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Alpha Prime

Moby ID: 29992
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Alpha Prime is a rather unusual asteroid which holds in its rocks the veins of a material called hubbardium. This "liquid metal" is the main component in the fuel of interstellar ships, so the State Business Federation quickly steps in and takes control of it. But hubbardium also has a bad side-effect. It has slowly intoxicated the minds of the workers. Even many of the computers got infected because they operate with positron brains. So the corporation decided to seal the place and leave.

But the call of hubbardium was too strong, so illegal visitors began to infiltrate the complex, realising that some of them were somewhat naturally immune to the effects of hubbardium. So they began once again to mine and instead of making fuel, they sold the material as a drug. All went well for them until one day they discovered a vein of hubbardium that was so big that the radiation affected even the strongest minded of the miners, so all hell broke loose.

One of the persons on Alpha Prime was Warren, the current boyfriend of Livia and a former friend of Arnold. Arnold himself is an old prospector, who is also resistant to the effects of the material. So Warren sends out a distress call, and Arnold and Livia make their way to Alpha Prime to rescue Warren and the others.

The player slips into the boots of Arnold and makes way deep into Alpha Prime in typical ego-shooter-fashion, not only to rescue Warren but also to uncover what lurks behind the scenes. On the way through the corridors of the base and the surface of Alpha Prime, the player will encounter heavy resistance from Special Forces soldiers sent by the corporation, robots controlled by infected positron brains and deranged miners.

But Arnold isn't defenseless. During the course of the game he'll find several weapons beginning from a simple axe over a shotgun to really heavy stuff like a rocket launcher or flame thrower. If he finds pure hubbardium, he can inject himself with it and slow down time for a few seconds to gain an advantage over his clever enemies. They aren't stupid and will use cover or retreat if they notice a huge disadvantage, only to regroup around the next corner and start a new offensive on Arnold.

The player also has access to a hacking tool that can be used to open doors or manipulate security systems, and in a few sections the player will encounter a friendly person who will help Arnold a little. Like in DOOM³, the player needs oxygen when walking on the surface of the planet, but instead of air bottles Arnold will find oxygen-stations at which he can replenish his supply.

Spellings

  • 最後生機 - Taiwan spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

48 People (35 developers, 13 thanks) · View all

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Lead 3D Arrtist
Original Concept
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 62% (based on 25 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.9 out of 5 (based on 23 ratings with 2 reviews)

Nice presented sci-fi shooter

The Good
I liked the graphics and presentation. The environment is also very interesting, something like Doom 3, but not so dark. The weapons and their efficiency (except the shotgun effective only on very close range) I liked too.

The Bad
I hated playing the game on higher than Easy difficulty. The game changed to save-load-maybe-this-time-you-will-be-lucky type of gaming. The enemies ALWAYS shoot faster and with 100% accuracy. I like difficult games, where you must use various different strategies to beat the AI. But this is not the case. Entering some levels with 30% of health means a dead end, the restarting of a previous level again (I use quicksave only during the game).

The other thing I didn't like was the talk of the characters. Using too many words like f..k a s..t doesn't make me feel that they are cool or cold-blooded; it just makes the characters look primitive.

The Bottom Line
Alpha Prime is well presented sci-fi FPS, very similar to Doom 3. Driving a buggy or using the train adds fun and variability to the game. Start playing on Easy difficulty, no matter how experienced a player you are.

Windows · by Silmarillion (70) · 2008

Tried To Like It, But Somehow Failed--It's Terrible!

The Good
Is there ANYTHING good about this game? ???

Yes. The 3D engine performs very, very well. Some may argue that it's because it's not actually doing very much that would tax hardware, but whatever. I like it when 3D engines perform well!

The female model (seen in the opening cinematic, which ran quite too long while telling us not much) is the best I've ever seen! Very realistically and well-shaped, moving fluidly, and looks great! No really, she does! Hehehe...

And the third and last good thing is that you get to fight armed killer-robots! We've all fought Marines, Zombied-Marines, Hellspawn, a million different kinds of aliens, Mafia hitmen, redneck mercenaries, and army men too. But I think the last time that I got to shoot killer robots was when I played 'Robotron 2084'.... Christ! Just how long ago was that!? Yeah I think a good shooter with killer robots is a little bit overdue by now, people!

The Bad
I wanted to like this one, maybe calling it Far Cry in Space, or Doom³ Lite, but I rather instead found it under-developed in almost every aspect, poorly designed, and I found that it even has some alarming gameplay problems.

I mean did I really just run around in maybe a thousand circles for like an hour before realizing that the map was not linear but CIRCULAR!? Who the hell makes circular maps!? ??? I never did find that Exit! And this happened like in maybe the second map where the game is just barely starting! So awful!

The lighting effects were poor, making much of the graphics look garish, with too much gloss coupled with washed-out coloring. Turning down the Gamma down from its Factory-Default setting helped somewhat.

The story is sketchy at its best, but mostly is waaaay too vague. Never mind that I didn't know why I was shooting, I didn't even know WHO I was supposed to be shooting! And that's not good for a video-game at all!

All-in-all, it comes across as a video-game-equivalent of a bad, shoe-string-budgeted B-movie. I have to wonder: Is "Alpha" the title, or the development-status of this game program...?

The Bottom Line
1½ of 5 stars. I've played free homebrew mods for other FPSs that made for better games than this commercial release.

...But would somebody please make a good killer-robot FPS, please!...

Windows · by Strangerhand (128) · 2011

Trivia

German index

On September 28, 2007, the international version of Alpha Prime was put on the infamous German index by the BPjM. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.

To counter this move, the German publisher dtp entertainment AG released a modified version of the game in Germany. The changes include less blood, the removal of some of the corpses that can be found in the facility and the removal of the complete ragdoll-physics-system. The German rating organisation USK rated this version "Not free for minors".

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Sicarius.

OnLive added by firefang9212.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger.

Game added August 30, 2007. Last modified March 12, 2024.