Alien Breed (Amiga)

Developer:

Team17

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

Amiga, CD32, MS-DOS, Android, PS3, PSVita

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm finally taking a look at classic Amiga run and gun survival horror Gauntlet 'em up Alien Breed! I've put it off for ten years, because it's bastard hard and I suck at it, but it had to happen eventually.

It was made by developer/publisher Team17, currently better known for the dozens of Worms sequels they've made, and for keeping Epic's game store stocked with free games. Alien Breed was their second game (after Full Contact) and their first to be a full-price release. Though it did get a budget re-release, named Alien Breed Special Edition 92. Or maybe Alien Breed '92: Special Edition. It's something like that. Either way it's an interesting choice of title, considering that the movie Aliens: Special Edition was released just a little earlier...

Alien Breed 92 isn't really a special edition however, more like a remix. In fact it's basically a stand-alone expansion pack, with twice the levels of the original and tweaks made in response to feedback, and I expect that if anyone were to ask if you'd played Alien Breed, it's the special edition they'd actually be thinking of. Or maybe they'd be thinking of that Alien Breed: Evolution game from ten years back, I dunno.

I'm going to check out both the Amiga games, original and special edition, to see how different they actually are, and I'll be giving them about an hour each. Though by 'an hour' I really mean '20 minutes', because time works differently when you're being hounded by a relentless murderous swarm of unfriendly extra-terrestrials.

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This is the first thing you see when you boot the game up... if you don't have 1megabyte R.A.M. in your Amiga. This wasn't a big deal as by the 90s everyone either had the 512K RAM expansion or they were getting one, but I still don't think it was very nice of the devs to torment the people without one by playing the creepiest laugh sample on a loop. Here's a link to a YouTube video of it if you're into having nightmares.

I should talk about that logo for a moment before I forget.

I needed to know whether to type "Team 17" or "Team17" as the game's developer and it seems like the answer is... that it depends on how far they were through development. There's two different versions of the logo in the game and then the Special Edition has a third. They're all very shiny though.

If you're wondering what "ALIEN BREED STORY DISK" is about, the original Alien Breed comes on two floppy disks, with a bonus story disk. So if you want to skip the intro you can just not put that disk in. I've somehow managed to never see it before though, so there's no way I'm skipping it now.

Hey the game takes place in 2191! This is brand new information to me, I had no idea. That means it takes place exactly 200 years in the future. Well, 169 years now. I've also been told that the Interplanetary Corps are keeping the galaxy from falling into war.

I'm a bit surprised that there's no animation in this cutscene to be honest. I suppose I've been spoiled by Team17's Superfrog, which has a story disk full of story instead of world building.

Superfrog (Amiga)

It's got dancing flowers and everything. And colours.

Anyway humanity spread out across the galaxy and crime came along with them. In fact there were new crimes now, which required "a new breed of law enforcer". Oh, do they mean an alien breed?

Nope, they mean Riggs from a Lethal Weapon anime, and his partner Dolph Lundgren. He's Johnson, he's Stone, they fight space crime. Though right now they both look like they've been victim to some nasty nearest-neighbour resizing.

Hang on, I thought the Interplanetary Corps were peace-keepers keeping the galaxy from breaking out into all-out war, not cops dealing with a new kind of crime.

Oh it turns out that they're basically doing nothing, because nothing ever happens in this boring crime-ridden galaxy on the brink of war. Well, in this region of it anyway.

Wait, this region of the galaxy is called the Intex Network? I always thought that Intex was the name of the computer system! Man, my mind has just been blown. My understanding of this game series' entire reality has been turned onto its head here.

Their ship has a name? Man, I'm learning all kinds of new info from this old intro. The game even explains that the IPCC Miraculous is ideally suited to two members, though it can carry three. The ship is aging, but capable of getting the job done, and...

Okay I know they had this picture of a spaceship and needed to write something underneath it, believe me I can relate, but this doesn't seem like entirely relevant information. They're maybe getting a bit too descriptive.

