Conrad finds himself trapped in space again with a ship infested with more aliens. Life just doesn’t seem to get any easier for Conrad; he must feel like he’s in one of those hamster wheels.
Alien Breed 3: Descent is a fairly decent shooter that acts and looks the part of its brethren. Everything is pretty much the same as it was when you left Conrad in Alien Breed 2. The great story is still in place and the action that has become a staple of the series is still intact.
If you have played Alien Breed before then you know what to expect from the series. The gameplay is a collection of ‘fetch the keycard to open a door’ and ‘travel to point A to point B’ missions while killing endless waves of aliens.
During all this, you can loot varies bodies, lockers and other sections of the ship. Doing so will yield you better armor, ammo, credits, weapons and health packs for healing. Ammo becomes scarce in later chapters, so saving your credits to purchase additional ammo packs at Intex terminals and searching bodies becomes very important.
The multi-player experience was a bit disappointing. You can choose between Survivor Mode or Co-Op play with another player over the Playstation Network. Survivor Mode pits you and a buddy against endless waves of aliens.
When playing co-op with another player online, you and a partner share the same camera view at all times. This can cause some problems when teaming up with someone who refuses to work together. If neither of you move in the same direction – and this happened on more than one occasion – then you can forget about exploring. Plain and simple. If a teammate dies in battle, there is no way to retreat to other rooms to avoid the alien menace (the camera stays fixed on the dead player until he re-spawns).
Alien Breed treats the online co-op experience like an offline experience. You should have the ability to explore without having your partner glued to your hip, especially if your partner dies during combat and aliens have you cornered.
Team 17 should have added some kind of save feature for online play. Since there is no way to adjust the difficulty settings for an online co-op match, the game can easily come to an abrupt end if you’re not careful (resulting in a quick trip back to the lobby menu). With a few tweaks, online co-op could be as good as single-player.
Alien Breed 3: Descent is a great single-player experience with an engaging story. Aside from the online co-op issue, gamers looking to finish the trilogy will not be disappointed by the final chapter.
James ‘Daripp3r’ Pittaro
Platform: Playstation 3 (Available on PSN)
Developer: Team 17
Publisher: Team 17
ESRB: T (Teen)
Price: $9.99
| Review Score | |
|---|---|
| Graphics |   |
| The graphics are dark and gritty. | |
| Sound | |
| Like previous Alien Breeds, the sound effects are incredible. | |
| Gameplay | |
| Great single-player experience, but online co-op could use some tweaking. | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Gamers wanting to finish the Alien Breed trilogy will not be disappointed. | |
