Alien Rage Review

Alien Rage – Unlimited is a game made by CI Games, better known as City Interactive and renowned for their Sniper: Ghost Warrior game. Alien Rage is the latest release by CI on Steam, boasting awesome combat, skill based rewards and hordes of Aliens to slaughter. Can this new fray into the Unreal Engine make a game to live up to its explosive trailers and screenshots, or will it simple make you rage? Get that Death Counter ready…

Story

The backstory of the game tells us that Humans landed on an asteroid which they named Deimos 875 that was full of a new and powerful mineral called Promethium which could be used for both energy and weapon development. Not long after the Human race landed on the asteroid an Alien race called the Vorus landed, asking to share in the asteroids wondrous minerals. Wanting peaceful relations, the humans accepted the Vorus onto the Asteroid and they mined and worked together peacefully for several years.

After some time the Vorus attack the humans, seemingly without cause, and war breaks out, the Humans being the losing party. With Earth and the Human race near destruction, the Vorus packed up and left for no obvious reason, returning to Demos 875. You, a Gears of War character reject, are sent to a mining operation on the asteroid with the objective to sabotage their facility to your best ability.

The majority of in-game story is told through the data pads that are hidden throughout the levels, 3 per level for most of the game with 33 in total. They are the diaries and notes from a Doctor who worked on the asteroid before the war and tell the real story and reason behind the war. According to her recordings, the peace treaty between the Humans and Vorus had one main condition, stating that the Humans must not use the Promethium to create weapons, which the Humans soon broke to upgrade their mini-guns. Throughout all the data pads you are told in-depth backstory, lore and information on both the Humans and Vorus which allow you to delve deeper into the story of the game.

While the story is there if you want to find and explore it, it seems to take more of a background effect and the majority of the game is more focused on its gameplay and explosive aspects. While the data pads reward you with score, they can sometimes be a pain to find and listen to, but completionists will love the Easter egg hunt they provide.

Gameplay

With the use of the Unreal Engine you will most likely feel a sense of familiarity of the game’s HUD and the way it plays out. Alien Rage doesn’t innovate too much on what is already within the engine, merely changing the HUD layout and weapon effects and feels more like a rehash of Unreal Tournament.

The game takes on a Bulletstorm feel with its scoring system, rewarding you for variety in weapon use and kills as well as headshot and melee streaks. The score is used simple for leader boards and levelling your character and becomes more of a background calculation as there isn’t much point in trying your hardest to get the best score.

Within the game you can collect up to 10 different weapons, each with different alternative fires which can generate explosive results, from grenade launchers to big force field like explosions. Your arsenal ranges from your stereotypical unlimited Pistol, your army grade assault rifle to the Vorus’ Plasma Laser and energy shotgun. Though the variety in weapons is acceptable, I found myself using the Vorus’ assault rifle since the majority of the enemy used it and allowed me to keep stock in my ammunition supplies.

The levelling system in the game takes on a perk style layout, with perks unlocking in tiers as you gain score, 3 perks per “level” and allowing you to activate 3 at a time, ranging from more health, more ammo and faster fire rate. By the end of the game you will reach the third tier, though I only found 5 of them to be really useful in relevance to the other perks on offer.

This game definitely keeps to its name, there are Aliens and it will make your Rage, I mean, a lot. The bosses within the game are numerous and annoying for the most part of the game, with heavy armour and small weak spots that show themselves for half a minute along with a barrage of missiles. Some of the bosses can take 30 minutes to defeat while others only take 5 minutes with one life. Besides the Bosses there are also the numerous waves of Alien Soldiers and robots to contend with, with their flurry or bullets, plasma and rockets… goddamn rockets everywhere.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer in Alien Rage is very lacking, from the obvious and simple game types of Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch to the plain and unexciting maps. The maps are set out with several crawl spaces, several levels of elevation and weapon spawn points dotted around, but with the layout of most of the levels it is very easy to be killed by enemies creeping up behind you or shooting down on you. The way multiplayer is played out is very similar to the single player campaign, with the same amount of deaths, and seems too familiar to games like Cod in the way you go about playing them.

There is almost no atmosphere within Multiplayer as there seems to be an absence of music; the only sounds you hear are the explosions, firing weapons and the muffled pitter patter of running muscle men. The game feels too boring and empty within these modes as there is not energy to be felt besides the explosive alternative fires being shot everywhere hoping for a kill.

As it stands, the multiplayer just feels as if it was thrown in at the last moment and seems out of place against the amount of effort put into the single player campaign. The level designs looks flashy and nice but they can feel very convoluted and the use of several directions and levels can feel over used.

Overall Thoughts and Feelings

The 8 hour campaign feels very plain in its entirety, noting truly stands out against over games in the same genre, besides its great combination of Unreal and Bulletstorm styles. The battles you face within the game are very similar, get behind cover full of holes and shoot through the holes, run over enemies for valuable ammo and repeat. You will find yourself facing a game over screen a lot in the game as even in the lowest difficulty you are pit against insurmountable hordes of Aliens. The bosses break up the constant repeating gameplay but can last just as long as the levels themselves with the amount of deaths and bullets it can take to bring the titans down.

The music and sounds in Alien Rage are beautiful and fit well with the setting and atmosphere, with futuristic gun sounds and slightly electronic and space themed music to follow you along the levels. Although the  music is great it can feel like it is in the background too much at times, as you will be focusing on your foe too much to pay attention to much more than the massive hulks of metal and Alien rockets coming your way.

Overall I would give Alien Rage a 2/5, it is a good game, but there are too many annoyances and balance issues within the game which could appeal to Dark Soul fans and people who love to rage. The look and sound of the game is very well done but cannot make up for its seemingly outdated gameplay and graphical quality.  If facing insane amounts of Aliens, learning the strategies of the levels and bosses are your thing, then I recommend this game…Rockets haters should stay away however.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.