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E3 06: Alpha Prime Impressions

Mining droids have gone rogue on a mysterious asteroid, and it's up to you to clear them out and find out what's going on.

LOS ANGELES--Alpha Prime is a first-person shooter with a decidedly sci-fi theme, and it's the brainchild of Prague-based Black Element. The game, built on Black's Enforce 2 engine, is certainly pretty, but it also wants to tell a story. Black brought on Czech sci-fi author Ondrej Neff to pen this tale of an illegal asteroid-mining base filled with homicidal robots.

In Alpha Prime, your character is summoned to help out a friend caught inside the mining facility. Before too long, you'll be battling mining robots gone rogue, and you'll be trying to work your way deeper into the facility to find out what's going on. The game has 10 levels in it, and it features a mix of stealth gameplay and run-and-gun-style action. It'll be important to use the environment at all times, as you can hack into computer systems and override various devices. For instance, tap into a camera and you may see the inside of a heavily patrolled room. Wait for a robot to enter into the field of fire of a defense turret, then tap into the turret and unload on the robot.

If all else fails, you can try blasting your enemies. The action looks very nice, and the Enforce 2 engine delivers some great atmosphere. And no sci-fi shooter would be complete without some form of bullet time, and rest assured that there's a special compound in the game that can give you super speed. The game also has support for Ageia's PhysX processor, so you'll experience bigger explosions and more complex physical effects, if you have the card. Alpha Prime is single-player only, unfortunately, but apparently that's so Black could focus on the gameplay. The game itself is due out in the third quarter, and Black is considering online distribution at this point.

7 Comments

  • Lazarus101

    Posted Jun 11, 2007 3:20 pm PT

    Pros: Good use of physics, acceptable graphics, intuitive, easy-to-master control interface.

    Cons: Lackluster / corny voice-acting, unimpressive musical score, "generic" weapons, formulaic plot / storyline, .

    Comments: Like many European-designed shooters, Alpha Prime just seems to lack a degree of finesse / polish. The voice-acting is flat, unconvincing, or even downright silly at times. The weapons, although fairly well-balanced, offer nothing new, and frankly I expected something more "high tech" in a futuristic shooter. Hopefully Black Element will release an SDK for Alpha Prime relatively soon, because with a little modding the game might have some potential.

  • jocan2003

    Posted Jun 9, 2007 4:37 pm PT

    did you like doom 3? this one is even better, with better physics better graphics and better *move* and AI!!!

  • Orthrand

    Posted Apr 29, 2007 1:09 pm PT

    There are still many great games planned for PC its just a lot are also being dual released. But games for windows will hopefully do sometthing about this. However this just looks like generic shooter no 3 to me, hopefully im wrong though. The most powerful platform could do with some love.

  • franc0-shade

    Posted Jan 19, 2007 4:55 pm PT

    Personally i think this game is gonna go un-noticed but i will deffinately check it out.

  • Mastershit

    Posted Dec 25, 2006 8:44 am PT

    This game kikcks ass! Try the demo for yourself. And btw there are not much shooters for PC now. All the great stuff is going to x360

  • jakeboudville

    Posted Sep 4, 2006 5:04 am PT

    kinda interesting...

  • boocreepyfootdr

    Posted Aug 5, 2006 9:48 pm PT

    Doesn't sound like much of a value or much of an original title to me. If the graphics and physics turn out to be something special I'd consider it.

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