Alien
Soldier
VISUALSHOCK!
SPEEDSHOCK! SOUNDSHOCK! NOW IS THE TIME TO THE 68000 HEART ON FIRE!
Review
submitted by Dominic Tarason
This
game is by the famed Treasure team, makers of such great MD games
as Gunstar Heroes (And it's medieval Saturn cousin Guardian Heroes)
and the weird and wonderful Dynamite Headdy (And you thought Teletubbies
were trippy!), and that fact is reflected throughout the game.
Also, this was Treasure's one and only attempt at the Contra genre..
And its a bloody good game! (note from Malc - this is strictly
true, but I think some of the Treasure team cut their teeth at Konami,
making Contra Spirits and Contra HC!)
The main criticism levelled at the only Megadrive Contra game, Contra
Hard Corps, was that it contained too many bosses, and not enough
platforming...
Treasure completely ignored that, and made this game a hardcore-shooting-boss
hunting-extravaganza! The main reason for this is that on each of
the games 20+ levels, there is at least one amazing boss, and everything
else has been forsaken for this. The average stage consists of about
10 seconds of running around, getting ammo, health and frying baddies,
and then fighting the boss.
The reason this game will appeal to shooter fans is because each of
the bosses is totally original, ranging from the weird and organic
(I.E. Bleurch) to the funny (The squidgy frog boss) and the evil and
robotic (Final boss, scary!!).
From the moment the game begins, you are surrounded, and can't avoid
taking hits, so you need to top up health. This is achieved through
the 'counter' attack. The counter move creates a tiny vortex in front
of you character, which turns any incoming shots into health, thus
enabling you to turn the most desperate situation into a sure victory.
Yet as the whole game is played against the clock, you have to ration
the time you spend absorbing health.
The rest of this review will be split into sections, beginning with
the how to play section, then going through each of the games distinct
'worlds' and their bosses, and
finishing off with the astoundingly badly written intro!
Alien
Soldier - Treasure
