[typing]
You know, the other day I started thinking about months.
And how every year has them.
At least, every year that I've been a part of.
One of those months is October!
And this is one of those months with a...
with a holiday
at the end of it.
But oddly enough, I've never really acknowledged
that holiday in video form that I can remember,
much less talked about any games
around that holiday that pertained to the holiday.
So I figured it's time to, uh...
still not do that.
But let's at least talk about a game
that has the holiday in its name.
Alien Carnage, also known as Halloween Harry,
developed by SubZero Software and Interactive Binary Illusions
and published by Apogee Software in October of 1993.
And, yeah, it's a game that saw a name change in 1994
to the much more generic Alien Carnage
since Apogee feared that having Halloween in the title
was leading people to believe it was just a seasonal-themed game,
which it was not.
It had its original name for good reason, though,
as this was sorta, kinda, not really a follow-up
to an earlier game by Halloween Harry creator John Passfield.
It was also called Halloween Harry
and was a 1985 game for the Applied Technology MicroBee,
which was an Australian 8-bit home computer.
But, yeah, this is the 1993 game,
and as a kid I knew it as Halloween Harry.
In fact, I didn't even know of the name change until like 2001,
so I still don't use the new name.
"If Duke Nukem has a twin separated at birth, you can bet it's hot-action hero Halloween Harry!"
[LGR's Duke Nukem voice] Hmm, not quite a twin, but quite possibly a distant cousin once removed.
[normal voice] Like other Apogee titles,
the first episode of the game was downloadable as shareware
and was also sold by shareware vendors like Ram-Gang,
but Apogee also released the game at retail through FormGen.
Inside the FormGen box, you get the game
on two 3½-inch floppy disks,
a registration card that will let you know why "Apogee means Action"–
mmm, kinky–
a block of styrofoam, just in case you get hungry while the game is installing,
and a full-color manual,
letting you know the game's backstory, how to install it,
what all the pixels in the game signify,
and copious amounts of the color green.
Halloween Harry starts off with an intro screen
letting you know that it's Alien Carnage,
unless you have the one that says it's Halloween Harry.
But if you have the full registered version,
chances are it's Alien Carnage.
You also get a bit of story,
shown through nicely-drawn and simply-animated 256-color cutscenes.
I would show you all of it, but I'm not going to.
So, the gist of it is that an alien ship has entered Earth's orbit
and as usual for aliens, they're just big galactic douches
and proceed to screw up everything, starting in New York City.
And it just so happens that their fetish is turning humans into zombies,
which is promptly considered a dick move by all of humanity.
Some special operatives were sent in to try and stop them,
but they sucked and were turned into zombies, too.
So it's up to you, Halloween Harry,
the even-specialer special operative,
to go in there with your flamethrower and torch the suckers
before the world turns into one big zombie walk.
You're then given a choice of four missions to play with five levels each.
You'd think you'd want to start at Mission 1,
but actually, there's a bit of strangeness going on here.
The shareware episode is actually Episode 3: Office Block.
And being that that was the first episode for people to play,
it's the one that actually makes logical sense to start with,
especially since it's the one that actually gives you a tutorial of sorts
and gradually shoes you the basics of gameplay.
But if you do that, then the story's all out of whack, so whatever.
Just choose either Mission 3 or 1 and start shooting things.
As you might be able to glean from this gameplay footage,
"Halloween Alien Harry Carnage" is a side-scrolling action-platformer.
You've got four movement keys, an action key, a weapons change key
and a key for using your jetpack, since you can't jump.
The role is to rescue all the captives in the level
and then exist through the elevator and get some points...
that have no meaning.
You're given a very useful radar that tells you where the captives are
which is good, because a lot of them are in places you either can't see
or can't get to initially.
You start out with a flamethrower as your weapon
that is not only awesome to look at,
but is more than capable of dispatching most of the the Party City creeps.
But it won't be long until you'll want more firepower,
and this is done by paying for them at vending machines.
What you have to do is shoot dudes and dudettes and non-dudes
and a coin or few will plop out of their charred remains.
This can be used to pay for more weapons and ammo,
which is a bit of a unique mechanic for a platformer like this.
You gain access to five more awesome weapons along the way
including the photon cannon,
heat-seeking missiles,
grenades,
micro-nukes
and the screen-clearing Omega bomb.
Everything has limited ammo, including your flamethrower,
so you'll need to manage things wisely.
In fact, using your jetpack also uses up your flamethrower ammo,
since they share the same fuel.
Thankfully, the fuel at these vending machines is free,
but they're not always in the most convenient locations.
So if one is above you and you're out of fuel,
you'll need to backtrack down the level to another one, since you can't jump.
This is more of a pain than you might think,
since every single enemy you kill respawns
once you leave the area.
Yeah, it's one of THOSE platformers, and I honestly freakin' hate it!
I mean, I dealt with it as a kid,
but as I turned into an older, snobbier and slightly more jaded gamer,
I've started to really get peeved by game mechanics like this.
I mean, sure it increases the amount of stuff to do,
but it's tedious and annoying to kill the same basic enemies level after level,
much less kill the same basic enemies dozens of times on a level.
And this is made even more maddening
due to the fact that the levels are incredibly maze-like.
None of the fairly straightforward, more linear levels of platformers
like Duke Nukem II or even Commander Keen.
Nope! These levels sprawl out in all directions
and are full of switches, one-way paths and hidden passageways
designed to trip you up with every jetpack maneuver.
And this is both a good and a bad thing, really.
Since there are only 20 levels and four of those are boss battles,
it's good that each level takes a little while to figure out.
Otherwise, the game would be too short.
But to me at least, some of the game mechanics
tend to make navigation a bit more aggravating than fun.
Now I'm speaking strictly as an adult here,
since as a kid, I gave precisely zero craps.
This game had everything I wanted:
puzzling levels, horror movie enemies,
killer weapons, jetpacks, secret places,
zombie women, hot dog health items.
Dude, Halloween Harry was off the chain.
The chain that I didn't have.
Because why would I need a chain at eight years old?
I mean, I'd have taken one if one was given to me, but if I did,
Halloween Harry would have been nowhere near it, it was so far off it.
And for me that's what still counts today.
"Harry Alien Hallo-Carnage-Ween" was a game I enjoyed as a kid,
and as such, I still enjoy it for the nostalgia factor.
It may be a tiny bit annoying with the level design and the repetitive aspects,
but it's still a solid horror platformer that deserved more recognition
than it apparently got back in the day.
And it was released as freeware back in 2007,
so you can download the full version today and give it a shot
with no strings attached.
So what are you waiting for?
You've got some zombies to kill,
some aliens to carnage,
some Halloweens to Harry.
It's Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage/
one awesome game that I approve of.
If you enjoyed this episode of LGR, well there's a buttload more.
In the top-left, there's my review of the sequel to Alien Carnage, Zombie Wars.
In the top-right is my retrospective on the entire Duke Nukem series.
And at the bottom is my last video
featuring a game that is totally not GTA V called Jewel Thief.
Or you can just subscribe to be notified of more stuff as it comes out.
And as always, thanks for watching.