Alien Sector (1985)

Name:Alien Sector AKA Baraduke
Number:254
Year:1985
Publisher:Namco
Developer:Namco
Genre:Side-Scrolling Shooter
Difficulty:5/5
Time:50 minutes
Won:No (113W/83L)

Putting Wolfenstein 3D off for a week owing to it being at an awkward length where I can't really finish it in one but can't stretch it out to two. Here's something quick and dirty in Namco's Alien Sector, also known as Baraduke, one of Namco's lesser known franchises. I've seen a lot of comparisons to Metroid, but this seems to have less to do with the actual gameplay and more because they both star female leads who are hidden behind power armor, and echo the sort of thing that would appear in Aliens.

When you place it like that, it looks ominous.

This is all the plot you're getting. You're some gal in a spacesuit, now shoot aliens who are holding Pac-Man-like creatures hostage for some reason. From what I can gather we're supposed to be protecting the Pac-Man creatures from other aliens, but why is something of a mystery.

Controls are quite simple. Kissy moves like your typical side-scroller protagonist, except she has a jetpack. She moves left and right, slowly falls to the ground when applicable, and when you press up, she goes up. Pressing down increases your downward momentum, but not aggressively so. You move smoothly, but not too fast.

A typical sequence. The blue enemies are the ones you have to primarily take out.

Shooting is also straight-forward. You fire, you get knocked back. There is no aiming the gun beyond general left/right aiming. There are various power-ups which increase the power, but these are rare. I think, it appears so seldom and has such little effect it might do something else. For most of the game, you're going to have the same thing, which only allows two shots on-screen.

Each level is simple. There are a number of monsters with giant eyes. Your goal is to shoot them until they explode. When they're alert, they spawn smaller, weaker enemies. They also shoot at you. Some of them have a sort of chair, which means you can't shoot them from that side.

Some pods, along with an evil version of the PC.

Taking them out creates a spherical pod. Go over it, and something will pop out. Maybe it's one of those gun power-ups, but more likely, it's either going to be a gem, a strange Pac-Man-like monster, or a little friendly alien. These come in two varities, ones who run away or run towards you. You should always grab them, they're always helpful. Sometimes even absolutely necessary to progress.

As you stay in a level more and more, more things start appearing. Enemies dropping down from the ceiling or from the sides and shots just popping out of nowhere. The thing is, this tends to start way, way too quickly. To the point that you get seconds to look at a level before it starts happening. It's easy to end up in an endless loop until you run out of shields and die.

There's a wide variety of these things, ranging from the mundane to very oddball. A lot of variety is in the amount of enemies that seem to pop up as you try to get through a level. A considerable number of these fall into the category of enemies which seem like they can't be killed. Either because they don't get damage frames, or because they can only be hurt on one side.

A reasonable and balanced game of roulette from a later stage.

Whenever you finish a level, you get this roulette-like mini-game. As you pick up friendly aliens, more slots fill up with shields up. As you get more shields, more slots get filled with shields down. Hit a shields up and all the friendly aliens are taken from your inventory. Hit a shields down or nothing, and they remain. While it is possible to avoid most attacks, the game is throwing enough stuff at you that you need those extra shields. It's not that hard to get it roughly where you want, which is somewhat helpful.

One of the harder bosses, despite the seeming simpleness of it.

Every five or so stages is a boss stage. You should keep some of the friendlies for this, because they automatically pop out of your inventory and hurl themselves at the boss, stunning them for a time. For some bosses, this isn't really necessary, since hitting the weak spot (Eyes, always eyes) is simple enough. For others, it's hard to tell if you're doing it right. I've never actually lost a boss fight, so even the hardest must have something simple about them.

Normally, when I play these arcade games, I feel like even if I'm not very good at it, there's a path to where I could be good at it. Maybe I just don't want to spend the time, maybe I'm just not good at what the game wants. Not here, not at all. This is just straight-up a matter of luck. Unless you're being fed the answers ahead of time, you're going to have to guess on which direction is the right one to go, or if some enemies are even killable at all. They are, but it doesn't feel that way a lot of the time.

One of said chokepoints, sure, you can take out the guys at the top, but you'll still have to land to further aside of the blue guys, all while more enemies spawn in.

There are a lot of sections where whether or not you can get through them seems like luck. The enemies are in perfect chokepoints where you get unlucky with enemy placement, like the game spawns in a guy who jumps around and shoots like you do, there's no winning that level without a generous helping of luck. Something which is not going to be in your favor for very long.

It doesn't help that while the game is generous with your ability to move and your hitbox, there is no mercy otherwise. Enemies only hurt you once while they're touching you...technically. It's very easy for enemies to combo you, simply because of how much stuff is on-screen most of the time. Winning is all about not getting into a situation where stuff is on-screen, a losing proposition most of the time.

This is not a fun game. This is all the unfun parts of a hostage situation without any cathartic shooting of the hostage takers. Because there might be a hostage inside the taker, or there might be another enemy. I feel like I'm playing a weird game of SWAT without any of the things that make SWAT fun. Even recounting it leaves my head aching and feeling like mush. I eventually just gave up on one of these sections at about the 24th level. I strongly suspect I'm not missing much.

Weapons:
A basic gun, with power-ups that do nothing distinguishable. 1

Enemies:
A variety of creatures which appear too often, but do present interesting situations in which to deal with them. 3

Non-Enemies:
The little friendly aliens add a bit of depth to what is otherwise a mundane game. 1

Levels:
Very basic stuff. Some levels are effortless, others are slogs, and there's little in-between. 1

Player Agency:
Could have really used some aiming, but what we get works. 4

Interactivity:
None.

Atmosphere:
Actively unfun. 0

Graphics:
Nice-look sprites, but too little variation and not much animation. 3

Story:
Too sparse even for an arcade game. 0

Sound/Music:
You can tell what everything is, but there's a soft, wateriness to each sound which makes it annoying. Getting damaged is the worst, because you get hit and a harp sound plays. Like someone randomly playing strings. As you get damaged, there's a background noise. It's supposed to be a heartbeat, but it sounds more like a set of leaky pipes. 2

Taking 2 points off, we get 13.

As I said in the start, there are a lot of comparisons of this to Metroid, and I'll echo my opening statement. There's nothing beyond the lead being a woman who you don't find out is a woman until the end. It's a bit weird seeing people talk about this game, since they're trying really hard to oversell this as something interesting, when it really isn't. I'm no Metroid superfan, I just really like the Prime series, but even the original, which I can't stand, is leagues above this.

Next time really will be Wolfenstein 3D again.