XENOMARINE Demo

If it’s one thing we learned about deep space after all these sci-fi movies and TV shows, it’s that every planet out there is probably filled with awful alien creatures that crave human brains. Thankfully, it usually only takes one brave marine to sort it all out and basically drive an entire race to extinction, and we have plenty of those, so the future is looking pretty bright.

XENOMARINE is a sci-fi roguelike in which you have to survive a constant onslaught of face huggers and various other aliens. Although it’s pretty basic from a technical point of view, the game can still keep you busy for a few hours, especially if you are a fan of randomness and survival. On the other hand, it’s still a bit unbalanced as of right now, so you might just die from the first few seconds without getting a chance to retaliate.

There is a simple and unimportant story to explain your predicament as well, although it wasn’t really needed. As it happens, you were a marine tasked with eliminating an alien nest together with your squad, but everything went completely wrong. Thus, you are left alone with just a crowbar and what you can find around the military research station.

Part of being an explorer is to make due with what you can find around the places you visit. In this case, crafting helps you combine various metal pieces and items you pick up along the way. Unfortunately, you can only do this if you stumble onto a workbench, which are not always that common. The same goes for first aid stations and skill upgrades, which also have to be done near designated stations.

As mentioned before, there is a small problem when it comes to balancing. You start with a crowbar, which does very little damage. You also have a great chance to miss your attacks, so enemy encounters are that much difficult because of that. It takes a pretty long time to stumble into a decent weapon, but even then you have to worry about ammunition and the like. While it’s natural for a roguelike to be frustrating, it just feels like everything is based on luck rather than skill and strategy.

When it’s all said and done, you can still have a blast with XENOMARINE, at least if you don’t take it very seriously. However, it could use a bit of work in the combat department, mainly so it won’t feel like Lady Luck is controlling the confrontations.