Alien Breed: Evolution

All in all, it works pretty well - it looks nice, is fun to play and has an awesome "Crusader: No Remorse" kind of feel to it, something no game in recent memory has managed.

Alien Breed Evolution is a great arcade shooter scoring with its fantastic atmosphere. The fact that it is that short hurts a little bit, but still the 800 Microsoft Points are well invested in this one.

Compelling enough to drop your points on. It’s action-packed and looks great, and fans of top-down shooters like that, of which there aren’t enough on XBLA, should find the game highly satisfying. Just one more notch in the belt of XBLA’s great year.

Alien Breed Evolution is classic gameplay fun, brought up to date with great graphics and by the outstanding group at Team17.

A good, classic arcade reboot for a reasonable price.

It may be a very straightforward journey and it may feel like a knock-off of Sega's Alien Syndrome, but Alien Breed Evolution: Episode 1 is still a darn fun and tense game with redone graphics and well-used sound.

Anyone who played the original Alien Breed back in the day will find their simple top-down shooter is all grown up with great lighting effects, an atmospheric soundtrack, and affecting cinematic events -- but the gameplay itself is rooted in 1990.

The mechanics are easily learned and the difficulty curve set at a satisfying level. With episode one having a fair bit of gameplay on offer, it's a testament to the effortless playability that I'm left raring for more.

As long as you can overlook the repetitive gameplay, Alien Breed Evolution offers good old-fashioned action. [Feb 2010]

Personally I loved its retro game in modern clothes feel but I can imagine some will find its unashamedly dated design sours their trip down memory lane.

Alien Breed Evolution is a blast from the past, and for all of its graphical splendour and next gen licks of paint, it still feels ever so slightly dated.

While this is only Episode 1 of 3, Alien Breed: Evolution outshines most 800MSP XBLA games in terms of overall value as there's certainly a good 6+ hours to keep you on your toes in not only the single-player campaign, but the co-operative missions as well.

This is a loving and professional revision of a solid game, and as such is well worth the points, especially for those with fond memories of gaming in the 90’s.

Overall, there is a great title here, at 800 points, it’s pretty cheap too. The major disappointment is its length, there isn’t a great deal of replay ability in the episode, with just five levels and a boss, the decision to split into three episodes has obviously kept the cost down but at the expense of satisfaction.

Alien Breed Evolution is a great remake of the 90s classic. The addition of a Co-op mode and the visual make-up are its best improvements.

On the face of it, Alien Breed Evolution offers everything that fans of the 16-bit incarnations could wish for, with strong production values and focused design contributing to a sympathetic update that stays true to the source material. But sadly, a flawed approach to co-op play and an inherent lack of variety ultimately count against it.

It's a shaky start to Team 17's episodic content. There is an ample offering of explosions and aliens, but the fun starts to fade long before the credits roll.

As retro remakes go this certainly isn't a bad one, but there's a couple of flaws in the gameplay that means it falls short a little of what it could be.

A bombastic revival that shows great promise. [Feb 2010, p.120]

Overall Alien Breed Evolution is a pretty good title on XBLA, however, it isn’t great. Your experience with this title is going to depend on how you feel about these types of games.

Alien Breed Evolution is a really nice looking shooter which never betrays its '90's heritage. It's probably worth the price only for the true fans of the original game.

To give Alien Breed Evolution a sscore isn’t easy. It has impressive graphics, atmoshere and brainless action. On the other hand, the gameplay is weak. When you get annoyed by it, there’s something wrong. It has a boring story, the controls are restrictive and after half an hour, you’ll have seen it all. Unfortunately, the strong graphics can’t cover this up. It had potential, but it hasn’t turned out to be a game of extraterrestrial heights.

One of the Amiga's favourite sons returns but with little of its original personality intact.

This isometric shooter aptly imitates of the top-down original, but doesn't convincingly improve upon it.

Fingers crossed Episode Two shakes Alien Breed Evolution up a bit.

Of interest to retro enthusiasts only. [Issue#55, p.104]

Old-fashioned gameplay with a pretty new face. [Mar 2010, p.81]

Alien Breed has high production values for an Xbox Live Arcade game. It is polished and looks beautiful. Unfortunately, Team 17 did not succeed to get the gameplay up to the same level. It is too repetitious and straight-forward to be interesting until the end of the first episode, let alone through all three episodes.

Not quite evolved enough, sadly. [Feb 2010, p.112]