Unfortunately Johnson and Stone's trip back to HQ is interrupted when high-security research station ISRC-4 stops transmitting and they're ordered to go investigate. Hey isn't this the station from the background of the first stage of Project-X?

This animated sequence looks awesome by the way. Though hang on, that's obviously not the same ship. They've blatantly used a different ship here.

That's not the same ship either! I'm only as far as the intro and I've already seen three different versions of the hero ship!

Still, you don't see many 3D rendered intros back in 1991. This animation was done by Tobias Richter and his name has appeared in a lot of game credits since then. He also provided the CGI Enterprise model for the Star Trek: The Next Generation remaster, so there's some spaceship trivia for you.

That's the end of the cutscene but the story disk's not quite done yet, as it still needs to show off "A new explosive shootemup to rock the Amiga".

It's Project-X! Well, kind of. The powerup bar at the bottom's all wrong and the spaceship looks a bit different, but it's close enough to its final look. It's almost false advertising though, showing a later level of the game, when most players will never get this far. Project-X makes Alien Breed look like a baby toy for actual babies.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92 doesn't have any of this by the way, as it doesn't include the story disk, but that didn't stop the developers from throwing in a couple of alternative adverts on disk 1.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

First there's a movie poster for the upcoming Alien Breed II... or Alien Breed Squared maybe. They styled the text to look like Alien³, because they really weren't trying to hide their inspirations.

Then there's another advert, which is basically a trap for anyone tapping the fire button to skip ahead to the game.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

If you press fire you opt-in to a 75 second long screenshot slideshow showcasing Superfrog. I thought it might include a small demo, but nope it's just some screenshots with some techno frog music to really ruin the creepy Alien mood.

Then the game asked me to insert disk two. The game doesn't support a second drive so you can't skip this step, but this is the only disk swap in the whole game (story disk aside) so it's kind of forgivable.

There's the two menu screens for you. Not a whole lot of difference between the two games so far. Same options, same pretty animated starfield background. I can switch between one player and two player, and choose whether to share my cash with them, but that's the limit of my options here. I can't switch difficulty settings or enter level codes.

Things are getting a little more different now that I've reached the mission briefing screen. The original game basically just says 'Go find a decklift, stuff's moving, be careful', but the Special Edition... says the same thing with more words.

It's our hero ship, IPCC Miraculous, looking all pixelled and amazing and nothing like it did in the intro. In either version. It's interesting that they've changed the shuttle bay's layout and palette for the Special Edition (on the right). I guess they wanted to give people who bought the game twice their money's worth.

I'm assuming I'm playing as Johnson, but whoever he is he starts off carrying six keys in the original game and zero keys in the Special Edition. This is a bit of an issue as I've started off locked in bay 2, so my first goal will be to get some keys somehow.

Sorry, these screenshots are clearly way too small. Here's a proper look at what the room looks like in the Special Edition:

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

There's the IPCC Miraculous (version 4) in all its pixelled magnificence. And they've left the engine running for some reason. This was one of the best looking games of its kind on the Amiga at this point, mostly due to the skill of the artist Rico Holmes. The sound's very subtle though. There's no music, just an atmospheric hum and the occasionally twinkly computer noises. No aliens either, or survivors.

Though it does play a nice pickup sound when I grab one of these keys off the floor. I also like how the word "KEY" lingers in the level for a moment after I've grabbed it, so I don't have to wonder what it is I'm collecting.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

I used the two pass keys from the corner of the shuttle bay to open the two doors between me and the rest of the station and now I'm keyless again. For some reason keys work on every door but are all one use only. This isn't how keys are supposed to work! Fortunately once a door is open it's open forever, or else I'd be needing to buy a lot of key packs from the computer shop.

This computer panel up here looks like a bit of scenery, but I already know that I can press 'space' on it to access the Intex terminal.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Man, that's some impressive screen burn. By the way, take a glance at Super Adventures' red background for a moment. Now you know what inspired me.

