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Alien Breed 3D

Alien Breed 3D is a first-person shooter, the fourth game in Team17's Alien Breed franchise, a series of science fiction-themed shooters. It was published in 1995 by Ocean Software. It was followed by a sequel, Alien Breed 3D II: The Killing Grounds, in 1996.

Alien Breed 3D
Box art by Kevin Jenkins[1]
Developer(s)Team17
Publisher(s)Ocean Software
Programmer(s)Andy Clitheroe
Composer(s)Bjørn Lynne
SeriesAlien Breed
Platform(s)Amiga, Amiga CD32
ReleaseLate 1995
Genre(s)First-person shooter
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Gameplay

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Alien Breed 3D is a first-person shooter. The game has maps of varying depths with platforms and floors above others, something the Doom engine was not capable of.

Plot

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Osiris III's commanding officer, Captain J.T. Reynolds contacts Earth Defense Force General R.E. Grant reporting how the secret Project Osiris has slipped out of scientists' hands: attempts have been made to cultivate the alien eggs found in Azirin by cloning them and combining with human DNA, leading to remarkable results, but due to system failures, the Breed has been unleashed and killed people at the research station. In the message, Reynolds announces that he has found weapons and other supplies in a decommissioned observatory and plans to return to the base to find an escape route from the planet and possibly destroy the Breed's source in the meantime before his own oxygen supplies dwindle.

Development

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The origins of Alien Breed 3D can be traced back to a university in York, where then-student Andy Clitheroe observed his peers being impressed by id Software's new game, Doom, running on the only DOS computer between them. One of those peers was Clitheroe's girlfriend, his future wife Jackie, who was introduced to the game by a friend who bought a copy.[2] Clitheroe sought to impress her by attempting a take on the popular shooter.[3][4]

Clitheroe built a demo using a first-person engine he had created alone and, at his girlfriend's pressing, demonstrated it to Team17 on an Amiga computer, for which Clitheroe was hired and his engine acquired immediately. Team17's co-founder Martyn Brown soon telephoned id Software's John Carmack for the licencing rights to Doom for the Amiga, but Carmack turned down the offer, asserting in Brown's words, "Technically, it can’t be done; you can't do a first-person shooter on the Amiga." Team17 thus decided that their engine should morph into a project for the first three-dimensional Alien Breed game. Clitheroe was the game's sole programmer, and Mike Green and Charles Blessing, two friends he brought over from his university in York, would aid him in the game's art and some of the editor code. Not one person involved in the previous Alien Breed games' development worked on Alien Breed 3D, and only one person, Worms composer Bjørn Lynne, had any prior involvement in a Team17 game project. Notably, features characteristic of the series, such as weapon shops, were left out.[3][4]

The game was released as Alien Breed 3D in late 1995[5] for the Amiga 1200 and 4000, as well as a CD-ROM version for the Amiga CD32. The CD-ROM version features a soundtrack composed by Bjørn Lynne. That version's box claimed that it contained more levels than the desktop Amiga version, but no evidence exists supporting the statement.[4] To deter piracy, a copy protection scheme was put in place where a codebook was provided consisting of black varnish printed on black paper, one of which was needed to play the game. However, The Escapist reports that the codes were easier to read after they had been photocopied.[6]

Team17 released the source codes for Alien Breed 3D and its sequel, Alien Breed 3D II: The Killing Grounds, for personal use on the March 1997 cover CD of Amiga Format.[7]

Reception

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According to data from the European Leisure Software Publishers Association, in its first month, the game was the second-best-selling full-price Amiga game, behind Team17's own Worms.[17] It was also the best-selling Amiga 1200 game for four consecutive months,[17][18][19][20] and the CD32 version peaked as the second-best-selling game for the console, also behind Worms.[18]

Alien Breed 3D was released to generally favourable reviews. Reviewers widely compared its gameplay to Doom, with some calling it the best Doom clone for Amiga.

GamesMaster offered a more modest appraisal; while more favourable to the game than to Fears, it criticised the graphical detail, controls, and difficulty and believed that the game was an overambitious attempt to create the definitive Doom-clone for the Amiga that did not live up to the hype, ultimately preferring Gloom.[12]

Amiga CD32 Gamer found the viewing screen size to be small and the game's rendering of 3D graphics particularly taxing on the console, but was sparing in its criticism of the graphics, praised the sound effects, and called the game "immensely addictive."[13] CU Amiga considered the CD32 release to be shovelware in that it was ported from the Amiga with little effort put into utilising the CD-ROM's potential. It also took issue with the serial cable requirement for the multiplayer mode, citing low demand for the cable, and criticised the copy protection scheme and the low game speed that cannot be improved with a graphics accelerator, an upgrade that is impossible on the CD32. However, it praised the version's compatibility with Amiga 1200 computers.[14]

The game was ranked the 12th best game of all time by Amiga Power.[21] The game's engine was nominated for the Technical Innovation of the Year award at the 1996 Golden Joystick Awards.[22]

