The Swarm of Alien-like thingys

As you've probably known, I'm a scaredy-cat at horror-style games. Well, apparently in the case of Alien Swarm, by the way you can get it for free on Steam, it wasn't an issue which is a big plus for me.

This might have been you. Er, no, I don't mean the alien bug.

I believe it's the fact that the view is from a third-person, top-down view that allows me to focus more of the game-play rather than being freaked out as one of the players. But still, I could also say the same when I played my second session of L4D2 with JJ, Neo, and WJ, in which in this case was intense and exciting but I don't feel as scared of it when there's actual people playing with me. Guess strength in numbers.

Anyway, about Alien Swarm I have to say that using the Source engine for it is pretty impressive, which I think that this title might be in the Indie genre but I'm not sure. Still, the game-play is straightforward and didn't try to bore you with the overall story as it immediately sets you down in the game's environment, your instinct already telling you that there's some serious problem going on. The dialog and the occasional iPad-like consoles helps to build the plot along as you play the game, which assist to maintain the pace.

The dynamic four-coloured rangers, ready to take on the evil aliens.

Next, the control mechanism is also pretty straight-forward. Even when there's no tutorials to be found, when encountered with either an item or an obstacle the game helpfully hints at what keys to press in order to interact with it.

The camera does it job relatively well, though my negative observation was that at some point the camera would kind of shake rather violently from left to right and back, which seems to have happened a few times. I was not able to discern the reason behind it but unless the some dialog or event justifies it, it's pretty much a bug. Even so, this will not negatively affect your overall game-play experience. At least, not for me.
If you didn't play close attention, the background music is almost non-existent considering that the foreground sound effects pretty much drown it out, so no comments so far regarding about it.

Wicked graphics. For a free Steam game, that is.

Multi-player has always been a bitch when one goes down to the levels of lag time and frame rates. With the most recent multi-player match I had just a few minutes ago there were times when the game does lag to a certain point where control is greatly affected. Eventually the game resumes pace and you're on your way again. Unfortunately, this problem has always, and will always, be an re-occurring problem. The only solution? Get your local friends together and play it in the same region as you are. But even this couldn't fend away the possibility of lag.

Finally, my overall rating of the game itself. Though only played for, what? About 2 hours at best, I feel confident that my initial review of it won't changed even with further game-play, which I intend to by the way, so I'm giving a 7.5/10, giving it the grace as both of a free Steam game as well as possibly in the Indie genre. I cannot see any more playability value as a single-player though so play it with your friends. :-)

P.S. Hee hee, I didn't realize that I could manipulate the positioning of the image but alas I did just that. Please do let me know if this looks better.