Alien Syndrome

Humans have been at war with aliens even before the Roswell incident turned our alleged celestial neighbors into pop culture icons. Aliens have been a staple of video games for decades, but Alien Syndrome for Wii throws their years of evolution out the proverbial window. Rather than battling intelligent life, players are left to blast hordes of extraterrestrial creatures into the next galaxy. Old-school gamers might remember Alien Syndrome, SEGA's run-and-gun arcade game from 1987. Twenty years later, developer Totally Games is out to prove that a good game design is timeless. Did they succeed, or is this title 19 years too late?

Controls in Alien Syndrome work much like they have for other Wii first-person shooters. Players move Lt. Aileen Harding with the Nunchuk's analog stick, although her movements feel a bit clunky. Aiming and firing her guns are done with the Wii Remote's pointer and trigger, respectively, while melee combat is handled by the trigger and wrist flicks. Shooting so far feels responsive, but utilizing the melee combos takes practice.

If only Aileen moved as smoothly as she shoots.

In a sort of throwback to its retro roots, Alien Syndrome uses a third-person overheard perspective. This viewpoint has allowed the developers to surround Aileen with dozens of enemies on-screen at any time, but some players may find the perspective disorienting. The perspective is also unfit exploring the environment, so those hoping to turn Aileen Harding into Samus Aran as she investigates her galactic surroundings are out of luck. The game play is very linear so far, but the camera essentially forces players to rely on their holographic on-screen map to get around.

Players begin a new game by choosing from five "Soldier Specialties". Each provides a different set of base stats, proficiencies and starting weapon. The amount of information to deal with at the onset may seem overwhelming, but the game will auto-manage stat increases for players that just want to run and gun. Fret not, micromanagers, you can turn off the auto-manage option and customize Aileen as you see fit.

Aileen will level up after killing enough foes, which will award her with a certain number of points to be divided amongst those base stats and proficiencies. Players who take on the task of managing stats will need to do so carefully. Applying points carelessly could leave Aileen without access to new guns, with weak melee abilities when her ammo runs out, or lacking appropriate resistance when surrounded by a dozen aliens. Players also need to take note of any better equipment dropped by enemies, their supply of health packs (which seem pretty abundant on Normal difficulty) and what items their SCARAB helper unit can manufacture. Reloading is the only aspect players won't need to worry about, as each gun's ammo is simply pooled for use until it's gone.

Players will find themselves constantly under attack by waves of extraterrestrials. Just because there are a lot of them doesn't make them intimidating, however. Each type of enemy seems to possess only a single attack pattern that will be continually repeated, making combat limited and predictable. Battles can be tense, but players may find the ugly alien designs to be the greatest motivation for killing their foes. The real challenge rests in the volume of enemies and their increasing aggressiveness, in addition to effectively using Aileen's weapons and temporary shield. The pacing is slower than what one will find games like Contra or Serious Sam - even with the enemy surges, there's always some breathing room and time to manage equipment.

The game's story is of the terribly generic "Alien threat wants to kill humans, defense forces are worthless, send in a super-powered hero to save the day" variety, minus the interesting alien back-story established by games like Metroid and Halo. The cut-scenes at the beginning of the game employ a hand-drawn style - artistically nice, but awkward in motion, thanks to some lacking animation and unexciting dialogue.

The "Syndrome" of the Wii hardware being "Alien" to developers continues.

The visuals of Alien Syndrome look nice - for a PSP game. It is clear by Aileen's jagged edges, the lacking detail of aliens, the odd ways some shadows hang over objects rather than below them, and the rather bland environments that the developers ported the PSP version of Alien Syndrome to Wii and added some Wii Remote functionality. The music so far has been a constant, ambient tune that works, but could afford to be more dynamic and varied.

Alien Syndrome doesn't make a great first impression, but be sure to come for Stage 2 to see if the shooter-RPG gameplay and co-operative multiplayer can liven up the experience.