Legacy

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Retro Gamer described how Alien Breed 3D inspired other developers to attempt their own Doom clone for the Amiga, including Breathless and Genetic Species, which benefitted from third-party peripherals such as external CD-ROM drives and expansion cards with additional RAM and more powerful processors that were retailed until around 1998, despite Commodore International's 1994 demise. The expansion cards were so powerful that the Amiga saw the release of a faithful conversion of Quake.[23]

Alien Breed 3D reappeared as one of the 25 games compiled for the A500 Mini console, released in 2022.[24] It was also remade by a fan in 2021 as Project Osiris, which uses the GZDoom engine.[25][page needed][26][27][28][29] The levels had also been previously ported to the Quake engine.[30]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Manual 1995, p. 25.
  2. ^ a b Dykes, Alan (March 1996). "Previews – Alien Breed 3D II: The Killing Grounds". CU Amiga. No. 73. p. 38. Retrieved 25 July 2024.
  3. ^ a b c Bevan, Mike (18 May 2017). "The History of Alien Breed". Retro Gamer. No. 168. pp. 56–57. Retrieved 25 July 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d Day, Ashley. "A Breed Apart". Retro Gamer. Vol. 2. pp. 154–155. Retrieved 25 July 2024.
  5. ^ a b McNally, Steve (November 1995). "Sequelitis". Amiga Action. No. 76. p. 17. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
  6. ^ a b Gillen, Kieron (24 April 2007). "Playground Piracy and the Schoolyard of Crime". The Escapist. No. 94. p. 13. Archived from the original on 31 July 2024. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
  7. ^ Alien Breed 3D II. Amiga Format (CD). No. 11. March 1997. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  8. ^ a b Maddock, Andy (Christmas 1995). "Review: Alien Breed 3D". Amiga Computing. No. 94. pp. 116–117. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  9. ^ a b McGill, Steve (December 1995). "Screen Play – Alien Breed 3D". Amiga Format. No. 78. pp. 49–51. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  10. ^ a b Nash, Jonathan (December 1995). "Game Reviews – Alien Breed 3D". Amiga Power. No. 56. pp. 30–33.
  11. ^ a b Captain Squideo (July 1995). "ProReview: Alien Breed 3D". GamePro. No. 1. United Kingdom. p. 18. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  12. ^ a b c Ellis, Les (December 1995). "Reviews – Alien Breed 3D". GamesMaster. No. 36. pp. 68–69.
  13. ^ a b c Boni, Dino (November 1995). "CD review: Alien Breed 3D". Amiga CD32 Gamer. No. 18. Paragon Publishing. pp. 24–29. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  14. ^ a b c Dykes, Alan (September 1995). "Game Review: Alien Breed 3D". CU Amiga. No. 67. pp. 40–42. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
  15. ^ a b Dykes, Alan (January 1996). "CD32 Review: Alien Breed 3D". CU Amiga. No. 71. p. 58. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  16. ^ a b Brown, Lee (Christmas 1995). "Review: Alien Breed 3D". The One (Maverick ed.). pp. 10–13. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  17. ^ a b c "This Month's Charts". Amiga Format. No. 79. Christmas 1995. p. 40. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
  18. ^ a b c "This Month's Charts". Amiga Format. No. 80. January 1996. p. 44. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
  19. ^ a b "This Month's Charts". Amiga Format. No. 81. February 1996. p. 49. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
  20. ^ a b "This Month's Charts". Amiga Format. No. 82. March 1996. p. 39. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
  21. ^ a b "The Ultimate All-Time Top 100". Amiga Power. No. 64. August 1996. p. 25. Retrieved 29 July 2024.
  22. ^ a b "Worms squirm to the top". CU Amiga. No. 77. July 1996. p. 17. Retrieved 29 July 2024.
  23. ^ a b Day, Ashley (2 March 2006). "Retroinspection: Amiga 1200". Retro Gamer. No. 22. pp. 47–49. Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  24. ^ a b Scullion, Chris (18 December 2021). "The Amiga 500 Mini's 25 games and release date have been confirmed". Video Games Chronicle. Archived from the original on 22 January 2022. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
  25. ^ a b "Amiga Addict". Amiga Addict. No. 5. May 2021.
  26. ^ a b Tagliaferri, Simone (5 July 2021). "Alien Breed 3D: il remake gratuito in GZDoom è arrivato alla versione 1.0" [Alien Breed 3D: The free GZDoom remake has reached version 1.0]. Multiplayer.it [it] (in Italian). Archived from the original on 29 May 2024. Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  27. ^ Papadopoulos, John (16 March 2020). "Someone has created an Alien Breed 3D Remake in GZDoom, and you can download it right now". DSOGaming. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
  28. ^ "Alien Breed 3D for GZDoom (0.9 BETA) - A remake/slight reimagining of the Amiga FPS game Alien Breed 3D". Indie Retro News. 16 March 2020. Retrieved 23 June 2024.
  29. ^ "Alien Breed 3D Remake released: with new textures and visual effects". Generation Amiga. 7 March 2020. Retrieved 23 June 2024.
  30. ^ "Alien Breed 3D level pack released for Quake I". Generation Amiga. 18 October 2020. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
  31. ^ Burton, Corinna (26 April 2022). "The A500 Mini: Where to buy the new Amiga retro console". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 12 May 2022. Retrieved 12 May 2022.

Works cited

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