[Played with Dominus Prime v7.8.2]

I’m a bit of a sucker for mid-2000s first-person shooters and Alpha Prime fits right into that category. Visually, it has the right aesthetics: good use of shadows and dynamic lighting, lots of particle effects, plastic-glow human skin, that sort of stuff. Familiar to anyone who has played Doom 3. I also appreciated the gritty, dirty, run-down low-tech SciFi look of most of the environments that reminded me of D3, Dead Space and Riddick. I thought sound design was perhaps not as strong, but most weapons sounded weighty enough and the generic tracks were serviceable while blasting away tons of Space Marines with my shotgun.

And there will be many to shoot as Arnold Weiss makes his way through the Alpha Prime mining facility to figure out what went wrong, or more precisely, why everyone’s gone crazy with Hubbardium Fever, this miracle material that may or may not be an alien life form. He’s our stereotypical 1980s action movie protagonist, acting as a one man army and commenting sarcastically on what’s happening during cutscenes of which there are quite a few. There are other characters to interact with, but good thing the game obviously knows exactly what it wants to be and doesn’t take itself too seriously! The dialogue was so ridiculously cheesy, cliché and completely over-the-top macho nonsense. Props to the voice actors for delivering those lines because nobody talks that way! Certainly got a chuckle or two from me.

In terms of level design, I thought it was average to above average for a budget shooter. Mostly linear, no annoying puzzles and only a bit of backtracking. Effort was put in to make them look believable and pleasant to navigate; lots of items to shoot to showcase that fancy physics engine and the particle effects. Early on there’s an abundance of supplies everywhere, but they became noticeably more scarce as the campaign progressed. This is important because Arnold relies on first-aid stations and medkits instead of regenerating health, and he cannot carry spare medkits in his inventory. And in later levels, he’ll often be outnumbered 10 to 1 so making smart use of cover and supplies is important. It’s not a cover shooter either, but Arnold can (and should) lean around corners for protection. Arnold can also use Hubbardium to slow down time for more accurate headshots as some tougher enemies can be hard to take down otherwise.

Firearms were the standard FPS variety (pistol to rocket launcher) without alt-fire. I felt gunplay was alright, but some guns were clearly more useful than others. Ended up using the shotgun and AR most frequently, whereas all heavy weapons and the grenades seemed to be lacking in punch. I mean, four direct hits with the rocket launcher and that heavy’s still kicking on normal difficulty? Speaking of which, normal wasn’t really all that easy! The enemies can dish out tons of damage quickly so rushing them with Arnold’s shotgun isn’t always the best idea. He also doesn’t move that fast; think Doom 3 rather than Doom 2016.

Overall, I did enjoy my playthrough of Alpha Prime and I think it’s a decent budget shooter if you don’t set your expectations too high. The campaign is relatively short at six hours or so and paced decently with the exception of that one vehicle section maybe. It’s on sale quite often for a buck so I’d say there isn’t much to go wrong here if you have a fondness for mid-2000s shooters.