Alright this is the Intex computer system, designed for bases located within the Intex Network. It may look like crap but the startup sequence shows that it's got 2.5GB of RAM (2500 times the RAM of the Amiga you need to run the game) and it's running DOS 6.0! This is a bit of a step up over the computer in the original version of Alien Breed, which has just 2GB of RAM and is running DOS 5.0.

I tried picking 'Intex Entertainment' and it gave me a black screen with white text saying that Super Space Frog won't be installed until the next millennium (it's 2191 so that'll be another 809 years). Hang on, white text? I guess it's only pretending to be green monochrome and it can turn the screen burn off any time it wants.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Alright here's the map of this deck, courtesy of the Intex Radar Service. I wonder if anyone's remade this as a Doom level.

The smart thing for me to do would be to memorise this screen and plan my route to the exit, but that's not going to happen. It doesn't even mark the deck lift on it so I don't know where the exit is anyway! Though I can at least remember that there are two series of doors directly above where I am now and the set on the left goes straight to a wall, so I probably shouldn't go that way.

I left the Intex terminal and carried on left to the three way junction. The text on the floor says that Bay 1 is up, Bay 2 is down, and the lockers are to the left, but it doesn't mention anything about deck lifts. I guess I'll go... up.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Alright I've reached the two sets of doors and I'm taking the route that doesn't lead to a dead end. You can see that my visibility isn't great so even if you have the map memorised you'll still be gambling on whether there's anything beyond a door that's worth the cost in keys.

Also I've ran out of keys again, so now I'm using up my precious and limited bullets by shooting my way through the next two doors. It takes a while and it's probably not recommended, but I want to go up and I don't got no keys, so it's what's happening. Plus there is some ammo here too.

You might be wondering why all these keys and ammo magazines are just lying around like this. Well, it's because it's a storage room! It says so on the floor.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Oh crap, I don't like this! I've finally ran into the aliens and this room's absolutely swarming with them. Any resemblance to the xenomorph from Alien is probably entirely deliberate.

These aliens go down in just a few shots, they're not so tough, but I'm not tough either! My health bar makes it look like I can survive a bit of hurt, but it's drastically over exaggerating my resilience. I've already lost one life here! I'm going to shoot enough of them to clear a path and then make a run for it.

By the way, the alien death scream is the sound of two new-born kittens called Colin and Molly meowing, so there's some trivia for you.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Huh, the deck lift's here? That's a bit of a surprise, but I'm not complaining.

Though I haven't explored the lockers or Bay 3 yet. I've ran right past two thirds of the level and if I go to the exit now I'll be leaving all those keys, ammo magazines and credits behind. But if I go back I'll have to fight through the aliens again and I don't need to lose any more lives. Plus I've just remembered the map showed there's a ton of doors down there and I'm sick of doors, so screw it I'm leaving the level!

MEANWHILE, IN THE ORIGINAL ALIEN BREED

Deck one is entirely different in the original Alien Breed, with the three shuttle bays all linked together and aliens swarming everywhere right from the start. Plus I can lure them into the engine exhaust and incinerate them, which is a feature they took out of the Special Edition.

The actual gameplay feels identical to me though, with my dude walking around the same speed and enemies dying more or less as quickly. They go down in like a third of a second, but it feels so much longer when they're walking towards me.

I soon found an Intex terminal and found that it was very similar. But there are some slight differences.

For one thing selecting 'Intex Entertainment' loaded up a game of Pong! Unfortunately the only thing harder than actually scoring a point here is finding a way to escape back to the Intex main menu. I almost quit Alien Breed and loaded it up again before I discovered that you have to click the left mouse button to get out.

Damn, the original Alien Breed sure loves its traps. I was really trying to walk straight through the middle and I still got sucked into the death fan. There goes my first life.

Alright, I need to go find this deck lift.
 

Man these aliens sure like walking into my bullets. Every time I kill one another comes in to take its place; they just keep pouring in. Fortunately they aren't actually infinite. Well I mean they are, whenever I scroll the screen they respawn, but if I stand still I can clear an area for a moment.

