Jul 27, 2010
Last week, Valve released Alien Swarm – a small top-down co-op shooter originally designed as a total conversion mod for Unreal Tournament 2K4, completely redone in the Source engine. And they released it for free. For the price alone, it’s worth picking up. But is it worth spending the time to play it?
It’s immediately obvious where the game takes its cues from. Up to four players are cast in the role of a number of space marines, tasked with clearing a remote base on a far-off planet of a terrible infestation of alien creatures. Creatures which are prone to lay eggs which produce crawly larvae which latch onto your face, killing the host and producing new creatures. I’m sure we’ve seen this all somewhere before…
That’s not to say that it’s not enjoyable to see again. The concept has enough legs that it stands on its own however you set it up, and the game’s developers have done a great job in creating an easily accessible, fun-to-play little game.
What’s great about the game is its variety, players have up to eight different marines to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and over two dozen different weapons and accessories to fill three separate equipment slots with. Some of these items are more or less expected, from assault rifles, miniguns and railguns, to the more unique, like the motion-sensing flamethrower sentry gun.
Many levels have certain requirements – either of a class or a particular tool that players need to bring along, which makes for some great fun especially in multiplayer, when each player has a specific role to play and teamwork becomes essential.
The game does have some shortfalls, mostly in the balance and mechanics department. The only way to survive a – don’t call them facehuggers – parasite attack is for a medic to deploy a healing beacon or, once unlocked, hose you down with the healing gun. However, the gun doesn’t unlock until several levels into the game, and the beacons barely heal you fast enough to do the job. Unless an infected player gets under a beacon almost immediately, death is just about inevitable.
Moreover, most of the weaponry that players unlock by playing the game and earning experience just aren’t that useful. Some are great, like the aforementioned flamethrower turret, but several weapons, like the rail gun or lightning gun, simply don’t do the job that a pair of pistols will do.
Finally, the game is particularly short. There’s only one campaign, and a team of experienced players could punch through it in an hour or two. At the moment it’s not clear if the game will see more expansions in the future.
Despite these setbacks, Alien Swarm is a fun diversion and a unique way at looking at the Source engine. It’s great time for four friends to get together and shoot up some aliens for a couple hours. For the price, you certainly can’t beat it. We recommend checking it out!
It was a fun, mindless top down shooter until the introduction of the parasites. Then it became an exercise in frustration. One of the most infuriating, frustrating gaming experiences ever.
Don't think I'd feel comfortable recommending it based on how awful those last two levels were (of course for all I know the last level could be totally awesome, since at that point I left to work on my motor home)
While I think parasites are a pretty shitty mechanic, I definitely didn't find it as frustrating as J.
Also the medigun is a lot better for dealing with parasites, but that just makes it dumb that you have to play X times to get a less embarrassing medic treatment.
I don't see how you found it any less frustrating, considering we were both there as everyone died over and over on the same level for an hour
until I finally switched to medic so that we would have two medics, and we continued to die five or six more times
I also didn't particularly enjoy the class I had to play through most of the game. I say "had to" since I got the leftover class nobody else wanted. Where everyone else seemed to have a role to play, my guy seemed to be the generic soldier who gets a more powerful shotgun (wow)
That's all to say that despite losing I was still enjoying myself. And then after came victory so yay.
The parasite mechanic still isn't any good, but I'd categorize it more as an ugly blemish than something that completely ruins the game.
I guess the Officer class gives everyone else a bunch of extra bonuses and buffs just for being around. So it's not that it's an undesirable class, I think you just have to 'get it'. Me, I just wanted to shoot stuff so I went for the Heavy Weapons Gal.
I downloaded this game but it's running like shit even though it shouldn't, and I got an error message saying it may not have installed properly, do I want to download and install it again. I think I will wait to do that until I'm on a more stable connection.
some people are complaining that the game is too easy compared to the old mod!
Parasites are annoying if you're playing with people who rush through the level or don't listen when you tell them there is a parasite ahead. If you were playing on normal and spent an hour without success on a level with parasites that is pretty crazy because they spawn in the same place every time. It isn't until hard and insane that every level throws out a "fuck you" parasite that you wouldn't expect if you were playing for the first time.
A flamethrower is the best defense since if they are lit on fire they are unable to jump at you. Even the most parasite infested part of normal (the ventilation shafts on the biomass level) isn't too dangerous if someone leads with a flamethrower and clears out the area ahead. I haven't played since the patch that made the tesla gun much weaker but that was also helpful since it would lock on and stun any parasite in front of you (and as an aside this was, until that patch, the best gun in the game and not underpowered like the review says. The standard loadout for going through insane was teslas and flamethrowers).
edit: the officer does give bonuses to others. He is also a good shoot everything class especially if you choose Jaeger since he gets a huge bonus to the Vindicator shotgun damage and can lay something like 36 tripmines
mav was the one carrying a flamethrower and after he started killing teammates with it he stuck to just using it on biomass
I have the game sitting in my games list, will give it a try some time in the near future, but right now I feel like playing Counter-Strike: Source.
Hey I kill people with bullets, ok? I did also set people on fire, but I put them out too.
Maverick obviously you should stop being Bad At Video Games™
Alright I will kill people with fire next time too.
Except that I saved nobody. I just shot people and set them on fire for no particularly good reason.
well 1) mav actually straight up killed the one guy we were playing with (it even said so and so was killed by maverick), but that was the only time he finished someone off. I got burned (which led, shortly, to my death by parasite) but not actually killed by it.
2) if you shove a hunter off someone you can kill it without hell of shotting your buddy too
(I'd rather have a hunter shot off me than have everyone ignore that there is a hunter on me (which happens from time to time) but shesh how much extra time does it take to run over and shove the hunter off first)
check out these L4D2 patch notes they made just for Bio
GamePlay:
-Bullets that first pass through an infected character before striking a Survivor are now ignored as friendly fire.
-Fix for survivors speaking The Passing Finale lines in other campaigns.
it's stuff like the above that has kept me out of the L4D fray, really. i need friendly fire.
Of course then you'll have some crying foul that you are playing on Easy - but going with Bio's editorial from last week, sometimes you want to play on Easy to properly enjoy the game.
I only roll on easy in L4D.
No i just suck.
I don't think griefing will get you very far in l4d, considering you can just get voted out.