Alien Front Online for Dreamcast

As we all know by now, the Dreamcast is barely holding on to dear life. Dreamcast?s are no longer being made, game companies are canning their games that were once supposed released on the Dreamcast, and SEGA has decided to become a 3rd party game developer rather than work by themself, which for some was good news, and for others it was bad news. But, fact is, the Dreamcast game library is getting shorter and shorter as the days go on to the point where Dreamcast owners are reaching in at the bottom of the barrel to obtain a good game. Alien Front Online possibly being one of them, is probably one of the final Dreamcast games to make a huge impact on the system, and what I mean by a huge impact, is that is isn?t the visuals, sound, or game modes that make this game stand out, it?s that Alien Front Online is the first home console game to ever include real-life voice chat by the use of a microphone (included with the game). And while the voice chat is a great feature to have, I feel as if it?s the only thing that?s holding the game up, not that the game is bad, but the question here is, what else is there that I haven?t already seen before?

Appearance:(n/a)
-Real-time voice chat
-Microphone included
-Up to 4 vs. 4 network play
-Offline arcade and tactics mode
-Control the army or aliens

Plots:(n/a)
They came without warning, without mercy?

?Unleashing, unimaginable, devastation on the people of Earth. Known as the Triclops, the aliens struck fear into the human race. They preyed on man, woman, and child alike, devouring them whole; their three-eyed gaze impassive, betraying no hint of emotion?making their actions all the more horrific?

The air forces of the world were useless, picked out of the sky by the orbiting alien mother ships. Only the surface forces are able to fight back, to give the aliens a pause. The world government has called out its cavalry, and the tank brigades are beginning to make headway against the onslaught. The battles have been fierce, but sporadic so far?

Now is the time for an all-out offensive. Now is the time for you to get involved. Will you fight side with your fellow man, or will you accept your role as food in a world ruled by aliens? You must choose your fate

***********************************

Humans! Low level life forms, tiny, and weak?

?Struggle to evolve against their very nature. They resist us with their manufactured vehicles and weapons. Though they fight us and destroy their own cities in the process. We, the mighty Triclops army, will preserve and take control of this planet. We are stronger in numbers, destructive power, and sheer terror?

After the destruction of the human air ships the mother ship commanders deemed it time for our forces to dominate the surface as we had the skies. Now we?ve taken the fight to the humans and are attempting to devour their hopes, dreams, and spirit. The fight has not been an easy one though! How can such a poorly evolved creature put up such a tremendous fight for survival?

We must rally as the time for human annihilation has come! The mother ship commands you to descend to the Earth?s surface and join your fellow Triclops. Will you fight side by side with your three-eyed brethen or will you let these lowly organisms take their planet back? You must choose your fate


Graphics:(8/10)
Alien Front Online will immediately draw attention for its visuals, which is pretty impressive due to the smooth textures and solid frame rate. First thing you?ll most likely notice are the vehicles. The army vehicles and additional weapons are machines of fire power and strength, each containing their own weaknesses and strengths (which I will get on to in the control area), all come out to look oh so good even after that nuclear bomb has been dropped on. Tanks are accurately recreated to look like what you would think a tank were to be. Still there are some little touches that make the ordinary vehicles in the game just as impressive as the aliens. Some are practically minor such as how the smallest tank of the group, the MK2 Merkava contains an antenna on top of the tank which will bend back in forth as your tank makes sharp turns or sudden movements, or when you set your tank still and fire to see your tank make a sudden jump back from the power placed into firing your shots. More noticeable things about the tanks such as how a soldier will pop the lid on top of the tank and look through a pair of binoculars the whole time as you move through the stages, to the movement of the tank as you?ll see each leave behind marks no matter if it be on pavement or sand as your tank coughs up dusts behind it as it mows down the neighborhood. Now on to the aliens vehicles, which are less machine then entity, are given a much more creative, flashier, always purple (why is that?) appearance then what was done for the tanks, which is obviously going to happen when you create such a game as Alien Front Online. Each vehicle is given a completely different appearance, such as the hover craft which can be best be compared as to those vehicles used in the Star Wars snow speeders in the Battle of Hoth scene. However, then there is 2L Walker which can best be described as a metallic crab, it contains four legs and a small cockpit area, and then finally there is the SP Walker, which is the biggest of them all, and can best be described as a slightly larger AT-ST being it is a two legged vehicle. Hmmm, now that I think about it, it seems those ?creative? developers had to borrow some ideas to create their own, either way the alien vehicles look great, with the exception of the Hov Craft (where all you see are bursts of flames behind the vehicle), each vehicle moves realisticly as the 2L Walker walks in a faster pace being it has more legs then any of the other vehicles as each of it?s legs come crashing down to the pavement, to the much slower SP Walker, which will takes bigger steps with it?s two enormous legs, leaving a trail of destruction behind it. But what?s best about each and every vehicle is the wear and tear you?ll notice as you go on to play the game. Tanks will sputter as to the point where your screen will give a cracked effect to alien tanks barely keeping themselves up as the bright flash of red lights invade your screen, and the explosions given off by the tanks are great, mushroom cloud shaped flames will rise upon the tanks, to the incredible looking explosions given off by the alien war crafts that can be seen from across the area.

