Alienation Catch-All

Gameplay trailer:

(not sure about that whole "going rogue" thing from the trailer)

Official site

The latest twin-stick arcade shooter from PS4 developer Housemarque, creators of Dead Nation and Resogun. Alienation features 4-player drop in and drop out co-op, light RPG and "shoot n' loot" mechanics and pretty darn gorgeous graphics. A completely generic game concept but man does it look good!

My initial lazy comparison: a very pretty and more bombastic version of Helldivers!

Alienation is set for release as a PSN digital download on April 26th, 2016.

They've got a 10% pre-order promotion going on now for this and a slew of other digital-only titles slated for release this Spring.

I shall buy this because Resogun.

Housemarque make this so it's a no brainer. If they take even half the playability of Resogun into Alienation this will be great. That engine is damn gorgeous, effects that topple Diablo 3!

Reading up on this game has made up want to re-install both Resogun and Dead Nation. Never played nearly enough of either game.

Looks like a faster paced version of Dead Nation (which I enjoyed quite a bit). Love me some Housemarque so I'm in!

I played Dead Nation briefly. It was okay. It felt like it was undercooked, just falling short in most aspects.

Helldivers was cool, but again only for a brief period. I'm not sure just how it failed to hook me. It was never a popular choice amongst friends which certainty didn't help.

My only other foray into the genre was Smash TV. I played that for years and still remember it fondly.

I'm hopeful that Alienation ticks all the right boxes. As has been said, if it's half as polished and as varied as Resogun it will be cracking good fun, if only for a while.

You sound like me, RnR. I prefer twin stick shooters where I am just shooting constantly. Dead Nation and Helldivers both require precision with the sticks, which is fine, but the start/stop action flow of reloading and whatnot is less fulfilling to me.

The trailers have certainly sold this as a "hold down the trigger and go BOOM" kind of game whereas Helldivers and Dead Nation are more tense and considered, playing more like top-down survival games than anything else.

Yeah, the run n gun with loot makes this sound squarely in my wheelhouse.

Download for this kicked in earlier this afternoon for pre-orders and it looks like it unlocks tomorrow at 9pm. Very nice. Not sure how important the teamwork will be for this one; it may be harmless enough to jump into some public games soon after getting my feet wet playing solo.

Pfft. 9 PM Pacific. That's midnight for me. x(

I finally got around to pre-ordering. It seems to net you a theme and a small saving. Roll on midnight. I'll be at work until at least 11 PM or thereabouts. I'm also off the next day. Excellent!

I'll be counting down the minutes till we can wreck some alien scum later tonight! Hopefully we can get 2 or 3 of us on for a quick blast

I'm in for this, but probably not until next week. Looks like a great game to fill some time in my summer break.

Yeah! I'll start adding PSNs here once I wrap up dinner. Had a long day at work, looking forward to the cathartic alien slaughter.

Report just in......Alienation is f**king superb, love the upgrade systems, the shooting feels excellent, with fantastic physics......I mean epic scenarios were multiple cars are blowing up, enemies are flying across the screen, buildings falling down with rubble landing organically on the ground, all in the midst of battle.

Me & RNRClown had a great time in co-op, we played from midnight till just after 3am, can't wait till play more tomorrow.

A post 3 AM finish let's me know I was having fun. Looking forward to more tomorrow.

First review I've come across :
http://www.destructoid.com/review-al...

Spikeout wrote:

Report just in......Alienation is f**king superb, love the upgrade systems, the shooting feels excellent, with fantastic physics......I mean epic scenarios were multiple cars are blowing up, enemies are flying across the screen, buildings falling down with rubble landing organically on the ground, all in the midst of battle.

Me & RNRClown had a great time in co-op, we played from midnight till just after 3am, can't wait till play more tomorrow.

Does your leveling up continue between games or do you just start over each time you play?

Spikeout wrote:

Report just in......Alienation is f**king superb, love the upgrade systems, the shooting feels excellent, with fantastic physics......I mean epic scenarios were multiple cars are blowing up, enemies are flying across the screen, buildings falling down with rubble landing organically on the ground, all in the midst of battle.

