Alien Syndrome

Alien Syndrome has lost much colour in its conversion to the Spectrum, it loses nothing in gameplay. The graphics are cute and quite varied. The massive alien at the end of each level is well-drawn and its animation is surprisingly smooth as it spews forth red gunge at you (which Nick mistook for Cherry Coke...). Unfortunately 128K owners get no extra music because 48K BASIC must be selected to load the program. Nevertheless, the existing sound FX are atmospheric enough without the need for snazzy title tunes. What really makes Alien Syndrome so playable is its concept. Shooting squirming aliens is satisfying, and the half-screen scrolling makes progress more difficult than on the coin-op, as you never know what lurks ahead. Whereas the one-player game involves frantic blasting, with two players more care must be taken to avoid shooting your colleague (clumsy Caswell should watch where he's firing his bullets!).

The only thing I find negative about this game is that you have to almost be at the edge of the screen for the screen to move around. It is extremely easy to walk into an alien and die as a result from this. The rest of the game is top-notch for its time. Made in 1989, it is really good looking for its age and plays really well.

Playability, the most important bit, is brilliant! The addictive content is also very heavy, until you start getting onto the higher levels where the task gradually becomes more and more tiresome. That said, however, the difficulty level is geared to make it a challenge - we certainly didn't make it out of the first few levels in a hurry. We also reckon the one player game is slightly easier to make progress on, though it's somewhat less fun.

Alien Syndrome for the SMS is a classic that I recall fondly. In fact it was probably the most fun I've had on the "Master System," but for those of you who didn't play it, you might as well go out and find one of the other versions.

Vor knapp fünf Jahren faszinierte Sega die Arcade-Fans mit dem Alien-lastigen Actionspektakel Aliensyndrome. Halbherzige Computerversionen und eine kompetemte Master-System-Umsetzung brachte uns die Alien-Hatz ins traute Heim. Mittlerweile liegt der Japanimport für das Game Gear vor, der nicht identisch mit der Master-System-Adaption ist.

As a game in its own right, it's not that bad; as a conversion it has lost much of the playability and atmosphere of the coin-op original.

One of Tengen's better games. It is fairly common and you can probably find it easily. I recommend picking it up if you just want a simple minded shooter to play, or if you want to marvel at the elusive KING CORE..

The graphics and sound are just kind of there by necessity. Much like the rest of the game, they aren't really interesting. Essentially this game suffers from not a whole lot interesting going on Syndrome. It will likely last you a bored evening looking for something to do after you have beaten Resident Evil 4 for the 80th time. Or maybe Thats just me ...

The game gets off to a slow start, with beginning stages that are really easy. The background music can't match the menacing tones of the Sega Master System game, and the sound effects are also disappointing. This NES edition plays better, but offers a somewhat forgettable shooting experience.

Yet again we find another reason for the demise of the SMS in America and Canada. They chose their stock titles without importing the better releases and when they finally did it was way too late. Sometimes a game can survive on graphics alone, but it's quite rare. Off hand I can't even think of one. So even though this is graphically a bit more presentable than the NES version, it's just not worth the time in comparison. The stupid alien on the cover (which looks better than anything in the game) isn't even present anywhere at any time. This whole game is a lie. Don't even bother.

I will admit that some of these shape-changing freaks are pretty disgusting. The one thing I hate about Alien Syndrome is how the aliens simple materialize out of thin air with little warning. Not only does it look cheesy, but it accounts for too many cheap deaths. I also found the controls to be somewhat slippery and inexact, making the game harder than it really should be. Alien Syndrome is certainly playable but ultimately unremarkable and forgettable.