The effects used on the explosions, from the weapons to the buildings also look incredible. While there are a total of eight weapons in all (flame thrower, turbo engine, grenade launcher, hellfire missile, guiding missile, machine gun, nuclear missile, homing missile), the ones that are most impressive for the army side are the turbo engine, where two cases of NOS (so it seems) are placed on the side of your tank as you accelerate to a blazing speed with flames shooting behind, leaving your enemies in the dust. The homing missiles, where from a yard away it will pick up a enemy on the screen and go through all the twists and turns from the obstacles to place a direct hit, the guiding missile as well gives the player a behind the missile view as you direct it through the environments. But what is the most impressive one out of the bunch has to be the nuclear missile, this weapon can immediately take out an opponent(s) in mere seconds as the timer will count down to three and then a huge flash of white light will flood the screen as you witness explosions from your enemies vehicles and not to mention the surroundings around you, leaving nothing but dust and debris in the air as you go on your way.

The alien technology for weapons is also limited to eight (gravity ball, flying drone, seeking wing, light swarm, cloaking spore, Cyclops blast, alien spike, meteor shower). The ones that stand out the most are the gravity ball, where you?ll prevent an enemy from firing you by lifting their vehicle of the ground, spin them helplessly in the air, and seconds later have them come crashing down. The light swarm which appears to look like shots of fireworks, is a swarm of plasma particles launched at the enemy, and the alien spike which is shaped as a scorpions tail will come crashing down to pierce through your enemies. But again, as the army side has their nuclear bomb, the aliens have their meteor shower which has the same damage and effect, making it something that has to be seen. Other such effects used are the destruction shown in the areas themselves. Caves will crumble as you fire on to them, cities will slowly come crashing down upon the clouds of dirt and ruble that will engulf them, or the abandoned cars left to appear as chunks of metal after all the damage you?ve given from firing your shells or plasma lasers. The only thing which I have to bring up is that the buildings can only be destroyed to a limit, you would think after firing 5 missiles that it would finally collapse, but no, think again. And that the locations themselves are rather uncreative when it comes to location that is, battles will take place in some areas such as Tokyo, Washington DC, Area 51, and much more. Not that they don?t look great, but when your placing the world against outside visitors, there could be so many other places that could have been selected.

Sound:(6/10)
Alien Front Online is a mixed bag when it comes to the tracks used in this game. Some will really get you up to beat with what?s happening, making you want to go on further for just ONE more match because some of the tracks are really quite impressive by giving off technotic beats. But then there are some tracks that will make you laugh, and wonder why in the heck you left the audio on, these tracks can best be compared to what you would hear at a circus or a local fair. The last thing I would want to listen to when taking on an alien life form for the safety of planet Earth is a happy toned drum beat which will never stop playing until that blasted timer reaches zero. Sound effects are about average, missiles shot out from the tanks don?t really seem to sound as if they make much impact, you would expect to hear a powering ?BOOM!? as you hear the missile rip through the air, but you hardly hear a single pop. There is a sound of course, but I doubt that it even comes close to sounding realistic, which not only makes the sound in the game appear bad, but the overall impression that these machines used in war actually carry power. In fact, it?s not just the tanks that sound mute; it?s mostly heard (or not heard) through out all the vehicles in the game.

