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Alien Syndrome Nintendo Wii

Format:
Nintendo Wii

Genre:
Shooting

Buy/Support:
Support Rowan, click to buy via us...

Alien Syndrome started off as a retro arcade game. Now, SEGA has given it a new lease of life through the Wii. Here I found that I could play along with four of my family for support, something that is a real rarity for Wii shooting games.

The story takes place many years after the original arcade story; You are Aileen Harding, ad you are onboard a huge space station called SATS that has become infected with aliens. Commence hours of alien shooting/burning/lasering. Fair enough.

The first thing I noticed is that it manages to recreate the arcade-like feel that I, and many others, am a massive fan of. The second thing I noticed was just how complicated the game was. The tutorial, for example, shows you how to access your items screen, but not how to use your items. The internet solved that problem, but I then found myself faced with another; equipping my SCARAB (A small combat drone) with weapons. Eventually, I was forced to sit down and read thoroughly through the instruction manual, something that, due to the amount of text in it, I did not enjoy doing.

Reading aside, I played on. As I fired my laser gun at yet another alien, I found myself on a Game Over screen. And again. And again. Hoping to solve this problem, I roped my brother into playing. For about half an hour we ran around and shot at various slimey things, and it seeme to be going quite well. However, he soon got bored of this and gave up.

Alone once again, I tried to tackle the game again, finding one of the mini-games. Instantly I was confronted with a lengthy set of instructions, which I skim-read. I then proceeded to, for some reason, alter my DNA with a series of button taps, laser blasts and nanites. After this strange little mini-game, I was once again thrust into a world of alien shooting.

Worth mentioning is the wealth of weapons in Alien Syndrome. You can burn, explode, blast and shoot your way through levels of aliens just begging to be annihilated, and that's before mentioning the melee attacks. I found myself switching classes - there are about six, including Sharpshooter, Flamebug and Demolitions Expert - regularly, testing out each different way of destroying my squelchy enemies.

After a while of this none-stop action, I found myself getting bored. But how can this be? I thought, before realizing my problem. Alien Syndrome, though packed full of alien blasting and grenade lobbing, was just a little too repetitive in places for me to really enjoy it. I found myself wanting it to be more varied, more interesting, more enjoyable, but after a while, one level blended into another. I had found Alien Syndromes one small but major flaw; A distince lack of variety in your missions. Missions like 'Get the card' or 'Protect the people' again and again fail to make an exciting game.

So if you're looking for hours of simple, and yet entertaining four player alien blasting fun, with added flame-throwers, buy Alien Syndrome.

Written by Rowan Brown

You can support Rowan by buying Alien Syndrome



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Rowan Brown writes the Teen Gamer column.

"I write about my favourite games from a younger person's perspective. It's often surprising how different this ends up to other more grown up reviews."

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