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Aliens: Infestation (DS)

Status: Finished playing
I started playing this game on Monday 4 March, 2013  //  I stopped playing this game on: Monday 11 March, 2013
Current opinion of this game
Loved it.

March 11, 2013 06:00:44 PM
Oooh, wow!

This game is REALLY great. It's somewhat of a surprise and I'm having a hard time articulating what it is I've been enjoying about it (I've already finished it). But here's my bullet list:

1. It's short
2. It resonates really well with the source material (Alien + Aliens)
3. Ties in nicely with Aliens (the movie)
4. Audio is excellent - music sets the tone and there is quite a variety of "themes"
5. Gameplay is familiar, but not in a repetitive way (think Metroid-style)

Perhaps the main thing I've enjoyed is how much personality the game has and some of the interesting (and non-standard) design choices the team made. For example, the game has a system of "lives". If your character (a marine) dies...he (or she) is dead! However, you have a team of up to 4 others you can immediately step in. In abstract terms, you can have up to 4 lives. In "story" terms, there's a team of marines that can step in when the one you're controlling dies. And they really do die! They don't come back. How do you get more "lives"? Well, you run into other marines in different parts of the environment. Normally they're hunkered down in semi-remote locations. If you've lost any lives so far (your team has fewer than 4 members), the marine you find joins your team. If not, they stay where they are (and you can occasionally come back to recruit them if you're still in the same location). I thought this was a really clever way of integrating the "team of marines" (that slowly, but surely, die off) with the notion of "lives".

Great game, and probably a better experience than the recently released Aliens: Colonial Marines?


 
kudos for original design to Rodrigo Barria