Alien Syndrome

I loved the Alien Syndrome for the arcade.  I had the NES port back in the day, and played it to death with my sister.  It was a fun top-down shooter where you save hostages from hordes of aliens and fought an epic boss at the end of each stage.

However, this Alien Syndrome is only semi related to that classic game.  There was only 2 missions where you saved hostages.  The differences is, they're placed in pre-determined spots this time around.  Also, there are only a couple boss battles in this version, and none of them are "epic".  It does feature co-op, but you play as the same character.  You can pick between job classes though.

Alien Syndrome is a PSP port and a generic looking Dark Alliance clone, so my expectations were fairly low going on.  I can't say it exceeded my expectations, but I guess it wasn't the worst game I ever played in my life.  You can play up to 4 players, so there is some value to the game if you're looking for local co-op.  

I really enjoyed the control system for Alien Syndrome.  It reminded me of a Smash TV type game fit under a Dark Alliance.  The Wiimote is nearly perfect for this type of gun play.  You can strife and shoot at the same time, kinda like in Geometry Wars.  You can hotswap your melee and gun weapons with an easy press of the D-button, so there is a nice swiftness to the battle system if you need to change your weapons on the fly.  I loved the button layout for the game.

The only thing I hate, HATE about the controls are the camera controls.  To rotate the camera right or left, you have to tilt your nunchuck right or left.  I hate a real hard time controlling the camera.  Sometimes, when I would tilt the nunchuck, it wouldn't respond.  I was nearly half way over the with the game until I realized you had to have the Wiimote pointed at the screen before the nunchuck with register.  This was kinda frustrating.

I haven't played the PSP game, but I did look it up and research it after playing through the Wii version.  If I had to guess, I would say the Wii version is the one to get, because of the local Co-op.  They are also minigames you find through out the levels that can increase your Stats or give you rare weapons.  The minigames are Wii specific.  The other big reason are the controls.  In the PSP verison, the gun play doesn't sound nearly as fun.

Overall though, the graphics are really bad.  The missions are repeated.  The game is WAY to long.  There are a total of 40 missions, and they're all basically the same.  The music and sound is bad.  Outside of the fun controls, they blew it with the rest of the game.  It's a shame.


----------Battle System----------
Alien Syndrome is an action RPG dungeon crawler, much like the Dark Alliance series of games.  At the start of the game you get to pick between 5 or so class of characters.  I picked the Tank for it's excellent strength and melee abilities.  However, Alien Syndrome is probably closer to Fallout: Brotherhood of steel for the last gen systems.  You can fight in melee with staffs, or use a variety of guns, bombs, and flame throwers.  For a Dark Alliance clone, I think the battle system is actually varied.  However, killing the same monsters, the same ways, 1,000 times per dungeons can get a bit tedious.

You gain experience for each monster you kill.  When you gain a level, you get to spend 2 points on four stats.  You can raise your strength, dexterity, endurance or accuracy.  You also gain 1 skill point per level too.  You can raise your various skills.  Some skills grant you the ability to hold new or more powerful weapons or armor.  Some can boost your weight limit or walking speed.  There are a ton of skills to learn and grow.

When you kill a monster, the sometimes drop loot.  You can gain alot of new health potions, or money, and sometimes weapons and armor.  Each item weighs a certain amount, so Alieen can only carry so much.  You'll often have to sell or throw away a ton of items through out the game, which can be a hassle.  

A little robot follows you on your journey, and fights beside you too.  He can shoot little lasers at enemies, although his aim is horrible.  You can equip 2 items on his robot helper if you want.  Your little robot helper also sells you items and equipment too.


----------Characters / Story----------
You play as a super solider space marine, Alieen.  Hey, that almost looks like Alien.  Blah.  Alieen is sent on a mission to an crashed space ship to find survivors to and find out what attacked it.  Inside are space aliens and random biomonsters.  Within the ship she finds a few survivors and hints on the upcoming alien wars.

Blah.  There are some twists within the story, but it's a freaking joke.  I dreaded all dialog and cutscenes in this game because they're so pathetically generic.  


----------Graphics----------
Ok, this is a PSP port and it shows.  This honestly doesn't even look good for a PS2 game, let alone a Wii game.  Actually, this doesn't even look good for a Dreamcast game.  The art style doesn't help either.  There is nothing aesthetically pleasing about the game either.  So technically the graphics are bad, and artistically they're bad.  Not only that, but I ran into a few bugs that made me die or have to restart.  For example, my character got trapped between 2 rocks somehow, and I couldn't get out of them, so I had to wait for a monster to kill me.  This happened to me a few times.

The cutscenes are static images, but the camera zooms or pans across them to show action or emotion.  This is basically how they do Discovery Channel shows.  It's pretty cheap method of doing a cutscene, but it doesn't look completely awful I guess.  Sometimes they would splice in CGI explosion effects and other stuff to spice it up.



----------Sound----------
The music is a basic spacey / ambient soundtrack you would find in any sci-fi related video game.  It's actually very similar to Metroid Prime in a way, but the music is much more repetitive.  The voice work is pretty bad although.  All the cutscenes featured voices, but not all the dialog within gameplay.  It's frustrating when they you're in the middle of a fight, but then a piece of dialog shows up expecting you to read it.


----------World Map----------
Alien Syndrome flows in a stage by stage basis.  When you beat stage 1 you are then taken to stage 2.  There is no time for rest or towns to visit or NPCs to talk to.  You blast through the game very linearly.  

Within the dungeons you have access of a mini map, which shows you most of the map.  The map shows your location, the enemies within your area, save spots and your goals.  The goals are lit up bright orange, and they guide you to fight a boss or to set a bomb.  There isn't a huge variety of goals in the game.



----------Time to Complete Game---------
15-20 hours.

They don't record your overall time, but they do record your time spent in each dungeon.  It takes between 15 to 45 minutes to complete a dungeon, if you try to fight and find everything.  There are no unlocks after beating the game that I noticed.