Alien Breed, Alien Swarm, Alien wtf?

Last month team 17 released "Alien Breed Impact", a tasty looking top down co-op shooter where you and a buddy get to mow down never ending swarms of bug like aliens in futuristic space ship corridors. Looks pretty enjoyable and its on half price sale today for only €7.49 on Steam.

A bargain right? Well, yes except that last week Valve released "Alien Swarm" a tasty looking top down co-op shooter where you and a few buddies get to mow down never ending swarms of bug like aliens in futuristic space ship corridors. Valve's game is naturally also available on Steam only it is FREE.

Way to stab your business partners in the back Valve. Maybe there was a bit of choreography going on behind the scenes with Valve deliberately holding the release of Swarm back a month to give Breed a chance but the impending release of the free game was signalled in advance so it must have hurt sales of Alien Breed. The discount on Alien Breed this week is probably an attempt to salvage something but no amount of discount can compete with free.

I did download Alien Swarm and it is pretty fun even though the top down shooting takes a little getting used to. The biggest gripe I have with the game is that apart from a one mission tutorial it is 4 player co-op only. That makes it great fun when you have the right four people but getting four friends to play a video game together is non-trivial for a middle aged gamer like myself. That puts me at the mercy of internet pick up groups which can be trying at times.

This could turn out to be the silver lining for Alien Breed as that game has a full single player campaign and only needs one other player for co-op. I am going to try the demo and if I like it Ill probably buy the game.

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