Without a doubt it is Alien Breed Evolution’s environments that steal the show. Rendered in the Unreal 3 engine it looks incredible. Creepy levels are filled with loose objects that shock as they skitter away, with light and shadow all serving extenuating the atmosphere.

 

 

A camera with a fixed elevation frames the action. While it is fixed in height, it is possible to rotate the camera through 360 degrees in 45-degree increments (offering a top-down or isometric perspective for the old school gamers). While rotating the camera if novel it frequently proves disorientating. Luckily thanks to the game highlighting any thing of importance (even behind walls) the cameras default position is usually fine and the ability to pan the camera allows some nice pans as events unfold. By virtue of the cameras raised position, moving towards the ship’s bulkheads revealed the ships exterior. It is an unnecessary touch but it helped to highlight the isolation of my situation within the crafts steel confines.

 

Running deeper than simply pretty graphics Team 17 managed to craft a beautiful and consistent ship with a design and ambience that sets the mood for the more horror styled sections of the game. As I moved through the ship it felt like a real environment. Areas I passed not only looked great, but also looked to have practical purpose. It’s a shame the side effect of their functional nature combined with the mission design that you time in these areas eventually started becoming repetitive as I constantly backtracked from objective to the next.

 

 

Adding co-op is always welcome. With a good friend to share the experience (local or online) everything becomes more fun. But as far as the experience goes it changes very little, though it does allow you speed up activating objectives as the second player runs point.

 

I want to love "Alien Breed Evolution". It does so many things right in its construction of the mood, atmosphere and overall appearance that its hard not to be impressed with what you are getting for the 800MS points.

 

Unfortunately it is hard not to note the shortcomings because with every step forward it takes at least one more back. Mission objectives and waypoints soon reveal each levels limitations in size and the repetition (which may have been forgivable in 1990) starts to become grating and destroys any replay value. Combine this with a dependence on the games radar drawing your attention from the visuals and robbing you of much of the alien chasing tension the game should have possessed.

 

Like a flawed diamond (well cubic zirconia) it will impress but ultimately remains imperfect and perhaps not as valuable as it appears.

 

 

 

 

+ It looks amazing!
+ Moody and atmospheric
+ Good amount of content for the 800 points