71 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
71 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
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ALIEN SYNDROME
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ALIEN SYNDROME is an adaptation of a Sega arcade game. It allows for one or two
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simultaneous players, and offers joystick control for one or two players, or
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joystick and keyboard control for two players. (This review is based on the
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IBM-PC version.)
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Aliens have overrun a Human colony. Your mission is to rescue captured
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colleagues and kill aliens (of course). You start the game with a rifle, and can
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upgrade weapons by bumping into marked caches in the walls of the colony sector.
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There is a time limit, as you must exit each stage before the sector's
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self-destruct timer reaches zero. You have three "lives" in which to accomplish
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your task. You "reincarnate" at the same point where you previously died,
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instead of restarting from the beginning.
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The game displays an overhead view of a small area of the sector, centered on
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the player characters. If two people play, the game limits movement so that both
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characters appear onscreen at all times. Weapon caches are located in various
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corners of the sector, and map "screens" on the wall can be viewed by bumping
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into them. The map shows the layout of the sector, and the location of captured
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colleagues. Captives may be freed by bumping into them (they appear as
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struggling figures mired to the floor by alien muck).
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Among the various weapons you can select are a flame-thrower and a laser rifle.
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(The documentation states that different weapons are more effective against
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certain "Super Aliens.") An escort robot may be picked up to follow you and fire
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in the same general direction that you fire.
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Various different-colored crawlies come after you, some shooting eggs (?). You
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die if you come in contact with any of these. When self-destruct nears, you can
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escape from the exit hatch at the top of the sector. Of course, you must face
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the sector's "Super Alien" first.... If you succeed, you advance to a more
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difficult level, and so on.
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As I noted above, control of the game is via joystick; a mouse may be used in
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place of a joystick, however. I struggled to control the game with either. In
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many cases, the game refused to respond to the joystick. The mouse is much more
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responsive, but the character runs in the direction that the mouse is moved.
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This makes it difficult to turn to fire at an alien without charging at it --
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bad tactics, to say the least.
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ALIEN SYNDROME comes on two copy-protected 5-1/4" diskettes. There is an
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undocumented installation batch file program that transfers the game files to
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your hard drive, and updates the "install count" on the master diskette. There
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is a corresponding uninstall batch file if you wish to remove the game from your
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hard drive. The installation worked fine on my IBM-XT, but I lost it the next
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time I defragmented my hard drive; make sure to uninstall the program before
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doing anything similar to your machine. The game can be run directly from the
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floppy disks, even after the install has been used. (Note: The floppies and
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install program directly reference the A: drive. This caused problems when I
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tried to load the program on my 386 PC, where drive B: is the 5-1/4" floppy.)
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The game uses the PC speaker for sound effects. Weapon firing and impacts are
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fairly standard; there are some digitized effects for an alien's roar, a "Hurry
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Up!" when time runs low, and an "Uggh!" when the character is killed. They're
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not state-of-the-art, but add a nice touch to a simple game like this.
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The game graphics are fairly well detailed and colored (EGA-level). The
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packaging states that the game supports CGA, EGA, MCGA, VGA, and Tandy graphics.
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ALIEN SYNDROME appears to be a nice, basic, run-around-and-shoot-em-up arcade
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game, transferred nicely to the PC arena. Due to the difficulties I had in
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controlling the game, I can't personally recommend it, although it's possible
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that other players won't experience the same problems.
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ALIEN SYNDROME is published and distributed by Sega of America.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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