They mostly come out at night…mostly
Developer Tindalos Interactive has done an excellent job at taking the Alien franchise and merging it with a survival-horror-strategy game and with that coming up with a new sub-genre of game. Aliens Dark Descent takes players to the planet of Lethe, where of course some greedy SOB from the Weyland-Yutani company decides to set loose the smooth headed xenomorphs on the unsuspecting populace. Narratively speaking Dark Descent isn’t breaking new ground here as every Aliens film can be summed up similarly to some extent because humans are greedy. But while trying to stop the outbreak the director of the station ends up stranding herself and a squad of UNSC marines on the planet full of xenomorphs.
MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $39.99
Unlike games like XCOM, in Dark Descent players won’t be controlling each marine separately but instead control them as a while squad. Which means the AI will decide which marine should heal another or put up the sentry gun. This is something that players can select a specific marine for each task, but the real-time nature of this game makes micro-managing very difficult. One of the nice things DD does is when players need to use an ability like a shotgun blast, or a grenade launcher the game will pause the action so that the ability can be aimed. This little reprieve in the action is welcome, as situations can escalate quickly in Aliens: Dark Descent.
As players complete various objectives around large maps stealth is better than being aggressive. One alien is enough to kill a marine if they aren’t focused so it behooves players to move slowly, and the game will suggest this as well. One of the added things though is that the voice over for the marines as you move them along a dark tunnel is SUPER LOUD. Like we are sneaking, you just told me the aliens are drawn to noise so why would you be then shout “DOUBLE TIME MARINES” because I told you to move to a different point? It just makes no sense contextually and really worse than that it gets annoying really fast. But if the threat of disturbing the hive isn’t enough to be stealthy then perhaps the fact that players will need to ensure their characters stress level doesn’t get too high and induce a breakdown ala Darkest Dungeon. Honestly, it’s a really cool mechanic, if marines get to stressed, they will become less accurate or even disobey orders and then “game over man, game over”
As players make their way through the massive levels to complete various mission objectives, they will also be forced to search for health packs, ammo and equipment which will all be useful in surviving. And don’t think that you are going to complete these missions in one run, ohhh no sir (or ma’am or whatever) this game is hard as steel balls. I killed 4 squads of marines before I started over on Story mode, but the game helps to offset this difficulty by allowing players to extract at any time with their marines if they can make it back to the APC (Armored Personal Carrier) which will also help to move about the massive maps when going on foot is dangerous. Any marines who can make it back to the base will be rewarded with experience and can be trained in a new class and use better equipment; much like XCOM.
Aliens: Dark Descent does a great job of mashing up tactical action and the tension and fear of its source material. Not without its pain points however such as the lip syncing during cutscenes, controller buttons not being recognized usually when in the heat of battle, and some other bugs and glitches. I commend these developers for taking so many different things and successfully putting them together to deliver a wonderful tactical strategy game, some more time gestating and this one would have been ready to really burst forth and do some real damage.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
