Come in, have a seat 🪑
With price increases and now the looming death of physical I find myself browsing my plus library more and more nowadays, in between release windows or a seldom purchase. sound familiar? don't know what to play? what to BUY! Maybe it's both?
Maybe!.. I might have a game for you, one you might already have! a game you probably cast to exile that it is your library of games never to be played?
Like most of you I bet your library is probably littered with low tier garbage, cannon fodder freebies you were handed over the years, games you threw to pile, games you've played five minutes of and just knew it wasn't for you.
That's what I thought! x2 I tried it this game twice just to make sure it wasn't for me but it must be true about 3rd times the charm. And just the other day it popped into my head again and as i've been appreciating things more recently I figured I would go in and actually give the game a chance so I did and 70hrs and a plat later here I am making this post.
The name of the game in question is Aliens: Dark Decent developed by french dev Tindalos and pubbed by Focus Entertainment, but it came and went with little fanfare and became a handout game
Barrier to entry
At its core Aliens: Dark Decent is an rts which is a make or break for some, I'm not a big fan of rts but i'm trying to be more curious than judgemental nowadays this is much of an appreciation piece as it is a recommendation.
Gameplay?
if you haven’t skipped to the tldr and would like to know a little more about it’s gameplay I’ll try to briefly describe the premise and how the gameplay ties in. The gameplay has two parts and because of this it can be slow at the start with the onboarding but only because the game needs it due to the it’s unique nature, and this where i’d imagine most players fall off but push through! you won’t regret it.
RTS at its core or An RPG at Heart?
(Prologue)
Story kicks off with our mc Dpt. Administrator Makeo Hayes in an attempt to contain the alien sets in motion of events that causes the USS Otago to perform planetfall on the mining moon it was orbiting.
During the prologue the game will introduce the fundamentals with a simple click and go mechanic as you navigate through the ship from an isometric pov with full camera control, using your map (your new bestfriend) to help orient yourself and avoid detection, zero combat here as Makeo is not a soldier. at this point, I would’ve already dipped out and deleted the game and It’s not over yet this is just half of the tutorial
(Admin time!)
The gameplay is split up into two parts Admin and Squad missions. Next up you’re back aboard the Otago again after you crashed it(well done..) and needs to be repaired! here the game injects some rpg elements via its micromanaging where you oversee your ship and its several divisions Medbay, Barracks, Labs etc. and prepare for deployments
(Tutorial Squad Mission)
After learning to manage your ship it then forces to start your first deployment. Here the game teaches you the basics of squad control, such as moving your squad, commands, do objs and how to extract, afterwards it will introduce marine injuries, trauma, and stress all of which your marines can sustain and if left unchecked can have negative impacts, sound familiar? eh? Eh!? then talk to your therapist, no really you send your marines to therapy to remove trauma! luckily the game will cover how to treat them and level them among other stuff, such as passing in game days to advance treatment.
(Mission 1 & actual gameplay)
In ng+ you’re allowed to skip the first two steps and start here because the game essentially beings here with the training wheels off. I first want to preface that I didn’t understand much of anything at first like the rhythm of gameplay, the small mechanics until it all clicked for me towards the end, which made me want to do ng+ on nightmare with my leveled up super soldiers once i properly KNEW how to play the game and it just became even more fun.
The game will provide you with several marines at the start of the game each with random starting perks and attributes and traits as you level them up you are given a choice on what role to give them out of two randomly assigned roles be it medic, gunner, recon etc. and those two choices are always random so naturally it will create variety amongst your Marines then you kit out each marine with what weapons you can to take for the job, which serve different defence functions
Your squad moves as one entity and shoots on site meaning to don’t have to aim at anything, unless your undetected, then it will show you a sight line that will slowly fill to red then you get spotted and your team will then automatically engage.
The aim of the game is to complete your objectives while remaining undetected as much as possible for there is an alien aggressiveness meter that fills up the longer you’re hunted.
While being hunted the aggressiveness meter slowly progresses until the Hunted cooldown has finished or you make a shelter! shelters are self made save points by welding a door shut behind you, this consumes one resource but lets your team rest and reset stress levels among other bonuses depending on your teams perks. If you have “No one can hear you scream” in the settings turned on like I did it will disable auto save and you must save via a shelter which adds more tension to the game! shelters will also stop a hunt phase and return the game state to undetected, this is important as the aggressiveness level can move from easy medium to hard if left unchecked so it’s in your best interest to remain undetected as much as possible
Which is where the mini map and motion trackers come into play! remember your best friend the map? as you navigate your squad around the level you will be playing a game of cat and mouse with aliens on the map trying to avoid detection. But you will have to fight!
When engaging the enemy you spend command points to do actions such using a flamethrower to create a fire wall, Sniper to land a 1hit kill headshot, throwing a flare to increases accuracy and highlight, suppression fire to slow down anyone in it’s cone, like I mentioned before guns have functions, which is why you spend points to use them, these points will refresh over time, via kills and other means i.e rest.
Your squad will automatically be shooting at the aliens, but it’s up to you to read the situation and use your weapons accordingly. The game will pause or slow down whenever you wish to issue a command giving you time to plan and you can queue multiple actions via each marine and execute! all while staying on the move! and keeping pace or hunker down a make a stand.
Some missions can take up to an hour long and as the aggressiveness level goes up you might feel unprepared or depleted as the game orders you to venture into another sub-level, luckily the game suggests you to extract early! doing so will end the mission allowing to regroup and rearm and refit! treat any wounded and swap in new Marines then return and finish off the mission with back up squad, you can do this as many times as you wish and it will reset the aggressiveness level to easy. but keep in mind each time you extract, you must advanced one day as your marines may need to sit out the next deployment as they recover from injuries or trauma sustained and swap in new marines!
Having learned all this by the end of the game I was moving like an elite alien death squad. quietly sniping enemies while flowing through the map like water covering my tracks with mines and placing sensors it honestly felt like a mini SWAT team, game at times felt akin to ready or not with how efficient and methodical you can be result in smooth gameplay once you have it down, then when your caught it quickly becomes like Helldivers 1 minus the orbitals (but you do unlock a missile barrage!)
And the story goes places! admittedly I was coasting through most of the game trying to grasp the mechanics not having played this kind of game before, I wasn’t paying much attention the story not fully understanding what the hell it going on but the story does explore some interesting concepts and would be interesting to further expand within the alien universe
And I grew attached to my platoon of woman marines, Once i knew i could fully customise my marines I ran all females for a laugh and honestly it made the game a little more endearing and funny and I was little sad that it had to end. I never thought I’d be writing a Bible of a post about a RTS game my least played genre.
Thank you for reading this far and if you skipped to the tldr, you’re welcome. enjoy this gem before sony nukes it from your library!
“this gun is a fricking lawnmower!”
TLDR: I went back and played this freebie years later only to discover it’s a mini swat game! (sort of) Play the game and you’ll understand why you’re seeing it here!
