Alien Breed Trilogy

Just downloaded this on GOG (used to have this series on my PS3). Initally the games did not work as the Physx either did not download or was corrupted (according to the window that popped up). I downloaded the Physx directly from the Nvidia website and everything worked perfect after that. Just a heads up for anyone that runs into this issue after download. Also, I had to install the directly to my laptop to work, as they would not run off my SD card I have for extra storage. Review: Great set of games, good graphics for the time, good story, lots of action. Best played with headphones so you can really hear the aliens and the gun fire/explosions. Good for casual play or marathons. If you like shooting lots of aliens, this is your game.

I have a soft spot for isometric shooters, and this scratches that itch. It has more polish than the Alien/Zombie Shooter games (though, not as much fun and over-the-top - this is more plodding), but I didn't quite enjoy it as much as the Shadowgrounds games. These are good, brainless, palate cleanser games after you've slogged through The Witness. You can manually change an INI's bUsingFPSMouseAim to aim where you roll your mouse, but I found aliens would get stuck under my feet when I was trying to swing around to aim at them. I found this mode better for exploring, but less good for combat (more important, in my opinion), but give it a shot. There are some issues... - Getting hung up on invisible objects - no fun when you're trying to run from a full, alien assault. - Not having a button to recall last used weapon, which would have been perfect for this game...quickly switching between your pistol to x would have been sweet, instead of desperately searching for x gun. - Not having an upgrade path for your pistol, that I used, by far, the most - to conserve ammo and to destroy far off and smaller enemies, as well objects...as it has unlimited ammo. I didn't use/upgrade the flamethrower, as it has no stopping power (maybe it does, upgraded?) - so I sold its ammo (when full) for other upgrades. And I took the medkit upgrade. I, basically, never used grenades - I found them to slow/cumbersome, when you most often need quick reactions to not be swarmed. There aren't that many of them in the game, anyway, unless you purchase them; thusly, no upgrades there, for me. Melee was the same deal - never used, never upgraded. The game is seriously repetitive, which you may often see in this genre; I was a lil bored by the end, so once I got the damage upgrades, I just bought up all the ammo to be able quickly buzz saw my way through the rest of the game, without plodding along, using the pistol. As 2-3 came out the same year, I'm expecting the same experience.

Sadly they stripped the PC version of the local co-op which is a shame

The title says it all. I even managed to play the first game with a little .ini hack that enables proper FPS mouse camera. However - in the second game there are too many parts with fixed camera and controls which make it extremely painful to play - think - you can't see where your aim is, and can't shoot an enemy right in front of you. About the game itself - it is not good. The games are just the same recycled thing, with different loading screen color. Explosions everywhere. Bugs pop out at the exact same spots at the exact same time. Explosions. The whole progress is: go to point A, something explodes, you can't open door/lift/machinery, backtrack to point B, return to point A, kill some more bugs, BOOM, still something doesn't work - backtrack to point C. It makes the game feel longer, but that is not a positive, it is a chore. Weapon and item upgrades are ~25% improvement. Did I mention that there is stuff constantly exploding around you? There is some story, in the form of comic-styled cinematics, but nothing interesting enought that would make me force myself to play this mess. Which reminds me - people compare this games as the better version of Shadowgrounds. The graphics are better. Everything else - gameplay, story, characters - are better in the Shadowgrounds series. At least I had FUN playing them, and that is the whole point of playing games. Buy if you are curious. At a huge discount. Or better watch a playthrough video. You would not miss much. And laugh at the streamer. Me? I'm calling it quits. Staring at the wall is a time better spent.