A Review: Alien Legacy, DOS 1994
Alien Legacy is an RTS game that puts the player in the role of the commander of a colony ship as it arrives at a distant star and begins the process of building a series of functional settlements. As the play continues, it is learned that the previous colonists who had arrived before you were all mysteriously killed, and if you are not careful, the same could happen again. A game that, for the most part, was recommended to those who liked the Star Control games and one that I thought I would like much more than I did.
I really, really wanted to love this game so much, but I just couldn't get past the infestation of bugs that littered this game. It was admitted by a Sierra On-Line developer for Alien Legacy during an interview in 1995 that the game was essentially unfinished at the time of release and was near unplayable. Yet an executive in the company wanted the game shipped no matter what. As such, when it was released, it was in such a terrible state that it made playing damned near impossible, unless you had a lot of patience and determination. There were several patches that were released, but nothing that seemed to do much aside from placing a plaster over an open, festering wound. The number of times that I was forced to quit and reload this game was insane. I even lost three separate save games to corruption and had to start from scratch each time, losing nearly twenty hours at one point. There were constant bugs with mission scripting that could only be cured by either save scumming or a complete close and relaunch. The player would never know either, as the game continues to play right up to the point where it just freezes or crashes outright. It's not limited to one or two missions either and could occur after ten minutes, thirty minutes, maybe an hour, or maybe even never at all during a ten-hour session; it was completely random. Music and audio would just stop and then randomly restart or crash the game on the desktop. Constant saves every five minutes were the only way that I could progress without losing everything, and it just sucked the fun out of this game. The worst part was that you could softlock yourself out of the game's story in more than one place. You could even trigger the end game by sheer accident and not be able to stop it or win, yet again forcing a complete restart. Advisors would contradict themselves, warn about issues from an earlier point in the game, and completely ignore problems that had only just come up. Mission triggers would fail for no reason, and sometimes the plot wouldn't start or continue because of these broken triggers. It really was a shame, as this game could have been huge for the time. The gameplay was solid (when things worked), and there was so much potential to be found in Alien Legacy. The management and colony mechanics were awesome, with the need to build ships and explore planets being fairly ahead of the time. I loved the more complex side of building a colony and keeping it thriving through problem after problem. The exploration mechanic was solid, and I really loved the elements it added to the game. The advisors were awesome (when they worked) and helped the player get things done and guide gameplay, although at times I feel that they held the player's hand a little too tightly. The last stages of the game were quite tense, and the plot really came up with the goods, in my opinion, at the end. It was just that reaching the actual end took five separate saves and probably close to sixty hours. After all that effort, it just felt flat and anticlimactic, which is terrible for a game that had so much raw potential.
Visually, I really did like Alien Legacy. The menus and interfaces were well-coloured and clear, with easy-to-understand layouts. The partial 3D scrolling environments looked great, and I loved the little ships, sprites, and detailing. The colony management screens were nicely done, and I loved how the individual buildings looked; their little animations really sold the feel well for me too. The main ships bridge looked awesome, and the advisors looks and animations were fantastic, even coming with animated facial features and expressions as they spoke to the player. The weapons and explosions were very good, and the battles that the player engaged in looked really good too. I liked the color palette and found that it was a good mix between popping and being settled enough to look at for extended periods of time.
It really is a shame that the state this game was released in was so bad, as it had so much potential to be so much more.
4/10 – Could've Been Better!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
I really, really wanted to love this game so much, but I just couldn't get past the infestation of bugs that littered this game. It was admitted by a Sierra On-Line developer for Alien Legacy during an interview in 1995 that the game was essentially unfinished at the time of release and was near unplayable. Yet an executive in the company wanted the game shipped no matter what. As such, when it was released, it was in such a terrible state that it made playing damned near impossible, unless you had a lot of patience and determination. There were several patches that were released, but nothing that seemed to do much aside from placing a plaster over an open, festering wound. The number of times that I was forced to quit and reload this game was insane. I even lost three separate save games to corruption and had to start from scratch each time, losing nearly twenty hours at one point. There were constant bugs with mission scripting that could only be cured by either save scumming or a complete close and relaunch. The player would never know either, as the game continues to play right up to the point where it just freezes or crashes outright. It's not limited to one or two missions either and could occur after ten minutes, thirty minutes, maybe an hour, or maybe even never at all during a ten-hour session; it was completely random. Music and audio would just stop and then randomly restart or crash the game on the desktop. Constant saves every five minutes were the only way that I could progress without losing everything, and it just sucked the fun out of this game. The worst part was that you could softlock yourself out of the game's story in more than one place. You could even trigger the end game by sheer accident and not be able to stop it or win, yet again forcing a complete restart. Advisors would contradict themselves, warn about issues from an earlier point in the game, and completely ignore problems that had only just come up. Mission triggers would fail for no reason, and sometimes the plot wouldn't start or continue because of these broken triggers. It really was a shame, as this game could have been huge for the time. The gameplay was solid (when things worked), and there was so much potential to be found in Alien Legacy. The management and colony mechanics were awesome, with the need to build ships and explore planets being fairly ahead of the time. I loved the more complex side of building a colony and keeping it thriving through problem after problem. The exploration mechanic was solid, and I really loved the elements it added to the game. The advisors were awesome (when they worked) and helped the player get things done and guide gameplay, although at times I feel that they held the player's hand a little too tightly. The last stages of the game were quite tense, and the plot really came up with the goods, in my opinion, at the end. It was just that reaching the actual end took five separate saves and probably close to sixty hours. After all that effort, it just felt flat and anticlimactic, which is terrible for a game that had so much raw potential.
Visually, I really did like Alien Legacy. The menus and interfaces were well-coloured and clear, with easy-to-understand layouts. The partial 3D scrolling environments looked great, and I loved the little ships, sprites, and detailing. The colony management screens were nicely done, and I loved how the individual buildings looked; their little animations really sold the feel well for me too. The main ships bridge looked awesome, and the advisors looks and animations were fantastic, even coming with animated facial features and expressions as they spoke to the player. The weapons and explosions were very good, and the battles that the player engaged in looked really good too. I liked the color palette and found that it was a good mix between popping and being settled enough to look at for extended periods of time.
It really is a shame that the state this game was released in was so bad, as it had so much potential to be so much more.
4/10 – Could've Been Better!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
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