[typing]
Time to talk about another DOS game that's unfortunately been largely forgotten.
Alien Rampage,
published by Softdisk in 1996 and developed by...
Well, that's where things get interesting.
Ever heard of Duke Nukem Forever?
No, not that one, dang it. Duke Nukem Forever,
the side-scroller, being developed in the mid-'90s,
headed up by Apogee veteran Keith Schuler.
It was a 2D platformer set to follow in the footsteps of the first two Duke Nukem games
with pre-rendered sprite art and the weapons of Duke Nukem 3D.
It was ultimately cancelled due to other projects taking priority,
but the name was then used for the eventual sequel to Duke 3D.
The work wasn't tossed out entirely, though,
as its engine was also used for another Apogee platformer in development called Ravager.
This one ended up being cancelled by Apogee as well,
but the whole project was picked up by Inner Circle Creations
and Softdisk Publishing.
Which itself is amusing because Softdisk and Apogee
had a strange relationship going back several years.
The Apogee-developed ScubaVenture
resulted from contractual obligations between id Software and Softdisk.
It was created by Apogee in order to fulfill the contract, so
Apogee could then publish Wolfenstein 3D by id Software.
History was made. Softdisk got the short end of the stick
yet stuck around for several years and eventually
picked up some scraps from Apogee's table yet again:
Alien Rampage, aka Ravager,
built on the foundation of the original Duke Nukem Forever.
This is the mail-order registered version from Softdisk
which came packed inside this generic yellow sleeve.
I was pretty psyched to find this,
since the few people that actually bought this game back in the day
probably just tossed all this and kept the CD.
Speaking of which, on that sleeve is one ugly-looking alien dude.
Looks like a still from a bad FMV game
and kinda makes me wonder if it was going to have live-action cut scenes at one point.
Alien Rampage begins with an intro video that...
well, it's kinda hard to tell exactly what's going on,
or even understand the voiceover for that matter.
[distorted male voice] By the blood of my Gwonarian ancestors,
I vow revenge against the Untharian scavengers
who did this to my ship.
For I am Krupok.
- Ah well, thankfully the rest of the game is much higher quality than whatever that was,
starting with the main menu.
Ah, it's like going back home again.
The demo gameplay in the background,
the spinning icons around the menu text,
the difficulty selection screen.
It's unmistakeable that this was originally a project from Apogee and 3D Realms.
Start the game up and you're dropped right into the action.
As it should be.
You're an alien dude that's crash-landed on an alien world,
shooting alien guns at uglier aliens and sending them to Alien Hell.
There's probably a story, but who cares?
It's chock-full of blood, gore and mid-'90s attitude.
Really, the only things missing are some catchy one-liners
and an awesome soundtrack.
[laser gun fire, explosions]
Or, really, any soundtrack. There's no music in the game whatsoever.
I actually thought there was something wrong at first, but nope.
There are no music files or audio tracks on the CD at all.
Beyond this unusual omission,
everything in Alien Rampage just screams awesomeness.
You can kind of tell this was based on the setup of a Duke Nukem game,
from the crashed-ship storyline
to the seven weapons, which include analogs for most of Duke's guns,
even the Freeze Thrower.
Although, actually, it reminds me even more of another Apogee game,
Halloween Harry,
not only due to weapons like heat-seeking missiles,
but the fact that you're collecting coins by killing enemies
and then you buy weapons and ammo throughout each level at these little kiosks.
It even has a similar progress system,
where you save your game between levels
but in each level you'll find checkpoints that let you respawn over and over.
Huh!
You know, Halloween Harry was even renamed Alien Carnage.
Quite a similar name, indeed.
And on top of that, Alien Rampage was released for Halloween of 1996.
Hmm...
The conspiratorial side of me wonders if this was going to be a Halloween Harry sequel,
even though there was already one called Zombie Wars,
but, eh, I'm getting off topic.
Despite these similarities to those other games,
Alien Rampage has some mechanics of its own, too.
For one thing, it's got an interesting mix of run-and-gun action
alongside methodical platforming.
You can speed through areas and blast through just about anything
in seconds if you have the ammo,
but every so often you'll have to slow down
and figure out the exact path to the next area.
The way you walk and how you grab and pull yourself up onto ledges
brings to mind games like Prince of Persia or Blackthorne.
But thankfully it's not as slow and there's no fall damage.
It also makes pretty copious use of puzzle solving,
which provides a nice break from all the action
and makes you rely on your brain instead of reflexes alone.
Sometimes it'll be as simple as hitting the right switches in the right order,
or figuring out a teleporting system of teleporters that teleport you everywhere.
And other times, it'll involve rescuing one of these friendly aliens called Morgs.
Once they're on your side, they'll follow you around and stay out of your way,
until you reach a point where they'll either flip a switch you can't get to
or act as an impromptu step stool to a ledge you can't reach.
It also does this thing where the camera flings back and forth
to either side so you can see what's coming,
which looks worse when you're just watching it,
but actually it works pretty well when you're really playing it.
And it takes a bit of getting used to, but
I'm glad it's there because of how zoomed in the camera is and how large the sprites are.
You can turn it off, but it makes the game way harder to play, believe it or not.
Speaking of camera stuff,
Alien Rampage makes heavy use of parallax scrolling,
sometimes using three or four layers at once.
While this looks darned impressive,
it can also get in the way of the action sometimes.
This is one of the few instances in a game where
turning down the graphics settings on certain levels
actually makes for a better experience.
The unexpected stuff doesn't stop there.
There's also some areas that play like another game entirely
and, surprisingly, these work quite well.
For instance, you can become a demon bat thing
and fly around to parts of the level that are too high
for you to reach as a biped,
and flip switches to unlock new areas and stuff.
Or you can jump into a submarine and go underwater,
bypassing the crap above ground and protecting yourself from water hazards.
There's even a couple levels that turn into a side-scrolling shoot 'em up,
complete with its own unique weapon upgrades and power ups.
And at the end of each episode, you've got a boss battle,
each of which is absolutely nuts in terms of its design and how they fight.
Dude,
how is Alien Rampage not more well-known?
The art style, the action, the violence,
the puzzle solving, tons of unique enemies,
gameplay that keeps changing up the routine, and on and on.
If it only had some kick-ass music to go along with it
and maybe a more fine-tuned camera with higher a frame rate,
this would be on my all-time best list of DOS platformers.
In fact, it might just be up there anyway,
regardless of it being tough as nails.
And make no mistake, this is no cakewalk.
Alien Rampage is brutally difficult
and sometimes tremendously unforgiving,
even on easier difficulty levels.
But it's done in such a way that I really enjoyed playing through it.
So it's kind of sad that so few people care about it.
Unfortunately, that also means that there's no legit way to get a copy nowadays.
But hey, that's the purpose of places like Archive.org.
So, however you can, I'd say find a copy and give it a shot.
Even if you ignore its fascinating Duke Nukem-related origins,
Alien Rampage is DOS gaming done right.
[explosions, screams]
[MIDI rock music plays]
And a quick shout out and thank you to Mr. Joe Siegler of 3D Realms fame
for helping me track down some of the details about this one.
This has been really fascinating to research and play through,
so I hope you enjoyed this video as much as I enjoyed making it.
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And as always, thank you very much for watching LGR.