Me & RNRClown had a great time in co-op, we played from midnight till just after 3am, can't wait till play more tomorrow.

It's fantastic. I was on my own for most of the night except for for Mission #2 in the starting zone where two pubbies joined in the action. Both ways of playing were fantastic although I give the slight nod to going it solo or with friends. The level maps are quite large and reward exploration over blindly following the objective markers. It's harder to satisfy the gamer OCD of rooting through every nook and cranny when you're worried about keeping pace with random teammates who you're not communicating with.

I chose the Saboteur and would love to get a respect option later in the game. I've already spent a couple Ability points that I wouldn't mind getting back!

Concerning the option to respec - open up the abilities screen and select an upgraded ability. If you press square the attribute point shall be returned, and said ability becomes greyed out once more. This is the case for both abilities and their modifiers. You can seemingly respec at will, save for when abilities are on cool down.

chooka1 wrote:
Spikeout wrote:

Report just in......Alienation is f**king superb, love the upgrade systems, the shooting feels excellent, with fantastic physics......I mean epic scenarios were multiple cars are blowing up, enemies are flying across the screen, buildings falling down with rubble landing organically on the ground, all in the midst of battle.

Me & RNRClown had a great time in co-op, we played from midnight till just after 3am, can't wait till play more tomorrow.

Does your leveling up continue between games or do you just start over each time you play?

The game saves both your mission & character progress so all the upgrades you've chosen along with the weapons, materials & equipment obtained are all gonna be exactly how you left them.

We started on Rookie difficulty just to get a feel for the game but it was far too easy, with professional it felt great, much more of a challenge with these added modifiers:

Professional

Enemy Level 3
XP +45%

Loot
+9% Rare
+11% Legendary

Veteran

Enemy Level 5
XP +109%

Loot
Rare +19%
Legendary +24%

You also collect upgrade cores that modify your weapons/equipment even further:

Power Cores - Increase damage output of both weapons & equipment

Boost Cores - Increase weapon fire rate & the effect radius of applicable equipment

Utility Cores - Increase weapon clip size & equipment recharge rate

Prismatic Cores - Can only be used in weapons, they increase critical hit chance & activate the bonus in any socket colour

You also get reroll materials to use on weapons ranging from stock to legendary which will add the associated modifiers.

The look & feel of the levels is fantastic, the effects are outstanding, snow falling, lava bubbling, grenades going off, the huge smoke effect that the Rocket Launcher leaves, the Tanks dash ability leaves a trail of blue neon light, there's so much to love about Alienation.

Correction to my early respec detail! It may only be possible to respec points outside of missions. I am doing it as such right now.

I thought I had done so mid-mission last night, but I was overly tired.

Ah no worries. I figured it would be in between missions. It's so dangerous to pop open menus mid-mission anyway. It's desperate enough just equipping a shiny new weapon!

Downloading now. Looks fun!

So word of warning. Not sure if this has been covered. But the hardcore mode is serious when it says "You die you're done". Unless I'm not seeing my save data for that character, it completely eradicates your save and character upon death hah. Awesome.

Does it have a place where you can look at your stats or wherever? Trophy room showing how far you went?

I'm getting much more of a Diablo in space rather than mindlessly shooting. Not a bad thing, just not exactly what I was expecting.

Rybowl wrote:

I'm getting much more of a Diablo in space rather than mindlessly shooting. Not a bad thing, just not exactly what I was expecting.

It's kinda a mixed back. Really odd though isn't it? Hah. I'm having a great time with it. I do however wish there was more variety in weapons and the ability to change armor. Granted I'm only a few ours in so there may be something like than towards the end game.

I also would have liked to see a little more elaborate skils and passive skills. But the game is only $20, and for the amount is very solid.

Great, mindless co-op game. Perfect for relaxing after work. Mow things down, see colorful explosions, and get dopamine hits every time you find an upgrade. Good drop-in/drop-out implementation and it's easy to play with randos.

The online co op is painless. I wish more games did it like this.

What class is everyone starting with?