67: Alien Breed 3D

Number 67
(89 points)
Alien Breed 3D
1996: 12

Pipping Gloom to the Amiga first-person shooter top spot is this continuation of a successful franchise.

While Gloom uses somewhat basic architecture and there is little complexity in the action, Alien Breed 3D manages to provide a large viewing window, more complex level design (including variable lighting) and a range of enemies to face. It's a much more impressive technical achievement than Gloom, and is only let down slightly by the ability to play with either keyboard or mouse, but not both. Still, once you get used to the keyboard controls for strafing, Alien Breed 3D is an intriguing game full of challenge and atmosphere.

I previously criticised Gloom for showing up the Amiga's limitations rather than its successes. It's one thing getting Doom to work on a fridge in 2021, but quite another when you're trying to convince people that your A1200 can stand toe-to-toe with a PC that will shortly be playing Quake. Nevertheless, Alien Breed 3D is much more like it, and I can even recommend that you play it. It's unique to the Amiga, it's well designed, and the performance is surprisingly good.

Recommended TOSEC disk(s):
Alien Breed 3D (1995)(Team 17 - Ocean)(AGA)(Disk 1 of 2)[cr FLT]
Alien Breed 3D (1995)(Team 17 - Ocean)(AGA)(Disk 2 of 2)(Level)
Alien Breed 3D (1995)(Ocean - Team 17)[!][cp code] (CD32)