Reason behind it is not because of the developers? fault, but probably because there is so many other things going on when playing the game that you wont be really be able to pay much attention to the sound your vehicle gives off. Such as the explosions and combustion of the environments. Buildings will slowly crackle to the point where they loose total support and you see the 12 story building?s fall down into a clutter of dust as you listen to the roaring sound of it falling apart, piece by piece. Or the metal crunching sound you?ll get when crushing down on a car or whatever metallic object it be, lamp pole, flag pole, fences, fire hydrant, everything is practically there that you would expect to see and hear. Another sound that will most likely drown everything else out is that simple ?beep!? you?ll hear practically every 5 seconds when playing in a full room with online players, this is the sound of your vehicle locking in on an enemy for you to fire at. I don?t mind this as much for the fact that it does alert you when an enemy is trying to cross on to your territory, but for some it may bother those who don?t care to listen to such a wonderful noise every five seconds, being that it can easily annoy even the most patient gamer. I now I wouldn?t.

But what most gamers will want to listen to, and be able to be heard, is the voice chat. While yes, it is a first for a home console system to enable a real life, live, voice chatting system, it?s far from perfect, more like below average. Players wanting to use this will have to place the included microphone, which is pretty much identical to the one from the Seaman game, into the second slot. Then by holding down the Y button once, you?ll be given the opportunity to communicate with your teammates, tapping the Y button twice and then holding it down will enable you to communicate with everyone in the room, your teammates and opponents. Oh and how long can those messages last? A whole five seconds. Not to sound like a Verizon spokesperson, but what could you possibly mention to your teammates, much less your opponents in 5 seconds? Practically nothing, and what?s worse is that the majority of what you?ll be saying won?t even come out clear enough for anyone to hear, making you repeat yourself more then once at some points in the game. Oh but it gets worse, while there is no visible lag in the game, there is a large amount of lag that you?ll be getting when trying to communicate, you?ll notice this when your simple message of ?good game?, comes out more like ?g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-go-go-go-good game?. And if someone else wants to say something also, either your message or his message, depending on who had started talking first will be cut off to where no one will ever hear it. So while yeah, it?s great that Sega brings new things to the online community for console games such as voice chatting, it?s far from even being acceptable.

Control:(4.5/10)
Alien Front Online has a somewhat balanced control system; however, I felt that some parts could have been tweaked. Each side controls completely different when it comes to vehicles, as you can guess, the smaller the vehicle the faster they go and less vulnerable to taking in damage, where it?s vice versa with the larger vehicles where speed is slow but their more vulnerable. But there are some few flaws that I noticed when playing Alien Front Online when it came to the handling of the vehicles, such as the alien?s hovercraft. Being it?s the smallest vehicle out of the rest, you would expect it to soar at a high speed, which it does, but when it comes to actually stopping your hover craft, you?ll have some trouble for the handling on slowing down this vehicle is horrible, your better off just slamming into a wall to stop.

The army side also has its flaws by its heaviest tank of the group, the M109-A2 hardly moves! Forget about trying to make a turn behind that building to snipe down that alien hover craft, because by the time you actually do make it you?ll get blown away from behind by that same hover craft in which were trying to snipe, that is if it didn?t get lost by slamming into the walls when making those turns. And while I don?t think the game developers behind Alien Front Online intended to do this, they somehow made it so the aliens have the overall advantage when it comes to speed. The army side does vary in speed, but it?s hardly noticeable where the alien?s seem to have a huge gap towards their speed levels, even the largest vehicle on the army side can out race the army?s largest tank. Which may not sound so bad, but when you finally go online and decide to choose to play as the army side, don?t expect to win a majority of your games be that the alien side has more players then the army side does.