By the way, it's never really occurred to me how unusual it is that the machine gun bullets are invisible. The character's lit up by the muzzle flash and there's a bit of an explosion when they hit something, but otherwise there's no sign that I'm firing anything at all.

Alright I've found the deck lift so I'm done here. Back to Alien Breed Special Edition 92.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Man, I'm only on deck two and they're already introducing the 60 second dash for the exit. Alien Breed 92 is a cruel game. Still it could be worse. The original Alien Breed doesn't warn you about the timer. In fact it doesn't even give you a level code!

I was browsing the in-game Intex Info Base earlier and it mention that this is a 'Intex Transportation Holo Code' that will teleport up to two officers to a specific deck in an instant. It doesn't save your money or gear though. Also there isn't actually an option anywhere to enter the code, you have to type them into the Intex main menu with your Amiga's keyboard. So that's kind of weird.

Alright, I guess I'm blowing up four power domes then. Actually I've got a better idea, I'm going to quit the game... and start again with guest reviewer mecha-neko joining me as player two! The game's meant for co-op so I might as well do this right.

ALIEN BREED SPECIAL EDITION 92 - DECK TWO

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Alright now I've got Johnson and Stone in the battle simultaneously!

You can see a bit of a problem with the co-op mode though: the corridors are often so small that only one player will fit. You can also see a problem with the aiming, as mecha-neko's struggling to get his gun pointed towards the enemy without also walking right into him. This isn't a twin-stick shooter; you fire in the direction that you're moving and you move in the direction you're firing. There's no way to strafe around enemies, or back away while shooting.

Also these holes in the ground are a pain in the ass, because they keep spawning new aliens and you can't blow them up to make them stop. If we kill enough of them they do stop spawning for a moment... usually just long enough for me to try to step over the hole and get an alien up my ass.

Alien Syndrome (Arcade)

I've heard Alien Breed compared to arcade run and gun Alien Syndrome from a few years earlier and I can definitely see where people are coming from. Both games are about running around sci-fi mazes, shooting monsters, and getting stuff done before making a race for the exit.

One big difference however is that Alien Syndrome gives you room to move around, dodge enemies and get facing in the right direction. Plus it's got weapon pickups on the walls so you can start playing with the other guns right away. We're still stuck with the starting machine gun in Alien Breed 92.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Though we have saved up enough cash now to buy the 'Remote location scanner' (which is just a portable map). I've turned 'share credits' on, so all the money we collect goes into a shared account, but we do have separate inventories that need filling up. It doesn't really matter which of us buys the scanner however, as there's only one key to activate it and it's on the keyboard, not our joysticks. The important thing is to not accidentally buy a map each and throw 10000 CR away for nothing.

The prices are much cheaper in the original Alien Breed for some reason, with ammo costing 1000 CR, first aid (high energy injection) 2000, and the map only 500 CR! One thing they didn't change is that if you want to buy two of anything you have to buy one, then leave the shop and then come back.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Alright here's the deck two map on my awesome new portable scanner. It's a bit like the motion detector in Aliens, except it doesn't show you the aliens. It's also not quite awesome enough to mark the position of the deck lift or the power domes we're meant to be blowing up.

I can at least spot a corridor that might cause me problems later. It's got locked doors either side, which means no matter where I'm standing I'm probably going to open one accidentally while walking past. Fortunately I'm loaded with keys at the moment so it's not a huge issue.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Well this was a dead end, and worse it's a dead end without a first aid kit! The computer voice told me that player one requires first aid and it's not lying.

We decided to open the door with the key inside and leave the other one alone. The green cards are worth 100 CR and the orange ones are worth 1000 CR, so with keypacks costing 5000 CR I'm not sure trading a key for them is a good deal (I don't know how many keys you get).

Incidentally you get credits for killing enemies as well, 30 per kill. That means you need to kill 67 for an ammo refill and 167 for more keys (in the Special Edition).

