Alien Breed 3: Descent Review

By now, anyone who has played the two previous chapters in the Alien Breed series should know what they're getting themselves into. A hero in space, a girl/robot in danger, aliens that attack from the shadows, the Alien Breed series has just about everything any Science Fiction gamer should love. Yet somehow this equation for success runs a little dry, almost from the very beginning. In some ways, one would like to think that such an absolute dedication to purism (in this case, never straying too far from the original product) is something to be admired. In the case of Alien Breed 3: Descent, it means that every single pitfall in the game is that much more painful, since the lesson should have been learned at best from Alien Breed, and at worst from Alien Breed 2.

The game starts off by picking up exactly where the last game left off, only it also includes removing all of the main characters gun/upgrades. The atmosphere is dark and spooky, the controls are still just as reasonable as they once were, and one would expect that around every corner there's an alien to be fought. Fortunately anyone thinking that would be absolutely right, almost to a punishing degree; around almost every single corner, dark alley, inside just about every room and sub-sector there are aliens to jump out. Anyone familiar with the first two games will already know where to look too: vents, floorboards, doors that may look half open, any room with a push-able button in it.

This represents one of three critical elements that make Alien Breed 3 such a disappointment, any and all of the tension that could possibly be generated is ruined by this almost river-like flow of bad guys. Yes, it is technically the climax of the game, but does that really mean the main character should be fighting non-stop everywhere? Worst of all, the aliens are still hilariously easy to kill, providing no challenge in most scenarios and only a minor setback in limited others. The result is pure mindless killing while the player works from objective to objective, strategy rarely changing as players get back their old guns with a few new extras.

The second hit that Alien Breed's atmosphere (which was amazingly well crafted in the other two games) takes would be explosions. They are everywhere, and unrelenting. It wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that anytime something explodes it shakes the entire screen, leaving the player in a constant state of motion almost regardless of what they're doing. Although Alien Breed does not openly pretend to be anything more than a top-down shooter, it's still disappointing to see all of these survival-horror style elements thrown right out the window.