Oh, and did I mention that the game requires no skill at all? Well, it doesn?t, making it not only seem repetitive and annoying to do the same exact commands, stage after stage, making you require not much skill at all, but just someone who can hit the firing button faster before blowing up.



Replay Value:(6/10)
Alien Front Online has its fair share of modes to play on, but question is, what?s the point of completing them? The tactics mode is a single player (as well as all the modes offline) mode where you play as either the army or aliens. Then you?ll be asked to complete 30 missions for each side, as you advance they will increase in difficulty as they ask you to do such things as destroy a certain number of enemies before the timer reaches zero, to something as basic as collecting a trial of items. And while your asked to successfully complete all 30 missions, your really not forced to since if you don?t complete the tasks in time, you can still move on to the next one, making it pretty much useless to even play being your reward for completing, or skipping the levels are some FMV mini clips of the army side taking on the aliens or vice versa, and yes by saying that is ALL you get, I am dead serious about it, sorry to disappoint anyone who had spent days and days completing them all, but you?ve wasted your time where extras go, but it can never hurt to brushen up on your skills.

Arcade Mode is also a single player timed mode, team death match. Depending on which side you choose, you?ll go through three levels, not all six but three, depending on which side you choose to play as. Not quite sure why but that?s what the developers thought would bring fun into the game, how wrong they were. Still your given a certain amount of time to destroy 15 enemies as you go on from stage to stage, you?ll receive additional time depending on how good you perform in the game. Your allowed three credits which will be used once your time expires, and after you have used all three you?ll receive a final score that will be uploaded to the servers, so next time you log on, you?ll get to know exactly where you stand, that is if you're in the top ten, of course. But again, I really don?t see a point in playing this, unless you?re the gamer who doesn?t use their modem, then this is the closest you?ll get to actually playing online. For there is no offline multiplayer modes at all, which really hurts the game, making even me ask, a person who can go online, why!?

Finally there is the online mode. Where there are a total of three modes in which players can choose. The team death match is basically when two teams (four members each) will go head to head till the given time limit reaches zero. The team with the highest amount of kills becomes the winner. Then there is the fortress mode; this is where the offensive team must completely destroy all four enemy fortress gates. The defending team just defends their fortress during this attack until the time limit reaches zero. Finally, there is the flag mode, where the object to this game is to hold on to the enemy?s flag for over 150 seconds in order to claim victory. Players can either join or create their room and be given such choices as the name of the room, number of players, type of game mode, the stage, and other options. Two new additions to online play in which I have never seen been used on other such Dreamcast games are the ranking system, which is based on stars and performance, and the ability to use the equipped microphone. But what?s best about the online play is the fact that there is literally no lag at all, and I don?t own a BBA, I use my 56k modem and the online games that I have played on this game have always maintained to be very smooth, the response timing for firing is dead accurate to what it would be offline and the only hint of lag that will show is if the servers are over jammed, or if the screen has to many things happening all at once. But in order for SEGA to accomplish the lag free online gaming, they had to decrease the consistency of the data being transferred across the network, such as rankings and results from after playing a game, so if you happen to see your opponent come out with 15 stars across his screen, blame the servers, thankfully it doesn?t actually count as 15, but as what they really did earn, which would be one or two, three at the most.

And while the modes in Alien Front Online give a somewhat wide variety of choices for gamers to play, I really felt as I wasn?t getting my money?s worth. Sure, the online play is great, but I really don?t think it was so great that the developers decided to just leave it at that for where multi-playing goes. What if I wanted to play with my friends or family? I doubt that they will individually invest $99.00 dollars (soon to be $45.00) for a Sega Dreamcast, purchase Alien Front Online, create an account to go online, and meet me at the lobby. And the offline modes like I said are pretty much useless since they have no real meaning to even being placed in the game since they don?t even make it a requirement that you successfully complete the missions. So why have the developers decided to keep such a useless mode as tactics over offline multi-player?.

Bottom Line:(6.125)
For a game that?s been in development for over two years, I would of expected much more from Alien Front Online. Not that it?s a bad game, but it lack of modes makes some people, especially those who aren?t able to go online, really miss out on what could have been a really great game.