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Hey it's a one-way laser door! Just in case this wasn't enough of an awkward maze already. It doesn't seem like you can shoot aliens through them either, so that's even more annoying.

On the plus side, I found a first aid kit in the nick of time! The game can be merciful after all. I can tell it's a first aid kit because it's got a red cross on it, which is the emblem of the Red Cross and likely wouldn't be there if this had been made today.
 

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Alright, this is the last power core that needs shooting. I hope we can remember the way back to the deck lift because when it blows we're only getting 60 seconds. Fortunately remembering where I'm trying to get to won't be a problem on this deck because the lift's in the centre of the map.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Man, you see what I mean about these bloody aliens popping up out of holes in the ground? We don't have time for this you dumb xenomorph, we're about to blow this whole deck up.

Wait, hang on, HQ ordered us to blow the entire deck of a space station up? That seems incredibly dangerous and also counterproductive seeing as we're presumably going down closer to the source of the aliens, and we're cutting off our access to the IPCC Miraculous. Is it too late to come up with a different plan?

MEANWHILE, IN THE ORIGINAL ALIEN BREED

Wow, deck two is entirely different in the original version of Alien Breed, and far more complicated. Plus the floor is really uneven which makes it awkward to walk around. My dude keeps slowing down and speeding up on the inclines.

Also look at all the face huggers! They're kind of hard to spot, but they actually went and put face huggers in this game. I guess at this point all aliens in video games were xenomorphs and face huggers.

Shooting the power core thing is a bit more complicated in this version... assuming that's what I'm even meant to do. All I know is that the energy beams started closing in on me and I was nearly out of ammo, so I stepped forward a little...

This is the death animation by the way: your dude starts glowing and then begins to rotate on the spot. It's only really occurring to me now that it's a little bit weird. I mean no one did that in the Alien movies, not even in the director's cuts.

That was my final life unfortunately and there are no continues. This version of the game doesn't even have passwords, so I think that's it for classic Alien Breed. I'll be sticking with Alien Breed Special Edition 92 from this point on.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Hang on, there's no code for deck three in the Special Edition? You were supposed to be the good version of the game!

Well it turns out that blowing up the top two decks of a space station was a bad idea and now I need to close fire doors to prevent the whole station from exploding. Though now I'm wondering what would happen if I use the deck two code to return to the previous level. I guess I'd probably be stuck wasting my time replaying the whole thing again.

ALIEN BREED SPECIAL EDITION 92 - DECK THREE

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

The good news is that we don't have to buy a new map for every deck! Also this layout looks very straightforward, at least compared to the ones in the original game. We'll be going around in a big loop, closing fire doors along the way. I need to make sure to remember where we're both standing right now, because this is where the deck lift is.

We've been playing for 17 minutes 49 seconds by the way. It feels like it's been a lot longer.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Man, how do you close these bloody fire doors anyway? We've both taken turns unleashing our limited ordinance on the button, we even tried pressing 'space' on it, but nothing's working. I almost feel as dumb as those dumb aliens down there. They're trying to pour in and swarm us, but they're not smart enough to walk around the corner so they're just stuck there.

We eventually got the door closed and I have no idea how, only that mecha-neko was accidentally crushed by it and lost a life. Those lives are really expensive, we literally can't afford to throw them away like this!

Alien Breed (DOS)

Here's the exact same spot on the MS-DOS PC port. You've probably spotted a few differences right away but maybe the most obvious one is the fact that there's a bonus fire door that doesn't close. It kind of makes the whole process of closing the doors to stop a fire pointless, but it does mean I can't trap myself on the wrong side.

Some of the other differences I've noticed include:

• More colours on screen (though not many more).
• The screen's a bit wider, but gives you much less room to look up and down.
• Johnson's wearing a grey hoodie now.
• The music's all different.
• There are passwords for every deck (but you still can't save your progress).
• Fewer aliens maybe?
• More decks.
  

