Online play was one of Sega’s big pushes with the Sega Dreamcast console. Not every game could connect to the internet, but those that did were heavily advertised. Alien Front Online, as you can probably gather from the name alone, was one of these such releases. It came out pretty late in the Dreamcast saga but I remember seeing it all over magazines back in the day. One of my friends gave me his copy almost a decade ago, but it wasn’t until recently I finally decided to give it a shot. Alien Front Online is a fantastic pick up and play action shooter that should be re-released. Let’s take a look here with this review!
There isn’t really much story exposition here. As you can probably surmise on your own the planet Earth is under attack by an alien menace and the world militaries are defending against this offensive. I don’t really care that there aren’t animated sequences and the scenarios are told to us by thin walls of text. That’s not why I played Alien Front Online. What I wanted was to blow up some stuff, and that’s precisely what I did. Before we get into how it plays I just want to say that it’s nice this game offers a simple arcade mode for those who want to jump right into the action. Along with this you have a campaign option which is the meat and potatoes for solo play. Finally an online mode which is arcade but with other human players.
Before I continue on it’s worth saying that the servers for Alien Front Online have been closed down for a long time. What’s nice is that through the efforts of the console’s dedicated fanbase there are still methods by which you can play it online. I won’t go into those here, but the resources are very easy to find online!
Basic gameplay in Alien Front Online throws you into a tank (or alien mech… thing). You maneuver around 3D arenas blasting opponents and objects in the environment to smithereens. You view the action from behind your vehicle (either close up or far away depending on preference). Moving your vehicle is done by pressing either up or down on the analog stick. You fire your default weapon with A. There’s a neat strafe included wherein your tank can drive forward while you look and aim your weapon to the side. You’ll need to master this if you want to be successful in the main campaign or even arcade mode. I’ll go over the two modes separately.
First let’s start with arcade. Here your goal is to eliminate a specific number of enemies within a time limit. This plays like a pretty standard arena shooter; your opponents and teammates are controlled by the AI. You have a nifty radar in the upper right hand portion of the screen to show you where everyone is at. You have a life bar at the top of the screen and everytime you are eliminated the opposition gains a point. The same goes for when you defeat an enemy. It’s pretty basic stuff. You have a time limit which, when it runs out, you must use a credit to keep going. You can add time to the clock by getting kill streaks, and won’t last long unless you take advantage of this.
The campaign mode plays a little differently. You can choose between playing as the army or the aliens. Many of the missions are identical and just take place in different locations. You are given objectives to complete here, and a time limit in which to do so. These range from destroying specific buildings, running POWs over, etc. There isn’t a ton of variety amidst these but it’s fair enough. The campaigns feature branching storylines which is pretty neat at least. Personally I prefer jumping into the arcade mode because typically in a game like this I want no frills destruction. To each their own however. When you play online it’s a 4 vs 4 set up in the basic arcade mode. It’s a lot of fun, and you can even voice chat using the microphone that was packaged in with the game.
What’s nice is that the developers, WOW Entertainment, put in a lot of different options for gameplay. For starters no matter the side you choose there are three vehicles to choose from. They’re functionally similar; both sides have an all rounder, a slow but powerful tank, and a speedy but weaker one. Alien Front Online seems to reward the faster options a lot more. I was able to cruise around the battlefield leaving in my path a wake up destruction when I chose these machines. When going with the more powerful tanks however I struggled to get one than one kill before being blown up. This aspect of the game could have used some more polish.
Each of these vehicles comes equipped with a standard shot you can use infinitely, but there are more powerful secondary weapons available as well. These are picked up as power-ups (you can also restore your health with a first aid icon) and some of the effects they wreak are hilarious and fun. Most of the time it’s a projectile attack, but there are some diverse effects. One of these allows you to guide the missile yourself which may lead you defenseless, but hey, you’re controlling a missile. Another lets you charge up for a powerful blast against the enemies which can one shot them, you have heat seeking shots, and more. The secondary weapons add some much needed diversity to the standard gameplay.
Alien Front Online is a very beautiful game. The environments are based on realistic areas which can be kind of drab. These are greatly enhanced by the alien biological masses overtaking them as well as the colorful explosions. Everything is rendered with a lot of polygons, and thanks to pronounced differences in color schemes between the two sides you’ll never mistake an ally for a foe. The framerate stays steady which is surprising because of how chaotic the action can be. The soundtrack is pretty typical action rock/techno but to be honest it kind of fell flat with me. After a few minutes I stopped noticing it, and everything was drown out with explosions. These sound great and use high quality samples.
