Initial Impressions: Alien Rage - Unlimited
posted:
9/24/2013 1:56:00 AM
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Alien Rage
CI Games, the developers behind Sniper: Ghost Warrior, have a badass new sci-fi shooter. Alien Rage - Unlimited drops today on Steam, and while I'm still working on the full review, I thought I'd give you guys a little preview.
The short version of the story is that aliens stepped in to take over a mining facility set up on an asteroid that mankind had already laid claims on -- completely massacring everyone in the process. Your mission is to destroy the facility -- because if we can't have it, no one can.
Alien Rage is an arcade-style shooter plays a lot like Unreal Tournament, and not just because it runs on the Unreal 3 engine. Even through the single-player campaign, you are rewarded for headshots and chain kills, as if you were in a multiplayer deathmatch. I don't know about you, but the announcement of a double kill drives me to fight like an action hero -- jumping into the fray, punching aliens in the face, and spraying bullets hoping to cause as much collateral damage as possible, instead of cowering behind cover and taking potshots to whittle down my enemies. Being a sci-fi shooter, Alien Rage has gameplay elements vaguely reminiscent of Gears of War, but the mission-based story progression reminded me of GoldenEye 007. It's been a long time since a game has taken me back that far -- which gives Alien Rage some major bonus points.
You'll be mowing down, and getting mowed down by, swarms of various types of Vorus soldiers -- heavily armored aliens that look more like machines than anything else. Right off the bat, you'll encounter the bread-and-butter warrior-class Vorus, the footsoldiers that you'll encounter in every single firefight. Soon after that, you'll meet the bane of your existence, the Grunts. These guys turn invisible, run right up to you and shank you with electrified wolverine claws. Oh, and they also carry shotguns. Needless to say, taking down waves of these guys isn't going to be easy. You'll meet loads more baddies, with heavier weapons and deadlier abilities, but I'll save it for the full review.
To give you a breath of air between gunfights, there's hidden audio logs strewn about every level to look for. If you don't take the brief pause between lead-storms to complete the side mission, you should at least take a moment to appreciate the environmental graphics. The scenery is beautiful, and it deserves a moment of your time to sit back and enjoy it. The enemies look great too, but I've had a few issues with them not fully rendering after teleporting into the fight. There's been a couple times where I've faced off against a squad of disembodied arms and legs. Hopefully the few bugs I've encountered will be fixed soon after the official launch.
Alien Rage - Unlimited is available for PC now, and it's even got a 20% off sale on Steam for the next four days. So far, it's a ton of fun, but if you don't have a computer that can handle higher-end graphics, you might want to check your system requirements to make sure you can run it.
The short version of the story is that aliens stepped in to take over a mining facility set up on an asteroid that mankind had already laid claims on -- completely massacring everyone in the process. Your mission is to destroy the facility -- because if we can't have it, no one can.
Alien Rage is an arcade-style shooter plays a lot like Unreal Tournament, and not just because it runs on the Unreal 3 engine. Even through the single-player campaign, you are rewarded for headshots and chain kills, as if you were in a multiplayer deathmatch. I don't know about you, but the announcement of a double kill drives me to fight like an action hero -- jumping into the fray, punching aliens in the face, and spraying bullets hoping to cause as much collateral damage as possible, instead of cowering behind cover and taking potshots to whittle down my enemies. Being a sci-fi shooter, Alien Rage has gameplay elements vaguely reminiscent of Gears of War, but the mission-based story progression reminded me of GoldenEye 007. It's been a long time since a game has taken me back that far -- which gives Alien Rage some major bonus points.
You'll be mowing down, and getting mowed down by, swarms of various types of Vorus soldiers -- heavily armored aliens that look more like machines than anything else. Right off the bat, you'll encounter the bread-and-butter warrior-class Vorus, the footsoldiers that you'll encounter in every single firefight. Soon after that, you'll meet the bane of your existence, the Grunts. These guys turn invisible, run right up to you and shank you with electrified wolverine claws. Oh, and they also carry shotguns. Needless to say, taking down waves of these guys isn't going to be easy. You'll meet loads more baddies, with heavier weapons and deadlier abilities, but I'll save it for the full review.
To give you a breath of air between gunfights, there's hidden audio logs strewn about every level to look for. If you don't take the brief pause between lead-storms to complete the side mission, you should at least take a moment to appreciate the environmental graphics. The scenery is beautiful, and it deserves a moment of your time to sit back and enjoy it. The enemies look great too, but I've had a few issues with them not fully rendering after teleporting into the fight. There's been a couple times where I've faced off against a squad of disembodied arms and legs. Hopefully the few bugs I've encountered will be fixed soon after the official launch.
Alien Rage - Unlimited is available for PC now, and it's even got a 20% off sale on Steam for the next four days. So far, it's a ton of fun, but if you don't have a computer that can handle higher-end graphics, you might want to check your system requirements to make sure you can run it.
