Virtual Console: Alien Soldier

Nov. 12 1:25 PM by Lynxara

You may notice that when I was talking about Super Mario Bros. 3, I suggested saving your money for games you might not have played before. By that I meant "Maybe you'll want to download Alien Soldier instead." Its appearance on the Virtual Console is only the second time it's been available in the North American market (and the first time it was a SEGA Channel exclusive, which doesn't count). If you dig on Treasure's other run-n-gun shooter masterpiece for the Genesis, Gunstar Heroes, then you probably really want to go download Alien Soldier right this very second.

Much like Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier is a gamer's game. It's all about making sprites move as fast as possible while filling the screen with enemies to nuke, flying bullets, and giant boss sprites. The sprites and soundtrack in Alien Soldier are an absolutely breathtaking use of the Genesis's meager resources, and just about everything zips around the screen with the arcadey speeds that SEGA marketing once tried to pass off as "Blast Processing". Alien Soldier is much harder than Gunstar Heroes, though, and purely single-player instead of co-op. The actual level parts of the 25 levels are short, but the game really shines in its 31 boss fights. If you like sitting around obsessively replaying shooters until you can play them near-perfectly, this game is for you.

If you're a more casual gamer... well, this game isn't for you, and you may want to give it a pass. The difficulty ranges from "really quite hard" on the utterly misnamed Supereasy mode, to "still hard, and also a guy is kicking you in the back while you play" on Superhard. You'll probably have difficulty managing the power-up system and possibly the controls. The beautiful boss sprites make figuring out their hitbox locaations difficult. Some battles have so much going on the screen at once that they'll be hopelessly confusing to players who aren't shooter vets. I'm sure this built-in elitism (and the dying Genesis market in the US at the time) is part of why it didn't merit US release when it was new.

But you know what? Alien Soldier is still pretty awesome, and still worth your money if you're willing to practice with it. Few games really offer a stiff challenge to gamers anymore, and you won't see anything like the generally mindblowing Wolfgunblood Garopa boss show up in a modern shooter. If you're afraid you'll struggle, I'd just suggest downloading Gunstar Heroes first and brushing up on your run n' gun reflexes before giving Alien Soldier a try. I mean, if you care about downloading Genesis stuff from the Virtual Console at all, why don't you have Gunstar Heroes already? Even I've DLed that, and I generally hold the opinion that the Genesis peaked with the release of ToeJam & Earl, the greatest co-op game ever made.

To see the game in action, here's a YouTube version of Tyler Needham's awe-inspiring 12:40 speedrun of Alien Soldier on Superhard mode. (Note the video is actually about 30 minutes long.) You'll get a good sense of the game's tactics and just how beautiful everything in it is... but Tyler kills bosses so fast, you won't get spoiled on most of their attack patterns. Also, be sure you turn the sound up to listen to that groovy score, right out of bad 80's sci-fi.