Alien Breed: Impact Demo

Alien Breed: Impact is a 3D top-down shooter developed by the Team17 studio in which the player must survive on a ship invaded by aliens.

Top-down shooters are a different breed. Unlike other genres, most of the games that have been released under this umbrella have been rather good. Alien Breed: Impact is just the first in the series, but it was pretty good to begin with. It helps that it was made by an already established studio, so it’s not like an indie game.

Alien Breed: Impact is not a complicated game, and it doesn’t pretend to be one. You move around, shooter enemies, get more ammo, move to the next zone. Its simplicity is what makes it interesting and easy to play. You don’t have to be really good at shooters since it’s played from a top-down perspective, so great precision is not required.

Even if the action takes place in the cramped and often dangerous environments, it doesn’t feel like it. Hordes of alien creatures are not enough to scare the players, who will continue to push on despite being under constant attacks.

The players start with a simple gun that has infinite ammo, and a pretty powerful machine gun with more than enough bullets. The flame thrower that follows soon after is even better. Ammo can be found in large quantities, and you can always use the terminal to get more of it or to upgrade the character.

With all the destruction going on, there is still time to spend the credits that you stole from the dead people on board the ship. As I mentioned above, you awake to find the ship crashing. The AI from the ship is guiding you to the reactor room to get the power back online and to stop the ship from crashing into a planet below.

The game is powered by the Unreal engine. It’s an older version of the engine, Alien Breed: Impact still looks good and runs great on modern hardware. Only a few levels are available in the provided demo.