Alien Storm (Arcade)

Developer:

Sega

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Release Date:

1990

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Systems:

Arcade, Mega Drive, Master System, Atari ST, Amiga, C64, CPC, ZX Spectrum

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing one of Sega's classic arcade titles: Alien Storm! Man, I don't like it when title screens peer back at me like this. The creature that eye belongs to seem to have problems of their own though, seeing as they're floating around space in a chunk of debris. Somehow I get the feeling they deserved it.

I remember seeing magazine ads for Alien Storm and thinking "Damn that looks crazy." Or maybe they were Alien Syndrome ads; I always get the two games mixed up. In my defence they're both Sega arcade games with gross looking aliens that ran on a System 16 board (or close enough) and were ported to everything. Anyway, I didn't really get around to playing either of them in the end, so I'm curious to see if this is going to be anything like the image I've got in my head.

One thing I'm pretty certain of is that this isn't going to be a long game. I usually try to show off the first hour or so of gameplay in these articles, but I have a feeling I'll run out of game before then so don't be surprised if I spoil the ending. Also don't be surprised if I can't actually reach the ending due to being terrible at it.

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RUN!

The attract mode mostly just shows off gameplay, but I left it going for a bit to see if an intro came on and I got some scrolling text saying "ACTION", "DESTROY" and "RUN". I'm guessing this is relating to the three gameplay phases, which give the game "Triplicated fun".

I was curious about what that kanji in the background says, so I put it into Google Translate. It says "run".

Then we get some swooping logos of older Sega arcade games, Shinobi (1987), Altered Beast (1988) and Golden Axe (1989), to show Alien Storm's distinguished heritage. They've gone from ninjas to fantasy to science fiction. No giant kanji symbols in the background of this logo though.

Man what is it with this team and skulls on the player select screen? In fact Golden Axe featured a whole skeleton:

Golden Axe (Arcade)

Golden Axe gives you a choice of playing as a man, a woman, or a dwarf, but Alien Storm's set in the future, so I can pick a man, a woman, or a robot. I think I'll just go with the guy this time, because it's the first one selected and I don't feel like giving it much thought.

You know, there's something really familiar about him but I can't quite put my finger on it...

Oh, well that explains it. I suppose if you got something right the first time there's no need to fix it.

Damn, I wasn't expecting this intro. There's nothing about this that isn't amazing. Even if the rest of the game turns out to be terrible I'll always have this GIF.

I love how there's explanation given for why the Alien Busters have a day job selling alien burgers. I love how the stuff on the door probably got catapulted all over the hero when it closed. I love how their customers are identical clones in identical positions. Plus I love how it gave me the opportunity to do a bit of self-promotion, as owners had the option to put the name of their arcade on the van's LED display.

Also: I want a hotdog now. Though not that one on the logo, that one looks kind of gross.

Alright there's no tutorial but I think I've got this figured out. There's an attack button for attacking and a dodge button for dodging. If I hit the attack button while dodging he does a dive attack, and I can double tap in a direction to run. And that's pretty much it as far as I can tell. There's no jump button and it seems that he's choosing what attacks to do all on his own.

I was kind of expecting that huge gun he's holding to actually be a gun, but it's really short range. I might as well be hitting them with a sword.

I just want to take a look at this van again, because its awesome. This was a good era for high-tech vans and tricked out hearses.

Hang on, they've written the heroes' names on the side (Karla, Scooter and Gordon in this version), but the sprite's been flipped so they're all backwards. On the other hand, the "Alien Busters" logo isn't flipped and neither has the sign on the top. The game was made by Team G-Axe+1 apparently.

Actually before I get too far into this I should check out those other two characters and see if there's anything different about them.

I've seen a lot of reviews of different 80s and 90s sci-fi games that mention how its female character is obviously based on Ripley from the Alien movies, because a: they're a woman, and b: so is Ripley. I get that there weren't a lot of female action heroes at the time, but I think these comparisons are typically a bit of a stretch. Though in this case I'll concede that Karla is maybe a little bit Ripley, seeing as her weapon is a flamethrower!

