Aliens: Infestation [DS]

[Guts]

A new Alien game from Sega and WayForward Technologies (Contra 4) for the Nintendo DS coming this October.

Here's what the official page says about it:

Game over man, game over!

Immerse yourself in the Aliens universe on Nintendo DS in this action-packed, platform shooter with a hardcore, retro feel and a deep storyline that tailors itself to your game.

Lead your own specially selected team of Colonial Marines into action to rescue captured comrades and battle hordes of Xenomorphs with a vast array of weaponry from the legendary Aliens film title.

Can you handle the tension and terror which meets you at every level?


Game features

The Aliens Universe
The Aliens universe provides a setting full of horror, suspense and action. Using authentic environments inspired by the film series including the Sulaco and LV-426, the player will be immersed in an eerie, atmospheric world where any moment could bring their death.

Deep & rewarding combat
Wield authentic weapons from the films, including the pulse rifle, smart gun, flamethrower and more. Use cover and blindfire to outshoot Xenos or sneak through the Sulaco in stealth missions – but watch out for Xenos lurking in the dark.

Build your own squad of Colonial Marines
Recruit up to twenty individual Colonial Marines with distinct personalities, each designed by famed comic artist Chris Bachalo. Race to rescue captured comrades in five realtime minutes before they are implanted with Xenos.

Dynamic story system
Storyline and dialogue will change depending on who you have chosen for your team. Who will be able to stand up to the Xeno horde – and who will be dragged away to the hive?

Classic arcade feel
Aliens: Infestation features 2D side-scrolling gameplay in the style of Metroid or Castlevania with an arcade, retro feel. This couples with a deep combat system and extensive narrative to make this the ultimate in fan-service.







Aliens meets Metroidvania? Sounds mighty interesting to me.

[SuperDanX]

Looks splendid. Reminds me of Konamis Aliens arcade game.

[Guts]

Found a preview video of the game from Comic Con. Picture is kinda small, but gives an idea what to expect from the game:

[kryss]

I'm thinking Alien3 on the SNES myself.

[charlesr]

Kinda cool. I spent a lot of time playing the Gameboy Alien3. Anything similar will be fun.

['Press Start']

Wayforward are keeping it real. They also did Thor on the DS which feel like it should be played on a SNES pad back in the 90s. (That is a compliment by the way)

[Fader209]

Ughhh, is this gonna be a standup fight or another bug hunt?

[Guts]

Release date is September 30th in Europe and October 11th in the United States.

[BIG EDD]

Seen this in the official nintendo mag could be a retro hit hope it plays well enough

[watusi]

This is in stock for ?19.99 from http://www.thegamecollection.net/ali...ds-p-5576.html. Decent price, and mine shipped this morning.

I typed out the ONM review to post elsewhere. Might as well dump it here too!

There hasn't been a properly brilliant Alien game on a nintendo system since Alien3 was unleashed on the SNES 18 years ago. Infestation finally resets the counter back to zero with a game that wraps an often quiet, but tense atmosphere around a genre that's generally focussed on all-out non-stop action.

Although it seemingly uses the same engine as Wayforwards superb, frantic Contra 4 , the pace here is somewhat more sedate. It doesn’t chuck a million enemies in your direction at once, they don’t respawn the moment you scroll the screen away from them, and the game as a whole favours exploration over explosions. It’s sort of like a cross between Contra and Metroid.
Since fewer enemies could end up meaning easier gameplay, wayforward chucks some non-aliens baddies into the fray to keep things varied. For the first part of the game, then, you’ll instead be taking out armed android things which are a complete pain to kill due to their tendency to hide behind things and fire weapons that knock you down with one hit. Indeed for the first half an hour you may be starting to question your purchase because – whisper it – it seems a tiny bit rubbish and frustrating.

Stick with it though and eventually these annoying robots are replaced by the acid dripping xenomorphs we all know and love to fear. Warrior aliens, face huggers and chestbursters roam around each area’s corridors, with only a small bleeping dot on your motion tracker telling you there’s something nearby – which may or may not be friendly. There’s a feeling of real suspense when you’re wandering around an area you know to be infested with aliens, especially when your ammo is running low and you realise you’re going to have to resort to your pistol – a weapon so utterly useless it might as well squirt pineapple juice. And once your marine is dead, they’re dead. There is no second chance in Infestation.

It’s this mechanic that creates most of the games tensions, because if you were blessed with multiple lives you might be more inclined to leap in with all guns blazing and cheerfully take some hits whilst doing so. Instead, health packs feel like they’re gold dust and a more tactical approach is a necessity if you want to keep your marines from shuffling off this mortal coil with alarming regularity.
If your marine pegs it, however, it’s not the end of the world. They can be replaced by another marine from your four man squad, kitted out with full ammo and health, allowing you to continue. Of course, it does mean your four man team is now a three man team, and if all four of your marines snuff it then it’s game over.

In order to keep things going, then, you’ll need to find and approach marines from other squads, who can be found standing around in different spots throughout the games many vast maps. Chat to one of them while you have a spare slot in your team and they’ll join you as a playable character, filling the void your last marine left when they popped their clogs. They key to success then, is remembering where each marine is based so that you can quickly restore your team to full capacity should you suffer a fatality.

You’ll need it for the boss fights, you see. Every now and then you’ll come against a huge creature that takes heaps of grenades and rounds of ammo to bring down. The first is an alien queen near the start, while later creatures are new alien mutations that didn’t feature in the movies. These boss battles up the difficulty level considerably, and you’re likely to lose a few soldiers in battle as a result, so those spare marines hanging around are a godsend.

Pleasingly, these marines aren’t generic sprites who act and talk exactly the same as each other. Each soldier – and you’ll encounter quite a few of them over the course of the games – has their own personality, their own outfit and their owner dialogue with the commander who talks to you every now and then through your radio. Play through a scene with hardy tough guy John Cameron, for example, and his dialogue during cut scenes will differ greatly to how it would read if you were playing as Amber Fichser, the p[pretty young private. As a fantastic as Aliens is, it’s by no means perfect. While the music is atmospheric and the soundtrack is composed well, there aren’t too many tracks and as such they get monotonous. The boss battles are also susceptible to moments of dodgy AI. We defeated one by simply standing over the sprite, meaning it couldn’t attack us, and firing up at its weak spot in its chest, and the mazes of grey corridors can start to feel repetitive after a while, even though there a couple of brief changes of scenery further into the games to add a little much-needed variety.

Speaking of mixing things up, it’s also mildly disappointing when the game tries to introduce a new gameplay style. One area sees you driving an armoured vehicle at full speed through a lengthy corridor while using the stylus to aim your cannon and take out the numerous aliens leaping at you from all angles. Another has you jumping into a power loader to deal with a queen alien and attempt to dump it into a nearby air duct.

When the game strays the standard run and gun template like this it really struggles, and you start to feel Wayforward should stick to what it knows, because it does it so well. With all this taken into consideration, Aliens is still great. It’s a lengthy game that takes the controls of contra, combines them with the non-linear map exploration of the Metroid and Castlevania games, and chucks Hollywood’s most terrifying movie monsters into the mix. Fan’s of the films will enjoy the nerdy in-jokes and references throughout, and while it can get samey after playing for many hours, thankfully the gameplay is engaging enough to keep you going until the end.

Verdict
It's a bit repetitive but easily one of the best Aliens games to be released on a nintendo platform
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