Alien Rage

The story and dialog aren't anything new or interesting. In fact, there isn't much about Alien Rage: Unlimited that brings anything new to the table. But there's a lot about it that hits you right in the nostalgia.

Alien Rage is a solid and attractive old school shooter but it's uninspired and extremely poor in terms of variety.

Alien Rage feels like a love letter to first person shooters from the very first moment you’re dumped onto a giant rock hurtling through space. It pokes fun at the genre in all the right places but, when it needs to get down to business and actually feel like a decent shooter, it does that well too.

Quotation forthcoming.

The game controls like a first-person shooter should, which facilitates the combat process, of which, there is a lot. Unfortunately, there isn’t much in the way of exploration or gameplay variety. Players advance to the next blue dot and kill whatever enemies spawn.

Competent to the last, Alien Rage Unlimited will tick the boxes for anyone wanting to indulge in warfare, whilst perhaps parting ways from any sort of thought process for an hour or two.

A fast, demanding and satisfying shooter that would benefit from better boss fights and more varied settings. [11/2013, p.72]

Alien Rage suffers from its lack of world building and its inability to go beyond genre conventions, but it’s backed up by competent design, great use of the Unreal Engine, and a story that keeps players driven until the end. The gameplay is frantic and varied, but slowly becomes repetitive and monotonous.

Alien Rage: Unlimited is an old style first person shooter with astounding graphics and a frantic gameplay. Unfortunately the game is spoiled by a bad AI and an evident lacks of personality.

Alien Rage is better than Sniper 2, but still looks like a game quickly put together. What's not good? An inconsistent basis for the game, unused potential of the "special kills" system and terrible AI. Still you need to remember, that Alien Rage isn't a AAA title, and as such will surely find an audience. But it's a pity that a truly excellent shooting mechanic wasn't used for something more special.

So I don’t know who Alien Rage is marketed towards. It’s a completely capable and attractive shooter that does almost nothing special. I had fun playing it, but at this point there are other older games on Steam you can play for the same amount of money that I’d recommend many heartbeats sooner.

Alien Rage is essentially the generic marine alien shooter that we’ve all grown accustomed to over the years and really has no aspirations of being anything different.

The new first-person shooter from City Interactive is not that bad for fans of old-style FPS, but the linear levels, the limited variety of the locations and the average enemy intelligence are not flaws to be underestimated.

It is so mortally by-the-numbers that you'll genuinely believe you've already played the game before. [Issue#141, p.120]

Largely forgettable, Alien Rage never really punches above its weight even though you’re willing it to. It struggles to get going and in the rare instances things start to look up, you're stopped in your tracks by stability issues, impossible odds or sheer frustration. A lack of innovative features fail to set it apart as a shooter, let alone recall the nostalgia of classic shooter games it claims to evoke.

A generic shooter notable only for its intense difficulty.

Alien Rage could have been a very good old school shooter a la Bulletstorm, but curious design decisions, poor execution, and a severe lack of polish mar the experience.

The sci-fi design is as generic as the story. And as if this isn’t enough, the frantic action suffers from bugs and crashes.

Between its lack of personality or distinctive, original features of any kind, and completely non-existent multiplayer community, the only memorable aspect is its annoying and frustrating difficulty spikes.

There will be a small audience for this game I’m sure but most should just let this game pass them by.

Hardcore and old school. Those are mighty fashionable magic formulas frequently used for the video games unable to prove they are fun and fresh. Like this Alien Rage title.

Frustratingly difficult, and not in a good way. When it's not doing its utmost to irritate you Alien Rage isn't a bad shooter, but it's not a particularly good one either - and in this crowded genre, there's little reason to get this over something else.

Not content with being the most mediocre and generic shooter I’ve played all year, Alien Rage makes its way into terrible territory. Countless bugs and a brutally unnecessary difficulty curve help artificially lengthen the game’s four hour campaign, while simultaneously ruining any chance that Alien Rage had to be enjoyable.

The true tragedy of it all, however, is that when you cut through the glitches, the mediocrity, the sensation of standing on a fragile boat, and the design's lack of commitment, one can actually find a quasi-competent first-person shooter attempting to happen. When it's not breaking itself for no reason, Alien Rage does work.

In short, Alien Rage just isn't very good. If it had nailed the combat, all its other flaws could perhaps be forgiven—but it didn't, so they can't. It's a terrible thing to say, but in a game stuffed to the gills with Xenomorphs, the most alien thing in the entire package is any sense of enjoyment whatsoever.