Alien Breed 2: Puzzles! I mean Shooting Aliens! PEW PEW

More Aliens!   More Weapons!  More... puzzles?  Chapter 2 of Alien Breed nearly immediately launches us into solving puzzles.  Admittedly simple puzzles, but its still an odd juxtaposition for a 80's arcade shooter remake.

This chapter is clearly about teh puzzls

Ok, poison trap puzzle solved, we're off to meet up with Mia, the creepy robot lady (possibly taken over by an evil AI.  We've been hinted at).

Dear Team 17.  It's me again.  Let's talk about sound design. You've made each and every baddie have a unique noise.  Having the creepy background roar be  different from anything I've killed isn't scaring me.  I know that thing isn't gonna attack me, because its too busy stalking beneath the decks and knocking shit over.  If it turns out I actually get to kill the cowardly noisemaker, I'll forgive you on this score.  But I'm skeptical.

In any case, background noises with enough force to knock over scenery don't make this a survival horror game.  It doesn't even qualify as a jump-scare, sorry.

More bio-junk, and shit knocked over by the cowardly noisemaker

Hey, I got a new gun!  The Flamethrower looks nifty, but at the moment its more  or less useless.  I nearly got myself killed testing it on a group of standard baddies.  There's no knockback, and I take damage from the flames too.  Great.

Well, I'll hope I find something it works on.  If nothing else, its a more powerful backup to go alongside my infi-ammo sidearm.

A new toy!  Except it sucks :(

Puzzles and aliens fall before me until I find myself locked in a giant cargo hold with a rocket launcher on the floor.  This bodes.  It does not bode well.....

Another new toy!

Mia shows up on a viewscreen and lets me know I'm her only hope.  But I have to "brace myself for a fight first."

Its sad that the dialogue looks better in text than it sounds.  Stilted is the best descriptor I can come up with.

Lots of aliens later, I break out of the locked-room trap without having actually used my newest toy.  My assault rifle and a few judiciously thrown stun grenades served me in good stead.   I hope it comes in useful later.  It's still boding at me.

Stilted Dialogue is Stilted

We need to talk about sound design again.  The various loot and rewards I've hoarded means I finally manage to upgrade my assualt rifle's damage output.  It know looks more like a cannon than a rifle, and the muzzle flash and tracers are impressive.

It sounds like a popgun.  Seriously.  I don't get a deep BOOM to go along with my hand cannon?  I guess all the audio creativity went into the cowardly noisemaker.

Weapon Upgrade! W00t!

Fortunately, the upgrade does do a lot more damage.  I breeze to my next objective, where I meet Mia for the first time in the ...flesh?  Synthetic pseudo-flesh?  Uncanny valley body covering?

Whatever.  In person, anyway.

Finally meeting Mia, the slightly creepy robot lady.

She says a few more silly things, and from there there is only a (yet another) "survive for 30 seconds" set piece while robo-lady fixes the elevator

Woo!  Time for another break!

Chapter 3 to follow when I can steel myself to play it.