Alien Breed 3: Descent Review

Team 17 bring us the latest installment in the Alien Breed franchise, with Alien Breed: Descent. Will it provide the final piece in the puzzle?

Seemingly having a much quicker release window than the last iteration of Alien Breed, this begs the question of whether there has been as much innovation in the series as there was between the first and second episodes. Sadly, the answer to this question is no. However, the game play aspects that made the first two installments brilliant games haven't changed either, which is great - but ultimately it leads to the thought process that the game is now something that would have been better off as a full retail release, rather than delivering false expectations of innovations to each section.

The game play, graphics and sounds are all of the same level as the last outing, so by now you should know what you are to expect. General Unreal Engine 3 affair, brilliant lighting models with gloomy dark corridors, filled with evil aliens hell bent on finding the most tastiest part of your flesh. There's a new section of game play, where the camera drops down to your level as you run around staggering for oxygen, killing aliens left, right and center. This gives a small breath of fresh air into the game, but it might not be enough for those who've played from the first episode. If you've started at the third episode, there's some back-story you might have missed... but the game does attempt to tell you what happened when you start anew, with a brief comic book style intro. Something not too dissimilar to a "Previously On..." section you get at the start of some TV shows.

It's also fallen foul to what seems like 'game-padding' that is falsifying the game length, what with having your character sent back and forth to activate panels and switches and doors and panels and switches... It's a shame, for such a nice reboot of a series to have to settle for these tactics. It almost feels like Team 17 just wanted to get the game out onto the virtual shelves sooner rather than later. Another piece that makes the game feel like it should have been a full, retail release.

That said, the episode is hard to discuss without having more new features, upgrades or changes made to it to talk about. What we have is the final chapter of a solid game, that some might not play through till the end down to it's slightly overbearing repetition of the same things. Personally, having to mow down through thousands of aliens with bad-ass weaponry would have been more fun than running around between switches.

This review might seem somewhat negative, but that would be missing the point. Having discussed how good of a reboot the game is in the previous reviews for Evolution (on the Xbox 360 only), Impact (the upgraded Evolution, which Steam & PS3 owners got as their entry to the series), and Assault (which all three systems received), singing airs and graces for the third time wouldn't have made any difference. Instead then, the conclusion is that the series now as a whole, represents a fun, quality reboot of a title that many gamers wanted to see brought back to life.