Alien Breed 2 Assault has recently hit Xbox Live Arcade and is the follow up to Alien Breed Episode 1. For those who haven’t played the first title you are given a brief summary of the events that transpired in the original title to bring you up to speed. You begin the game on an alien ship and it is your job to try and get all of the systems back online so that you can escape. As you progress through the game you will come across various alien species that are trying to take you out and a lot of the time they will pop up through the floor in front of you so you have to be quick on the trigger. With that said though, the amount of ammo that you have could be a problem if you aren’t diligently investigating your surroundings. You do have a standard pistol that has unlimited ammo but when you have a group of enemies swarming around you that isn’t going to help very much. During those times you are going to want ammo for your shotgun or for your assault rifle because those do so much more damage. Additionally, as you explore the environment, you will gain credits. Credits can be used to upgrade your character and make him more efficient in fights. There are weapon upgrades such as increasing the rate of fire, having each round do more damage and things of that nature. You can also upgrade various items to make your character more powerful.
As you progress through the game you will be getting guidance from Mia. She will be telling you what your next objective is and putting waypoints on your radar so that you know what direction you are supposed to go. Just like the original title, this game returns with some old school top down action. You can utilize the right and left bumpers to change camera positions and get a better view of the action and carnage that is surrounding you. Your weapons and items are also quickly available by utilizing the d-pad. You can choose to go through this game solo or team up with a friend and go through it together. The game features both local co-op as well as co-op over Xbox Live. There are also three different game modes for you to try out. There is Story Mode which is pretty self explanatory and then Free Play and Survivor Mode. These modes should definitely add a little replayability to this title. Leaderboards are also available so that you can see how you stack up against all your friends as well as the rest of the world. Graphically speaking this game looks better than its predecessor and Team 17 did a really great job with it. There also didn’t appear to be as much backtracking as there was in the original title which I definitely appreciated.
Overall I enjoyed my time with Alien Breed 2: Assault. It’s a fun title to go through and going through it with a friend only increases the fun factor. This seems like one of those titles where it would be great if you only had a few minutes of free time. You could easily turn this game on, play for a few minutes and then leave. Be sure to check out this title. Even if you weren’t all that happy with the original title at least download the demo for this one and give it a chance. You’ll be happy that you did.
Score 8/10
