Alpha Prime Review

Alpha Prime Review

Ima shoot some doodz

I am trying a few different approches at reviewing games, so I downloaded the Alpha Prime Demo off steam and... had a few things to say about it. First off, I think the developers of this game were trying to mix half-life 2, doom 3, and F.E.A.R. and produce an easy moneymaker game. Let me say this now - it didn't work out for them as easily as they hoped. Half-Life 2 was not in fact defined by the physics, although it was a good point of it. Doom 3 was not all about the outdoor marsish enviornments and fancy door locks. FEAR did not use the time-slowing ability as it's main selling point. Alpha Prime tries to combine all these into a game that looks like it was created 5 years ago based on the weapons and graphics. Now, if this had been created by one dude, I would have been impressed.

Click the pic - They include the manual and the book of system failures IN THE GAME... lol

Concept

Alpha Prime starts with a cutscene that shows a security camera which sees a fireball crash on the planet surface. Thats great. Then it goes to first-person, and expects you to go behind where you start through a narrow passageway that is almost hard to see in order to retreve a gatling gun and some grenades. The first thing you notice is the graphics. I had the settings as high as they could go, and it still looked... plastic. The textures were very plain and big, and the bloom effect coming from the axe you spawn with is way overdone. The second thing you notice is how you move around the world. Most of it is the usual FPS game stuff, same controls you are used to; but the terrain is slanted in many places, and this presents a very large problem. If you find the right path to walk on you are fine, but if you jump or land on a slanted surface or one with a small but abrupt change in elevation, you notice a lot of clumsyness with the design. Once I got the gun but sufficated right next to an oxygen tank because I couldn't jump from a slanted sandy surface onto a three inch up platform. Also, if you go to any place the game designers don't want you to go, you die. There are no autosaves either, you have to remember to quicksave every once in a while; which I am terrible at, because I would rather be immersed in the story.
One more thing I would like to mention is the first friendly that you meet. He seems to be Italian and in his commentary randomly inserts French, Spanish, and Italian words. He also just happens to be a little on the insane/mentally challenged side. His lines do not much help the already simple-and-corny story. Here are two examples:

...ok. One thing I liked about this game was that there is one part at the beginning where you can play basketball with a bulletproof ball. I found this to be more entertaining then the actual gameplay.

Play some Bball!

So overall, I would say do not buy this game unless you already have all the better FPSs, you have a lot of money to waste, and you are in the mood for a completely mindless shooter.

How convenient!