Alienation turns the alien invasion into a loot run, and it mostly works

Alienation turns the alien invasion into a loot run, and it mostly works. Housemarque’s isometric twin-stick shooter came to PlayStation 4 in April 2016, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, and it asks one to four players to hold the line against an invasion of Earth. The hook is not the shooting, though the shooting is good. It is the stuff that drops when the shooting stops.

Four Soldiers and Three Classes

The premise is grim and simple. A large portion of the population has been murdered or mutated, and what is left of humanity leans on four soldiers from UNX, a military group assembled to help prevent alien attacks. You pick one of three classes: Bio-Specialist, Saboteur, or Tank. Each one has its own weapons, movement mechanics, and abilities.

The Bio-Specialist heals teammates and leaves poisonous trails. The Saboteur turns invisible and calls in airstrikes. The Tank raises a shield other players can stand behind, which lets a squad move through a bad room instead of dying in it. Classes level up to thirty. That spread is the whole argument for playing with other people.

Players can upgrade their weapons with collectables, known as upgrade cores.

Cores, Metal, and the Loot Loop

Weapons drop at random, and many carry slots for upgrade cores. Depending on the core, an upgrade changes rate of fire, clip size, damage, or other mechanics. Items and loot fall at random intervals and when enemies die. Drops carry a rarity class, running from stock up to legendary.

Unwanted gear converts into metal, and metal re-rolls a weapon’s statistics. That is a clean little economy: everything you do not want feeds the thing you do. Aiming runs off a blue laser showing where you will shoot. In multiplayer, players revive each other and use checkpoints to respawn.

The comparison is not idle. A decade before Alienation, Alien Shooter: Vengeance was already a top-down shooter with role-playing elements, pitting you against hordes of aliens. Alienation does not invent that formula. It refines it, and the refinement is the co-op.

Where the Arsenal Runs Thin

Reviewers knocked Alienation for its lack of variety in weapons and ammunition, and that complaint holds up. The upgrade system is deep, but it is depth built on a narrow base. If the guns do not feel distinct, re-rolling their statistics is polishing the same handful of tools. The loot loop can only carry a shooter so far.

The missing local co-op mode drew criticism too. Housemarque later added it, which is the right fix arriving late. A game this built around squad play should have shipped with the couch option.

Six Games in Seven Weeks

Development was hinted at in early January 2014 and announced at that year’s Sony Gamescom convention. In 2015, Housemarque put out gameplay and class details and a first trailer. Sony said the game would arrive sometime in 2015. It slipped to March 2, 2016, then slipped another three weeks, landing in April as part of a Sony promotion releasing six games in seven weeks.

That is a lot of schedule noise around a game whose actual problem was never timing. Since launch, Housemarque has updated Alienation with free and paid expansions. Reviews came in generally positive, with praise for the twin-stick handling and the cooperative multiplayer.

What Actually Matters Here

The praise was earned. The twin-stick shooting is the part that had to work, and it does. Four players, three classes, checkpoints, revives, a laser to aim by — that is a coherent machine, and the class abilities give each player a job beyond pulling a trigger.

The weapon and ammo complaint is the more serious one, because it undercuts the reason to keep playing. Alienation’s core loop is collect, convert to metal, re-roll. That loop only has a point if the weapons are worth chasing.

The delayed local co-op is a smaller matter, and the free and paid expansions suggest Housemarque kept tending the game after release. The launch window, the 2015 slip, the March 2 date, the final three-week push — none of that is what a player remembers.

What a player remembers is standing behind a Tank’s shield while a Saboteur goes invisible and a Bio-Specialist heals the line. Alienation is a good squad shooter wearing a loot game’s clothes. The clothes fit well enough. They are just a little thin.

Alienation · co-op games · Housemarque · loot shooter · PS4 · twin-stick shooter