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Title Alien Storm
Game type General Action
Publisher Sega/US Gold/Tiertex, 1991
Players 1 or 2 (simultaneous)
Compatability ECS (All With WHDLoad Patch)
HD Installable Yes (With Patch)
Submission Pretentious Nickname Profiled Reviewer

Review
Alien Storm is a side-scrolling action game similar to Sega's earlier
coin-op hit, Golden Axe. (If I'm not mistaken, they used the same engine!)

Alien Storm is set in the future, where you (as Gordon, Karla, or Scooter)
must save the world from alien invasion. You are armed with your normal
weapon (Gordon has a plasma gun, Karla has a flamethrower, Scooter has an
electric whip) and a special weapon (utilised by pressing the space bar)
that'll wipe out everything on the screen.

You progress through each level, defeating the horde of grotesque
creatures until coming to the level's end. Here, on odd-numbered levels,
the perspective will shift to a first-person view (a la Dynamite Duke, or
Operation Wolf if you're more familiar with that) where you will blast
aliens in the convenience store, electronics shop, etc. Or, at the end of
every even numbered level, your character will break into a run, and begin
to chase down those alien scum. Here, you simply move around shooting,
trying to kill as many aliens as you can, while avoiding their attacks and
jumping over obstacles.

Graphically, the game is average. The graphics for the main characters are
fairly good, but most of the aliens are pretty poorly drawn. The same can
be said for the backgrounds. The whole game has a sort of cheap,
low-budget look to it.

The sound is pretty poor as well. There's NO ingame music! You're left
simply with the sounds of your weaponry, the grunts your character makes
when hit, and the sounds of the aliens. None of which were very good...

The part that ultimately made me turn the game off were the controls. They
were AWFUL! Far too many times I found myself jumping or rolling
unintentionally, I could rarely fire when I wanted to, and the aliens tend
to box your character in unfairly. The control scheme in Alien Storm is
similar to the Amiga version of Golden Axe, but is nowhere NEAR as tight
and responsive!

So, average graphics, poor sound, and worse controls. I tried HARD to like
Alien Storm, to give myself a chance to warm up to it, but it didn't work.

I really can't, in good conscience, recommend Alien Storm to anyone. If
you want to see how good the controls SHOULD have been, try the Amiga
version of Golden Axe.