But despite the change of weaponry there's no obvious difference in the way she plays, at least not obvious to me. She seems to just be Gordon with a different sprite. Though it is nice inflicting some cleansing fire on these trash aliens.

Scooter is also very similar, except he generally fights with an energy whip. I tried smashing that stuff in the background for items by the way, but it turned out that they were just more aliens in disguise. No delicious and healthy street food for me.

I've just realised that Golden Axe ends with creatures escaping the arcade machine and invading a modern day city, while this game's all about fighting monsters in a city. I wonder if the developers knew what their next project would be.

Hey there's a call for help from inside that shop! Looks like I've reached my destination. Though hang on, this is the same background that the food truck was parked in front of in the intro! Did I just walk back to the start? Never mind, I'm going in.

Oh damn, the game's gone all light gun shooting gallery for a bit! I mean I'm still using the same controls (and still tapping the attack button like a button-tapping maniac), but this is a bit of a shift in gameplay.

There's not much to be said about this though. Aliens are jumping out at me or spitting stuff, or both, and I need to shoot them. I also need to tear through the scenery like a Ghostbuster because it turns out there are energy capsules hidden within cans and if you zap enough of them they'll be revealed. Energy's good as it fuels my special attacks.

Alright I beat mission 1 and I didn't even lose a credit! My reward is a bit of extra energy it seems. I'm not too disappointed about not getting any bonus points as it doesn't seem like I even have a score.

Oh by the way, player two can join in at any time. It'd be weird to find a two-player co-op arcade game where they couldn't though really. 

MISSION 2

Well there goes that first credit. I was doing well until these two aliens surrounded me and took me down in a simultaneous blast of projective vomit. It burns! At least now I know why the game keeps playing a voice clip saying "Bad breath, man," over and over while I'm fighting them.

I've also learned that you reappear exactly where you were standing when you use a continue. It doesn't seem like I can switch to a different character though, which is a shame. I'm stuck with Gordon 'til the end.

Oh damn, what's happened? Gordon's broken into a sprint and now his gun's working like an actual gun! This has basically turned into a side-scrolling shoot 'em up with a jump button right now and it's a nice change of pace. In fact the Gordon's pace has changed from 'walking speed' to 'that bit in a superhero movie where the hero catches up to a car to show how fast they are'. He's really bloody fast!

It's a bit weird how I'm running past video rental shops over and over and over again though. Oh hang on, this is set in 1990. Never mind then, that checks out.

Hey, the Golden Axe heroes have gotten a sneaky cameo in the AV Shop. I was lucky to get a shot of them actually as the scenery gets demolished so quickly, even when I'm trying to hit the aliens. This shooting bit gets so frantic at times that I'm not sure it's even possible to get through without taking damage from the enemies popping in from the sides. At least not without a bit of foreknowledge. Or a second player.

More games should let you visit a 90s electronics store in my opinion. In proper ray-traced Unreal Engine 5 3D. I want to go in and actually see those video CDs it claims to sell. No seriously, if a game actually lets you do this let me know.

MISSION 3

Oh no, aliens are attacking somewhere! It's time for us to leave our awesome looking base and... Scooter why do you have a smashed up robot head on a plate? Is that... is that your lunch?

Alright, the sign says "Alien Busters are on the go!" so I suppose I should probably get back out there. The alien horde will probably be better for my health than staring at this flicking TV set.

Damn, I'm being dropped off in style this time.

Mission 3 features a lot of aliens in the street, so it's not been hugely different to missions 1 and 2. It did get a bit crowded though, so I decided to spend a bit of energy and call in my special attack.

It summoned this tiny U.S. Air Force space fighter to do a strafing run!

Man, look at that thing. That's a proper video game spaceship that is. It's only ever going to be seen from the side so they just went crazy with that side view. Wait, why is it shown from the side, when the hovercar sprite matched the perspective of the street?

