Alien Front Online Preview

When Orson Wells made his landmark radio broadcast, War of the Worlds, to a gullible yet receptive audience in 1938, a heated rivalry between humankind and the sentient unknown was forged. More recently, films like V and Independence Day have cemented the fictional battles between humans and aliens as an inexorable part of Americana that's as storied as any classic rivalry, imaginary or otherwise. In this way, Sega's Alien Front Online can be seen as the latest in a long line of blast-'em-up, winner-takes-all battles between humans and aliens that attempts to invoke the excitement we felt the first time we saw some hated alien baddies blown to kingdom come.

Alien Front Online doesn't attempt to win any originality points with its story. Depending on your point of view, it could easily be seen as "tried and true" or "trite and uninspired." In fact, you could say it has a basic B-movie plot. A powerful alien race, dubbed the Triclops, has arrived on Earth with the sole intention of subjugating humanity. Humankind, of course, rallies as a united front to prevent the destruction of civilization as we know it.

This is where you and some optional teammates come in. AFO gives you the option of joining deathmatch games already in progress or creating your own games. You also have the choice of playing as either the humans, with their ubiquitous (but less snazzy) vehicles and equipment, or as the bizarre but powerful aliens, with their wild assortment of biomechanical walkers and advanced plasma cannons. The name of the game is deathmatch team play. If you're familiar with Quake or Team Fortress, Alien Front Online won't seem like anything new. Even if you're not, the gameplay shouldn't prove to be too intimidating. Join a game, pick a side, and start blasting the opponent.

Alien Front Online is being designed around the group experience, and Sega is promising it will use the soon-to-be optimized SegaNet so several different players on several different Dreamcasts can enjoy AFO. Even more interesting than the expectation of a fully online experience is the level of interaction Sega has promised with the title. At E3, a mock-up headset featuring a microphone was on display next to the game. Apparently, Sega intends to incorporate a high level of instant communication via the headset as you're piloting your craft (Sega representatives claim you will also be able to use your Seaman microphone and receive teammate commentary through your TV speakers). Though Sega claims that the communication feature isn't very demanding on the processor, it remains to be seen how Sega will pull the whole thing off, considering the tax real-time communications can place on low bandwidth modems. Nonetheless, the potential benefit such an addition would provide for team play is intriguing, to say the least.

Another potential interesting feature of Alien Front Online was alluded to at the game's quiet debut at E3. Unlike most of the titles at the E3, the game was shown running in actual arcade cabinets instead of on Dreamcasts. Sega claims that the arcade and Dreamcast versions of the game should be nearly identical, so much so that gamers playing Alien Front Online at arcades can actually play against Dreamcast gamers, provided that the cabinets have been connected to a phone line.

Graphically, the game promises to be on par with most of Sega's other NAOMI-based arcade titles. That is to say, expect the action to be smooth, fast, and furious. Explosions and gunfire fly freely across the screen, and the game features high-resolution special effects that, though lacking compared with those in 100-million-dollar modern movies, should still be immersive enough to please xenophile and xenophobe alike. All the environments featured at E3 were desolate urban cityscapes turned into scarred battlefields by the war - though more unique levels may exist that simply have not yet been revealed.

With more bold promises than you can shake a stick at, Alien Front Online hopes to establish itself in a position alongside Quake III, Half-Life, and Outtrigger as one of the most anticipated online deathmatch titles for the Dreamcast. It's safe to say that the concept of real-time communications coupled with full online play gives Alien Front Online the potential to be an incredibly immersive title. If Sega irons out the kinks of its ISP and delivers a relatively lag-free experience, we may just have something that can give the movies a run for their money.

Alien Front Online is tentatively scheduled to ship late this year.