Review of Alien Swarm

Alien Swarm is a remake of a 2004 Unreal Tournament mod. Its developed by Valve and released for free on Steam. Alien Swarm is a online 4 player co-op top-down action shooter. The game is fast, intense, simple and best of all, reminds me a bit of Smash TV. Given its price, its definitely worth trying.

You'll take control of a marine in a 4-man squad - choosing between an officer, weapon specialist, medic or technical specialist. Each class has its own strength and access to unique weapons and equipment. Thankfully, each class is more than able to hold its own - so you're free to pick whichever will help the team out the most. You'll pretty much start each mission at point A and have to make your way to point B, finishing off objectives (like killing X eggs) on the way. Of course, you're going to meet plenty of alien enemies on the way - and maps are setup in such a way that your team is going to have to stick together and work together to survive.

This brings up the best and worst thing about Alien Swarm. Its a refreshingly difficult game and you will fail and die. While I'm a fan of hard games - a specific type of enemy will infest a player and kill him (even from full health). The only solution, other than avoiding getting infested, is to heal through it. This puts considerably more pressure on the group's medic and, in my opinion, could be toned down somehow.

As you play, you'll accumulate experience and gain levels (independent of which character class you play) - unlocking new gear. A lot of the gear seems useless - which is a little disappointed and makes the game more one dimensional than it has to be. Nonetheless, leveling is fast and an effective addition.

What Alien Swarm really needs are more game modes - capture the flags, team death match, cage fights and so on would probably be awesome and add a tremendous amount of depth and re-playability. As-is, while its worth playing (again, especially since its free), how much you get out of it will depend on how quickly you get bored with the repetition. Aside from that, the game is interesting in that its a casual game which happens to be, in comparison to other casual games, very difficult.