Though overall it's basically Alien Breed 92, except on PC.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Alright we've finally got enough money for one of us to get a new gun... and mecha-neko's going to be the one to buy it. I'll get my gun once we've got another 24000 CR saved up. Here's something weird: all the guns have been renamed for Alien Breed 92. This was originally called an 'Amet MPP Flamebow Thrower' in the original Alien Breed.

You can buy and carry seven guns and switch between them at any time to pick the right tool for any job you encounter. Unfortunately there is only ever one job and that's 'Shoot these same aliens in more narrow hallways'.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

This new gun's great! It kills enemies in a couple of shots and they ricochet off the walls (fortunately there's no friendly fire). I'm starting to find the fun now that we're getting the routine down and upgrading our gear. Sure we're having to take turns clearing out corridors because they're so narrow, but we're making good progress, we've got plenty of lives, and we're in no danger of running out of ammo or keys..

On the down side, the timer just came on once we closed the third and last door and now we have 39 seconds to find our way to the deck lift before everything explodes. Oh plus it won't let us open the map while the timer's ticking, because it wants us to stumble around the maze in a blind panic I guess.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

Oh damn, mecha-neko closed this surprise fourth fire door accidentally in one shot while turning around, that was crazy!

Alright, now what? Is there a way to get it back open again? Or do we really have to just sit here, wait out the timer and lose a life?

Because waiting is boring.

And it's not getting any less boring.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

That's a proper old school explosion effect!

I wonder if we're going to have to start all the way at the deck lift, or maybe it'll be nice and spawn us at the last Intex terminal we used.

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

But... we had lives left. What the hell?

I get that they're going for arcade action, but arcade games have continues! In fact that's kind of the whole point of them. Okay to be fair Alien Syndrome doesn't let you continue either, but I don't see why I'm the only one who's being fair here.

It'd be nice if I could find one version of this game that didn't hate the player and want them to suffer. What other systems was this ported to again... oh right, I haven't tried the PlayStation 3 game yet.

Alien Breed (PS3)

Okay straight away twin-stick analogue aiming makes an incredible difference. I can walk around aliens and hit them instantly, wherever they are. Now things are really unfair! I've still been managing to take damage, because I'm me, but health kits cost just 500 CR now and I don't even have to go run to an Intex terminal to buy them as I can bring up the shop at any time!

On top of that it's also more generous with the extra lives and you can start on any level you've unlocked with all the gear you've collected. It even marks the deck lift and objectives on the map, which you can bring up even when the timer's ticking. Everything's so weighted in your favour here it's ridiculous. The only disadvantage you have is the widescreen aspect ratio, which is made even wider by the horizontal HUD.

This PS3 version lets you play Alien Breed or Alien Breed 92, along with a few other short campaigns, and you can switch between classic or enhanced graphics and gameplay. It's weirdly stingy with the loot though I've found, sticking piles of 100 CR in places where you'd find a mix of stuff in the Amiga games.

Just out of curiosity I decided to put the original Alien Breed back on and used a cheat code to see if the game had an nice animated end sequence to match the intro. It doesn't.

It does have this nice bit of artwork however, along with some scrolling text that wraps up the story and plugs Alien Breed II a little (this is the IPCC Galiant by the way, they didn't change the design of the hero ship a fifth time). The ending was altered dramatically for the Special Edition however, which replaces the picture and the text with this:

Alien Breed Special Edition 92

The game literally tells you there's no ending and that you should've played a full price game instead! In fact it uses the scrolling text at the end to explain why there was no disk space left to include some scrolling text at the end.

I do get that including an ending picture would've meant less space on disk 2 for level art, that's a very good point. But what was stopping them asking players to insert disk 1 again? I mean except for the fact that they might have to delete one of their seven Superfrog images to make room.


CONCLUSION

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Alien Breed is an Amiga legend, one of the most acclaimed and well-known games on the system, so you should probably ignore everything I'm about to say about it.

I mentioned at the start that the reason it's taken me this long to write about the game is because it's hard and I suck at it, but that's only half the reason. The other half is that I hate criticising games that other people love. Clearly the game must be doing something right if so many people still enjoy it, so I can't tell you why it's bad, just why I personally don't like it.

