a solid singleplayer sci-fi first person shooter that runs smoothly and looks excellent
The story is pretty good here ... maybe not delivered perfectly, but still it's pretty good. The main characters are also maybe "too cool" to provide more of an exciting aspect to the story. The entire story is divided in ten levels (0-Artemis, 1-Basement, 2-Basement (yep, same title as under the no.1), 3-Basement Storage, 4-Transport, 5-Offices, 6-Spaceport, 7-Living Quarters, 8-Asteroid Surface, and 9-The Mine) and then the ending with a pretty good "boss fight". I think, if you don't read any "walkthroughs" and if you don't use any cheats, this game provides lots of intense actions. In fact this game is rather hard even on its easiest setting. Unless you are careful and use cover, you'll be shredded to pieces in matter of seconds. So it is challenging until you figure out how to even the odds against a much more numerous enemy. I've seen some negative reviews of this game and I actually doubt that these reviewers actually played the game beyond the first few levels (also judging by their screenshots that focus on first few levels too). And that's a big mistake since this game picks up pace and excitement around the level 3 and 4.
The FPS part is almost perfectly executed. Everything that should be in is in: reasonable quantity of different weapons, a variety of tough enemies, rebellious robots, FPS-desired movement (jump, lean left or right, crouch, etc), and lots of shooting. The only weakness in the FPS part is a lack of a more realistic aim mode that was replaced by a slight zoom mode on most weapons except the sniper (when the shooter aims he should either see the gun's ironsights or a scope). Additional gameplay pieces add lots of fun to this game too: you'll have some pretty nice puzzles to solve either by finding alternative routes, or by using a hacking tool, or hubbardium extract. The further challenge has been provided by a need to take care of your health and in some parts oxygen. I really liked the concept of this game that strongly favors taking cover and being careful. Not being lazy to backtrack a bit in order to get more health since you don't know where the next medkit is going to be is also rather cool. Sometimes you need to manage simultaneously oxygen and health while still in the middle of a firefight. The game is ingenious in almost always providing a far less obvious but much easier ways to prevail in tough situations. Multiple firefights favor the player who crouches behind an object (crate, boxes, wall, etc.) and then leans left or right (your weapons are in the aim (zoom) mode when you crouch and lean) and methodically takes out enemies. Among weapons, you'll be heavily relying on the machine gun -- use short bursts for more accuracy.
One thing to notice is the excellent performance of the Black Element Software proprietary Enforce2 engine (some people thought that the game was using Doom 3 engine). Outside areas are well rendered, but this engine shines when it comes to rendering interiors. From the technical aspect this entire game runs smooth and with no bugs or glitches (the US version 1.3) and should be very playable on variety of systems, from mid-range up. The settings options are also numerous and well done and you can clearly see that this game is not a crappy console-to-PC port.
The developer used PATHEngine for the AI movement ... and is somewhat a mixed bag. Their shooting accuracy is very good and robots and turrets are extremely accurate. The AI movement is very good most of the time, but sometimes you can clearly see them facing a wrong direction or running continuously while their movement is being blocked by an object. However, they can also pull some surprises by trying to quickly flank you or rushing you while you are opening a door. So ... there is some room for AI improvement. Talking about a few minor negatives ... a weird slow sliding backwards (downwards) when on stairs ... double jump will also end into going backwards ... and the very limited usefulness of the flamethrower since it requires a very close proximity to the enemy to be effective.
Recently I visited the official game forums just to see what's there and to my (positive) surprise the actual developers have been helping their user base. That's a huge plus in my book. That's simply great.
Overall, while Alpha Prime is not a masterpiece, it's a solid singleplayer sci-fi first person shooter (better than many of better known titles) that runs smoothly and looks excellent. This is either the first or second project by Black Element team and it seems they have lots of fun doing it (which is a very important thing) plus they are very responsive to their user base. So, naturally, I expect many great things to come out of their studios in the near future.
Score: 8.2 / 10