Hi everyone! With Alien Breed: Impact launching in the U.S. tomorrow, we’ve pulled together some (hopefully!) fascinating things you may not know about the game. First, though, you might want to see what Alien Breed: Impact looks like in action.
Alien Breed: Impact is a re-imagining of the classic Amiga games. The original Alien Breed is remembered as one of the foremost games released on the Amiga. Launched in 1991 and developed and published by Team17, it proved to be a huge success, with the Special Edition version spending an incredible 33 unbroken weeks at the top of the UK sales charts. A sequel was released in 1993 (Alien Breed 2: The Horror Continues), followed by Alien Breed: Tower Assault and a couple of 3D editions, both of which also won numerous awards.
“Heart of Darkness” helped inspire Alien Breed: Impact. The game’s main influences are obviously classic sci-fi, horror and action movies, as well as games and comics. But you might not know that hidden in the narrative of the game there are also numerous references to Joseph Conrad’s classic novella “Heart of Darkness” (which itself was the inspiration for the film “Apocalypse Now”). The name of the hero is Conrad, the name of the space ship is the Leopold (a reference to the steamer in Conrad’s novella), and most of the other character names have a “Heart of Darkness” connection.
It looks stunning. With great visuals, atmospheric environments and cool special effects, our highly modified version of Epic Games‘ Unreal Engine 3 enables us to push the boundaries of what is visually possible for a downloadable game. We really hope you like the result!
Alien Breed: Impact isn’t just a simplistic blaster. It presents numerous other tactical gameplay challenges to the player. Our general advice: conserve your ammo; work out quickly which weapons work best against which enemies; use the melee attack (it’s great for killing alien eggs and those little “burster” aliens); use health packs, items and grenades; and collect as many credits as you can scattered throughout the levels and spend them on various upgrades in the Intex shops.
Cooperate or perish! Alien Breed: Impact isn’t just a single player title. It also features exciting and competitive two-player co-op action, local or online, with specific characters and storyline that run in parallel to the main story. Check it out — it’s my favorite way to play the game.
There’s more to come. Alien Breed: Impact is the first of three games in the new Alien Breed universe, with Alien Breed 2: Assault and Alien Breed 3: Descent coming soon to PSN over the next few months.
Alien Breed: Impact includes a Platinum Trophy. “The Completionist” is awarded when all other Trophies in the game have been collected. Good luck with that, guys. It’s pretty tough, so let us know how you get on!
Try cranking the difficulty up a notch (or two). On the hardest difficulty level, we have found that the way people play the game changes, from gung-ho arcade blasting that you can do on the easier settings, to a much more tactical, thoughtful approach, more akin to survival horror gaming. Ammo is scarce and you really have to think about how to take down the slimy alien horde and complete Conrad’s missions.
Alien Breed: Impact is created by Team17. Apparently we’re those ‘crazy’ UK guys behind the Worms games!
Any similarities are entirely coincidental. Any rumours about the ugly, slimy, smelly, and disgusting alien enemies in the game being designed to specifically look like key members of Team17 are completely untrue! ;-)
We really hope you enjoy the game when it comes out tomorrow on PSN. All of us at Team17 would encourage you to ‘get up there and whoop E.T.’s butt’, as a wise man once said…..