Anyway, Golden Axe also lets you use your energy to do special attacks, but in that the super attack gets more spectacular the more potions you've picked up. Alien Storm only has the one attack per character, but on the plus side it doesn't use up all your energy when you trigger it. 

Here's Karla calling down a missile strike:

She ain't messing around. I mean look at the size of that warhead! I don't know how they even had a city left to save after that thing hit.

And here's Scooter's special attack:

The dude just blows himself up and calls in a replacement body! 

Alright, time to save a car showroom.

It's a real shame to wreck these cars, but if I didn't then I wouldn't get to see all of the damage the artist painted in.

There's lots of weird-looking alien sprites around as well and they keep hitting me. My cursor's pretty fast but it still takes a little time to make it across the screen so I have milliseconds to decide on what enemy should be the priority target. Is the the one that's sprung up from the bottom to shoot gas at me? The green one that's just been spat out and is currently flying into my face? Nope, I was supposed to shoot the one on the top left first and I just got hit by its tongue.

I got through the showroom shooting stage but this time the mission's still going!

Whoa, what the hell was with that jump! By my calculations he's running at about 60 miles an hour here, so that gap would be about 65 meters across. Also Gordon can sprint twice as fast as Usain Bolt. And I thought Sonic the Hedgehog was supposed to be Sega's fastest hero!

I'm just glad he did the leap automatically and didn't rely on me to press the jump button.

Oh no it's a boss battle! I haven't had to fight a boss yet, especially not one that looks like a pile of internal organs, so things have been fairly smooth sailing for me up to this point. I can already tell that this guy's going to be a problem though.

It alternates its green zaps, switching from front to back each time, so I'm sure it's possible to get in a rhythm of getting a hit in and then dodge rolling to the other side for the next one. But that's going to take forever!

Ow.

The good news is that I defeated his first form. The bad news is that his second form doesn't like me much and I'm finding it really difficult to avoid being hit. I need to get in close to hit him, but he alternates between gut punches and long-range bites depending on where I'm standing so nowhere is safe really.

By the way all of these attacks are still just me tapping the one button. I'm not switching between zap and blast, or using up rocket launcher ammo, or anything like that.

Oh come on! His third form attacks everywhere! How am I supposed to avoid being everywhere? I'm just going to soak up the damage and keep putting in extra credits until he's dead. I blew my chances of beating this on one credit a long long time ago and I want to see the ending.

At least when it died a bunch of heads came out. This is a good thing because when I kill a head I get an energy canister from it.

MISSION 4

Now I'm chasing an alien ship down a road! I've also got spiky rollers to jump over, but it's probably easier to just walk around them and they usually blow up before they get to me anyway. It's nice to be able to jump for a change in these running levels, but I'm not getting a lot of use out of it.

There's another attack for you: beating a downed alien to death with the butt of the rifle. He had it coming.

Though I'm finding that I can usually do alright against regular aliens as long as they're all in front of me. When I get surrounded I'm in trouble, otherwise they're not doing much I need to worry about.

Three-player US version

Hey I found a new move! It took me a while but I figured out that if I double-tap a direction to run and then press the dodge roll button he'll do a somersault instead. So I can jump in the brawler phase after all! Pressing attack while airborne adds a bit of electrical icing to the cake.

Oh, I'm blue now by the way. That's because I'm playing the three-player version for a bit instead of the two-player version. I don't know why they decided to change the colours, but they did. The US version also remixes the levels a bit, that's why I'm suddenly on mission 6 instead of mission 4 even though it's obviously the same place.

Three-player US version

Here's another change I've noticed: you can buy energy tanks by spending a credit! I know arcade games pretty much invented microtransactions, but I didn't expect one to offer ammo in exchange for real money. The energy meter isn't just for special attacks, it also keeps your regular attacks going. The thing is, I didn't even know this until I switched to this version and found myself smacking an enemy around with an empty gun. I never ran out of energy in the other version, so I suspect a bit of rebalancing has gone on here to encourage people to part with their cash.