Actually first I'll talk about what I appreciate about the game, like the graphics! It's not the prettiest game on the Amiga (it was surpassed by its sequels for one thing), but it looks good and it's got nice slick 50fps scrolling. The music's good too, on the rare occasions you get any. Most of the time all you get is an atmospheric hum, which is very fitting, but had me wanting to hum the Chaos Engine soundtrack. It gets the atmosphere right in general, and those beautiful flickery Intex consoles have been burned into my mind, just like the ghostly imprint burned into their screens.

The trouble I have with the game is that it's about shooting aliens and finding your way around mazes, and both of these things suck! You can turn and fire in 8 directions, so that's good, but there's no way to aim at enemies without walking towards them a bit. This means that the best way to win fights is to just park yourself in a doorway and keep shooting aliens until they stop coming. The aliens are so dumb they basically pour in like sand, so the challenge comes from getting yourself facing the right direction in time. Well that, and finding your way out of the senseless mess of corridors. Some decks have a bit of structure to them, but the rest are really just an actual maze, and every time you the wrong way and backtrack all the enemies have respawned. So you've got infinite enemies and limited ammo. That's not the worst part though. The worst part is that you have a map you can bring up at any time... except for when the countdown timer appears and you've got to race back to the deck lift. WHICH ISN'T EVEN MARKED ON THE MAP ANYWAY.

The game is kind enough to start you off with a few lives, but if the timer ever runs out it's an instant game over. Get caught behind a fire door when it closes, that's also a game over. Run out of ammo and can't afford more, that's a game over too. I get that they were going for an arcade experience, with arcade difficulty, but most arcade machines let you insert credits to continue. And I've only shown you the nice levels, not the one that takes place in complete darkness (with a timer) or the one that's just a maze (with a timer). As far as I can tell, Alien Breed's punishing difficulty is mostly to make an hour-long game last weeks. And it really is a punishing game. You're punished for shooting aliens with your limited ammo, for example, and you're punished for exploring with your limited keys. And you better believe you're getting punished for entering a boss fight without buying a weapon that can bounce off walls. The bosses are terrible by the way.

I did enjoy playing it more in co-op, but then everything's more fun in co-op. And it's probably easier too, as I'm not sure there's any increase in challenge to compensate. Though you do end up with the problem that the corridors are too narrow for both players to kick ass simultaneously. I found that I was taking turns, with the wounded player hanging back until we found the next health kit. And co-op can't fix the fact that the game's very shallow with nothing to do except find the next lift, or shoot the things and then race to the lift with a timer going. Not a whole lot of alien variety either.

Okay, I think that's enough words now. Actually, no, wait, I forgot to talk about which version is best!

Alien Breed Special Edition 92 is supposed to be a budget re-release, but it's basically an expansion pack with a different set of levels (and twice as many of them). In fact they probably could've gotten away with calling it Alien Breed 2 if they'd changed the graphics a bit. The only reason I can think of to choose the first version over the Special Edition is if you want a beginning and an ending, or you really want to play Pong.

The DOS port is Special Edition 92 with a few tweaks, it also has some extra levels and it seems a little less challenging as well from what I've seen of the game. It helps that it gives you passwords for every stage. Meanwhile the PS3 port gives you both Alien Breed and Special Edition 92 along with all kinds of enhancements. Unfortunately it also reveals the darkest truth of Alien Breed: making it really easy doesn't actually improve it.

Personally out of the ones I've played I'd say that the Amiga version of Alien Breed Special Edition 92 is the one to go for. It's the most genuine article. I mean it's not my kind of thing, but if you're into this kind of thing, this one's the most authentic version of it. Though if you're really into the idea of roaming around a space station killing aliens and opening doors perhaps I could recommend Prey instead?

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Thanks for reading! Alien Breed's considered to be one of the best games on the Amiga, so it's possible that you have an alternative opinion about it. Or maybe you agree with me. Either way there's a comment box below for you to share your thoughts.