can be used to improve Harding’s strength, speed, accuracy, as well as health. As Harding upgrades, so will her weapons. The single-player campaign consists of 15 levels, all of which are occupied by the enormous variety of enemy types, including 5 bosses and 15 sub-bosses. If you find this intimidating, you have to know that you are not alone in fighting this menace. To aid you, there will be a robot companion that will always be on you side, be it to act as extra firepower or storage for weapons (80 in all), which can be swapped conveniently at anytime, armor and energy. Every weapon requires energy to fire and to make that known, the developers have included an energy bar at the bottom of the screen that depletes whenever energy is used up, but it will replenish itself as well. It is pleasant to hear that Alien Syndrome also supports 4 player single screen co-op, so you can invite your friends over to have a blasting time with the game.

Control-wise, Alien Syndrome certainly makes use of the Wii-mote motion-sensing capabilities, although not to a full extent. Players will use their Wii-mote to point and shoot at enemies, which clearly guarantees some pretty fast run-and-gun action, and utilize the nunchuk attachment to rotate the camera. Controls for moving Harding is assigned to the analog stick on the nunchuk attachment, while other actions like switching weapons and shooting are left to the face buttons and triggers respectively.

In the graphics department, the game has been enhanced for the Wii, with 480p and 16:9 widescreen modes supported.