Alien Shooter 2: Reloaded

I have a soft spot for games that know exactly what they are, and Alien Shooter 2: Reloaded knows precisely what it is: a gloriously dumb isometric shooter with just enough RPG glue to make you think twice before you unload the plasma cannon. Sigma Team built this as a refined, lighter-weight version of Alien Shooter 2 (also known as Alien Shooter: Vengeance), and the result is a leaner package that strips some fat but also, frustratingly, removes the co-op and multiplayer that the original offered. The loop is simple and satisfying. You pick one of eight playable characters, each with different starting stats and a unique perk chosen at the start - options range from health regeneration and thievery to hypnotism and night vision. From there you spend seventeen missions wading through corridors and outdoor maps that each host up to ten thousand enemies on the map, with roughly a hundred on screen at any given moment. The stat system covers Health, Strength, Speed, Accuracy, and Intelligence, and you distribute points after each level-up. The Reloaded version simplified the upgrade trees compared to the original Vengeance release - you no longer need separate weapon skill tracks for each weapon type, which lowers the barrier to experimenting across the full arsenal. That arsenal runs to over fifty weapons spread across pistols, shotguns, assault rifles and machineguns, grenade launchers, and plasma and flame weapons. There are also more than twenty gadgets, from radar units and battle drones to medkits. The weapon variety is genuine - you really can burn, freeze, or shrink enemies rather than just shoot them. Beyond the main campaign there are three modes: Campaign (the story run), Survive (wave defense), and Gun Stand - the latter being an addition unique to Reloaded, where you control a stationary sentry gun, upgrade it and your barricades with earned money, and try to hold back increasingly dangerous waves. Gun Stand is the hidden gem here; it demands a bit more planning than the regular campaign and holds up well as a pick-up session. Vehicles also appear during the campaign - a turret-equipped jeep, a tank, and a police car in one of the new levels - and driving over alien hordes never quite gets old. The rough edges are real. The RPG system does meaningful work in the early hours but fades into irrelevance once weapon drops start outpacing stat gains. The voice acting is comically bad in that early-2000s Eastern European localisation way, and loading times when resuming a save can drag on longer than they should. Fans coming from the original Alien Shooter 2 or Vengeance release will also notice the soundtrack is trimmed down and the multiplayer is simply gone - a real loss. The two new levels added for Reloaded have also drawn criticism for dropping in the middle of the campaign and softening difficulty at an already-easy stretch of the game. The story exists - there are NPCs, side quests, two different endings, and a corporate conspiracy involving the M.A.G.M.A. Energy Corporation - but nobody is here for the writing. For players who never touched the Vengeance version, none of the cuts will sting. What remains is a chunky, low-barrier action-RPG that fills an afternoon with the kind of mindless, screen-filling carnage that AAA budgets rarely greenlight anymore. Secret hunters get 88 hidden caches to track down across the campaign. Completionists and build tinkerers get multiple viable character paths. If you can meet the game on its own terms - old-school, loud, and unpretentious - it delivers.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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