Oh, plus there's no player select screen in the three-player version, because it doesn't really need one. You just use the controls of the character you want to be.

Well that was unexpected. A giant mouth just came over, grabbed Gordon with its gross-looking tongue, and ate him.

So now I'm in space then I guess, trapped in the mouth of an organic spaceship as it leaves the Earth behind. I have only one question: why would a spaceship have a nose?

Okay walked around inside, killed all the enemies, walked a bit, killed the enemies, etc. but now I've come across something unusual. I've got two exits to this stage and I've got no idea what the difference is. Or even if there is a difference. I'm going to go into... the left exit.

Oh, well that wasn't good; it turns out that the music resets whenever you go through to a new area!

MISSION 6

Ow.

It's starting to seem like the game has two bosses and they're both this guy. There's no difference whatsoever, it's the exact same three-phase fight as before. So I just did the exact same thing I did last time: got my ass handed to me until he died.

I wonder how many missions this game has anyway. I have to be near the end now. Maybe one more mission on the alien homeworld and then it's done?

Oh, nope, that was it. I've beaten Alien Storm! It only took around half an hour.

Hey I recognise that eye! That's the one that was staring at me on the title screen. I've finally taught it that it's rude to stare. This situation is maybe a bit of a problem for Gordon though, seeing as he was in the spaceship when it exploded and he's not even wearing a space suit.

(Not actually a real screenshot)

Fortunately the whole team survived the explosion in a bubble and they're picked up by the Alien Busters space taxi!

It happens in an animation though, with the bubble flickering to appear transparent, so I figured I'd save myself some trouble and just put the taxi and the heroes on the same image together. You never see this all together in game like this, but it gets the point across.

Then the heroes start strutting across space. Hang on, the developers were team G-Axe+1 at the start and now they're Team 'Shinobi' Ver. 4.

While this is going on it starts flickering between different bits of artwork used in the game. But flickering's bad, so I put some of them together in a slightly slower GIF to show them off.

Anyway that's what you get for finishing Alien Storm.

I was hoping to get a bit of a jokey cutscene like at the end of Golden Axe, but hey different is good too!

I have been given a rank at the end like in Golden Axe though. 6.92! I'm guessing that's bad. Still, he did better than Blue Gordon from the three-player version, who finished with just 6.88.

Right, I'm done! I can finally give my alien-slaying finger a well-earned rest. Oh hang on I just remembered that the game got ported to like a half-dozen other systems, so I should probably check them out as well.

Genesis/Mega Drive

Alright here's the version for Sega's own Mega Drive console. The first thing I noticed is that it's missing the intro: no hotdog van. That's the best part of the whole damn game! The second thing I noticed is that the levels are all mixed up and changed. In fact this laboratory level with the lasers on the ceiling is brand new. Also the graphics have been downgraded a little bit (but only a little).

Otherwise this seems incredibly faithful to the arcade game in gameplay. It's Alien Storm. The only thing really missing is the coin slot, which means you can't just coast through it. There are multiple difficulty modes though. In fact it lets you set the difficulty and energy level separately.

Amiga

Next is the Amiga version. It also looks pretty similar to the original coin-op, but it feels more janky. I had so much trouble hitting enemies in this that I lost a credit before making it through the first street! Plus it likes to start you off standing right next to a monster at the beginning of the mission for some reason.

There's a big gap between this and the Mega Drive in gameplay and it's not really taking full advantage of the Amiga's hardware. I know this because I've played the Atari ST version as well and despite its weaker hardware it's basically identical to the Amiga port.

Atari ST

Man, I hope I've got these two screenshots in the right order. I don't suppose it really matters though.

I think the Atari ST version may be a tiny bit slower than the Amiga version, especially in the indoor shooting stages, but the biggest difference between the two is the sound. When the 'GO!' sign came on the beeping was so obnoxious it made me just want to stop.

