Introduction In the final days of the Dreamcast, you’ll be hard pressed to find many big first party games on the horizon, with the exception of Shenmue II and Sega Sports games 2k2, not too much more Sega goodness is heading to the Dreamcast. But not today, because Alien Front Online is here, and is every bit as revolutionary and original as many of it’s Dreamcast predecessors. Created by in house developer WOW Entertainment, (Sega GT, Sports Jam, Zombie Revenge) AFO was at first meant to be playable online between Arcade and DC, but only DC to DC came through in the end, although it is in some arcades. AFO is also the first ever online console game to support voice chat, that’s right, you can unwrap that microphone you got with Seaman, you no longer have to talk to that overgrown tadpole. You can now talk to other humans. The plot is as follows, an alien race called the Triclops is running out of food on their planet, and they are getting hungry so they look to other planets. Yep, you guessed it were next on the menu, and only the army can stop them. Sounds like a movie...........Presentation AFO has a very friendly interface, the menus are simple and as long as you have your isp set up you can basically open it up and get online in less then two minutes. Controls are also very simple, A button primary weapon, B button shoots special weapons, L and R triggers strafe, and Y button is to talk online. You can choose to talk to just your teammates with one press of Y, or talk to everyone with two presses of Y. You are given only 5 seconds per message, which is long enough to say simple things like what’s up, or to ask how their momma is, or you know whatever. Voice chat is overall a good experiance, but it can also show you what it’s like to take games to the chat rooms. What I mean is, if you’ve played PSO you know that some "choice words" are edited out if you try to type them during a online game. With voice chat however, there is no way to do this, so you should be ready to hear anything and everything from your fellow gamers. For example after killing one player, he told me "sweet shot, I’m gonna get you back". Then after killing another player I got, "I’m gonna get you, you mother f****** a** hole" at the top of his lungs, so be careful if you have kids or if you’re easily offended. Graphics & Sound Graphics are defiantly up there with other Dreamcast games, but there is some blockage and a bit of color overlapping in some areas, but it in no way hinders play at all. Sound is above par, explosions and laser blaster sounds are plenty, but what did you expect it’s a blowing stuff up game. There is also alot of talking going on during gameplay between other players and your in dash computer, sometimes you can’t make out anything, but that is usually limited to the times when the fighting gets thick. AFO’s music is actually pretty good, with rock and war beats really setting the mood for destruction.Gameplay When starting a game you can either play online or offline. Online is basically pick a side, pick a vehicle, and join a game. There are three different modes which you can play when you are playing online. Deathmatch, capture the flag and everyone for themselves are pretty much self explanatory and are a blast when you play with other fun people. Offline, you can pick to play as either the triclops or the army and basically globe hop to take over or defend certain cities. You can earn or lose stars online for killing or not killing a certain amount of enemies, the stars let you to go up in rank and are basically to show experience. When playing you will find some pretty neat special weapons like machine guns, alien spikes, nuclear strikes, and meteor showers just to name a few. Some of these attacks can kill with a single hit, and are very useful if you want to earn some stars. Each team has three vehicles to choose from, a fast one with low armor, one with medium speed and armor, and a hard hitting slow one. All are good, but my advice is to pick one and get to know how to work it, as online there will be others to back you up.Lasting Appeal Online will always be fun even though there are only four levels, but offline isn’t quite the same, and only has four levels, so if you don’t have online just give it a rental.Conclusion Alien Front Online is definatly a must buy for those who liked PSO and NFL 2k1, but those who don’t have online should just rent it to see if they’ll have fun offline. Also keep in mind that some people take their gaming a little too seriously and will give you abuse online, while this isn’t a big deal to most, after all it is just a game and you could do it too, some might take offence to it. Just remember YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!! P.S. My name is Sonic online so if you see me, come on in and play. |
