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Developed and published by Team 17 in 1992

The Alien Breed games were certainly some of the most iconic to grace the Amiga and this was the first in the series that I played.

The main difference between Alien Breed and the Special Edition is this version doubles the number of available levels; not bad considering it was a budget title.

It pays very obvious homage to the Alien movie franchise, especially Aliens, as you guide a marine around an infested spacestation on a mission to eradicate the alien threat. The aliens look very much like H.R. Geiger's famous creation, from tiny little facehuggers to big hulking xenomorphs.

The game is similar to Gauntlet in that the levels are mazelike and you must locate keys to open doors to progress. The player must decide whether to use keys to open doors to rooms that contain bonus credits, ammo and health, or whether to simply push on towards the objective.

Credits can be used to buy new equipment from the various Intex System terminals dotted around each level. New weapons are more effective at blasting aliens than your default machine gun, especially the flamethrower and laser rifle.

I knew the game was hard as I never made much progress when I owned this as a child, but I had no idea just how brutally hard the game actually was. Several levels result in destruct sequences where you must locate the exit before time runs out, but it's the surprise in store on deck 6 with the fake extra life that really takes the biscuit.

The game becomes less fair and less enjoyable as the game goes on and the final ending sequence is a complete kick in the teeth.

The music and sound effects are really well produced and the graphics are great. The graphics in subsequent Alien Breed titles would go on to be some of the best on the system.

I don't know if it was just me being unlucky, but I had to try 3 different copies of the game before I could complete it as there were various glitches that just broke the game. Some corridors were impassable due to poor sprite collision and in one copy the 1 second timer that starts when you pick up the fake extra life on deck 6 ticks down far too quickly for you to reach the exit lift.

When it works, the game is excellent, but it ends up a mixed bag because of the difficulty. Challenging I can accept, but sometimes it's just plain mean.

Enjoy!
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