Another issue with these two versions is that the controller only has the one button. In fact most of the ports have this issue, and get around it by having you press fire+down to dodge roll and fire+up for a somersault. It's probably the most ideal solution possible, but it does make the game more awkward.

Master System

Here's the Master System port. It's nice to be on a recognisable level from the arcade game, but man this is slow. They also had to drop Karla. In fact player 2's been dropped as well, so you're on your own. But the main thing that distinguishes this from all the other ports is that when you're killed you have to restart from the start of the stage. You can also grab the occasional life pickup, which is unusual. 

It's maybe impressive how much they managed to carry over from the arcade game, it's got the shooting gallery stages and everything, but this just isn't much fun to play in my opinion. It's really struggling to give you an approximation of what the arcade game is.

Commodore 64

Now I'm onto the 8-bit computers, starting with the Commodore 64. The ports all came out in 1991, so these machines would've been nearly 10 years old by this point and were lucky to even get the game. Like the Master System version, the C64 port's really cut down, with only two enemies on screen at a time and player 2 being a clone of player 1. Plus it's too busy playing the music to do sound effects. But it is basically still Alien Storm.

It's also surprisingly fast, especially in the shooting level. You can't tear into the shelves and send cans flying anymore, but it does have monsters leaping out at you and spitting things.

Amstrad CPC

The Amstrad CPC version is less fast paced. In fact it's downright slow, and I had a real problem getting my attacks to connect with the enemies.

Oh plus did I mention that these 8-bit versions don't have the proper special attacks? They just make stuff on screen explode a bit. Not that you're ever going to be overwhelmed by two enemies.

ZX Spectrum

Finally here's the ZX Spectrum version. It's like the Amstrad CPC version, except without any colour! Plus what's annoying is that it lets you redefine the buttons, but it doesn't let you map 'dodge roll' to its own key!

The weird thing about the ZX version though, its that it's actually fairly slick. In fact the shooting stage is kind of frantic and complicated with enemies jumping out and spitting little monsters everywhere, plus it lets you wreck the scenery. It even has a fairly good version of the theme music if you've got a 128K machine. This is honestly about as faithful a conversion as you could hope for on this hardware. I mean you probably shouldn't be playing Alien Storm on a ZX, but it won't leave you shaking your head wondering what went wrong.

And now I really am finished.


CONCLUSION

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I don't know what I could say about Alien Storm that the screenshots haven't already shown you. Unless there are hidden depths to it so well hidden than I never saw a trace of them, this is a really straightforward side-scrolling brawler. In fact I was surprised how similar it is to Golden Axe, though this is a bit faster paced. I found Golden Axe to be a bit of a dull slog overall, but this gets downright intense at times

The game's got two features that set it apart: the creative monster design and the triplicated fun of three gameplay styles, and unfortunately neither of them really prevents it from feeling repetitive. But as a 30-40 minute arcade experience it gets the job done. It's fun enough to tempt a player to keep putting more credits in to keep the action going, and if you're playing the arcade version without limited continues you're guaranteed to eventually win.

I've heard complaints that the game's too easy and I can kind of see where they're coming from. I mean it wasn't too easy for me, I was leaking credits after the first few missions, but the brawler enemies don't often demand a lot from you. If you can get them all in front of you then you've already won half the battle. And the running bit was just nothing. The shooting phase does require some good reflexes, I kept letting one or two enemy shots slip through which add up when there's no healing items, but I feel like two-player mode would make that less of a struggle. Co-op makes everything better!

Overall I think the game is... alright. Worth a look just for its charm, comedy and pretty pixel art. But which version should you play? Personally I'd say the arcade original is the unambiguous winner but the Mega Drive conversion is a close second place. It does its own thing with the levels but it's extremely faithful when it comes to the gameplay, and like all the ports it gives you rapid fire in the shooting gallery stages to spare your aching trigger finger. The rest aren't really worth considering.

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Thanks for reading all those words I wrote about Alien Storm. If you want to leave some words of your own then use the word box below please.

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