Review: Alien Breed 35th Anniversary Collection

2 days ago

6 min read

A journey through different eras of science fiction in video games

Alien Breed 35th Anniversary Collection brings together six games from a franchise that explored different styles and perspectives throughout its history. Originally developed by Team17, the series began in 1991 and evolved from top-down experiences into first-person 3D shooters. This collection stays true to its roots, preserving the classic versions while providing interesting information and trivia about each release, including its year, platforms, languages, perspective, and technical characteristics. It is also nice to see local co-op support for two players in compatible games, allowing players to revisit these experiences together. For those who have never played Alien Breed, this compilation offers an opportunity to discover a franchise that may have gone unnoticed by many, especially considering the number of changes it underwent throughout its history.

MY IMPRESSIONS

The first Alien Breed already offers quite interesting gameplay, with a top-down perspective that allows us to follow the character as we explore facilities infested with creatures. We need to manage our health, collect items scattered throughout the environments, and fight the Aliens that appear along the way, keeping an eye on how much ammunition we use. Some structures can also pull us inside, while holes scattered throughout the environment represent a constant threat, as new creatures can emerge from them at any moment. Combat features some interesting animations, such as enemies emerging from the ground, and the variety of creatures helps keep exploration engaging. However, the main challenge lies in finding the exit of each level, as the game frequently hides the paths required to progress.

The structure ends up functioning almost like a maze, where we need to recognize the environments and figure out which doors lead to the next missions. The Deck Lift, for example, allows us to advance to the following stage, but finding these points can take quite some time. Since the environments remain the same when we return to a level, memorizing the paths becomes an important part of the experience. The problem is that this search comes with consequences: if we take too long, a countdown may begin, signaling the imminent destruction of the entire facility. The first game also features waves of enemies that seem to never end, making it necessary to constantly balance exploration and combat. It is a technically simple experience, but one that manages to create some tense situations, especially during the first attempts.

Alien Breed: Special Edition '92 maintains the original structure, bringing an enhanced edition with more levels and updates that significantly improve the experience. Alien Breed II: The Horror Continues, on the other hand, represents a more expressive visual evolution, with completely redesigned environments and different creatures that help move its visual identity further away from its cinematic inspirations. The ability to switch between the original Amiga and Amiga Advanced versions is also an interesting feature of the collection, allowing players to experience different historical graphical configurations. Still, I consider this second game one of the weakest entries in the series, especially when compared to the other experiences available.

Tower Assault, on the other hand, was much more enjoyable for me. With options between Amiga CD32 and Amiga 1200, it presents a more interesting structure, including a map that needs to be scanned to reveal information that was previously available more easily. The atmosphere also stands out, with brutal environments showing the effects of the alien invasion on people, including medical centers and other locations that help contextualize what happened there. Combat is quite satisfying, although ammunition seems scarcer and the difficulty of finding exits remains. The number of Aliens appearing throughout the environments can make the experience challenging even by today's standards, especially when we have to deal with loading times between levels. Some optimization in this area would have made progression more enjoyable.

On the other hand, exploring the environments, finding objects related to the people who were there, and discovering fragments of the story are aspects that make the journey more interesting. There is also a time limit for completing missions, increasing the pressure during exploration. My main recommendation for anyone planning to start with the classic games is to pay close attention to their sense of direction and try to memorize the paths. Exploration can be quite demanding, but the encounters make up for much of that effort.

The franchise undergoes another significant transformation with Alien Breed 3D, which abandons the top-down perspective and adopts a first-person presentation very similar to DOOM. The change works very well, especially because exploration now takes place through three-dimensional corridors, encouraging players to search for secrets while maintaining much of the combat structure we already know. Alien Breed 3D 2: The Killing Grounds continues this approach, introducing important quality-of-life improvements, although it also makes some thematic changes that move it somewhat further away from the identity established previously. It is interesting to follow this transition between different styles within a single collection, especially considering that the games were released relatively close to one another.

Another aspect worth highlighting is how the collection preserves these experiences without making unnecessary changes that would compromise the original games. The available filters help adapt the presentation to modern equipment, while the different graphical configurations allow players to better understand the characteristics of the original versions. I also enjoyed the amount of historical information provided about each release, including platforms, languages, perspectives, and other interesting details. Overall, this preservation allows us to see how Alien Breed evolved technically during its early years, while maintaining the characteristics that help define each entry.

ACHIEVEMENTS

The achievements in Alien Breed 35th Anniversary Collection are spread across the different games in the compilation, covering specific moments of progression, exploration, and campaign completion. There are 18 achievements in total, encouraging players to experience each of the available titles, from the early top-down games to the three-dimensional adventures. Most are tied to natural events throughout the campaigns, such as reaching specific sectors, obtaining certain weapons, surviving important situations, and facing threats that are part of each game's progression. As a result, there is no need to complete a series of artificial challenges to make progress through the list, since most achievements follow the natural development of the adventures.

In addition to the campaigns, the collection also includes an achievement for Horde Mode, requiring players to survive until they reach a specific number of kills. The final achievement depends on obtaining all the others, meaning that players will need to experience practically all the content covered by the list. Overall, it is a fairly accessible selection in terms of structure, especially since the objectives are distributed across the six games, although the natural difficulty of some older campaigns may require extra attention during exploration and combat. For those aiming to complete all 1,000 Gamerscore, it will be important to understand the particularities of each title and progress through their respective endings.

TRAILER OFFICIAL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yBRisaYAKg

FINAL THOUGHTS

Some issues weigh on the experience, particularly the difficulty of finding exits, the excessive number of enemies at certain moments, and the loading times between Tower Assault levels. Alien Breed II also ended up being one of the least interesting experiences for me, especially when compared to the improvements introduced in later entries. These are characteristics that may require considerable patience from players unfamiliar with games from this era, particularly because the collection preserves much of the difficulty found in the original versions.

On the other hand, revisiting the evolution of this franchise is quite interesting. Tower Assault was one of the games I enjoyed the most, both for its atmosphere and for the way it presents its environments and encourages exploration. The ability to experience different versions, switch graphical configurations, and access historical information about each release also adds considerable value to the package. Local co-op for two players is another very welcome feature, expanding the possibilities for enjoying these games together. Furthermore, Alien Breed 3D and its sequel showcase a significant transformation in the series, offering experiences that help us understand how Team17 experimented with different directions over the years.

Overall, I consider Alien Breed 35th Anniversary Collection a very well-made compilation of a franchise I honestly wasn't familiar with. It is a faithful preservation effort, bringing classic games to modern platforms without resorting to changes that compromise their identity. I believe those who followed Alien Breed back in the day will find an interesting opportunity to revisit these titles, while newer players may have a curious experience discovering a series inspired by the Alien movies but one that developed its own identity in video games. I'm not sure how much this presentation will appeal to an audience that has never experienced the original games, especially given some of the difficulties that remain intact, but it is certainly worth trying this collection to discover an interesting part of Team17's history.