Alien Swarm is a free PC title that began life as a Game Mod for Unreal Tournament 2004. Valve, impressed with their work, subsequently hired the team (a la Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat and Team Fortress Classic) and in between helping out with Left 4 Dead and Portal 2, they developed a Source Engine remake of the mod, released on July 19, 2010. The game is played from a top-down perspective.Up to four players control a squad of Space Marines who are sent to investigate a mining facility on a frozen frontier colony planet that has gone dark. Turns out, it was completely overrun by, well, a swarm of aliens. It could be considered analogous to a top-down Left 4 Dead, although the setting is not quite as bleak.Currently, the game only has one official campaign titled Jacob's Rest. This raises the question: "who exactly IS Jacob?"*
According to background material, the planet the campaign is located on (Vereon XII) was discovered by a Jacob Cornell
Alien Swarm provides examples of:
Action Bomb: The Swarm Boomer. It's an Expy for the Gonarch, so of course it must explode upon death. There's an achievement for killing it before it does so.
Awesome, but Impractical: The Chainsaw. It can tear bugs apart... but so can the standard melee attacks, and those are less likely to get you killed or wounded. However, unlike the standard melee attack, you can move freely while using it. A good chainsaw user can simply run into a mob of aliens and leave chunky bits in his wake, while anyone attempting to punch his way through the mob would simply get mauled between punches.
Also, the chainsaw is often used by speedrunners, as it can be used to both remove the boulders in the last mission without using the slower mining laser and break down doors faster than opening them by hacking.
There are two hidden items in the game: The Assault Jets and The Blink Pack. Each can only be found on a specific stage. The first is your only jumping option in the game, but has very few uses and can't do much to enemies. The Blink Pack lets you teleport. It has unlimited uses, but a lengthy recharge time. It will also zap any enemies around both ends of the teleport. However, you're limited to teleporting to places on your screen, and only places you could reach on foot. Both take up a slot that could be much better utilized.
Scratch the impractical part, advanced players can combine both to abuse gaps between map props and easily solo any map where those items are present on the highest difficulties.
The Smart Bomb is certainly an effective weapon if you're being overwhelmed by aliens, but it's single-use and ends up being tremendous overkill in most situations. Most of the time you can get the same effect just by dropping a freeze grenade at your feet.
The Grenade Launcher. Big splash range when things get crowded but causes extremely high friendly fire damage plus the shots arc instead of flying straight.
It becomes very practical on insane difficulty when there are large aliens on every map and you need to kill them as quickly as possible.
Better to Die than Be Killed: Without healing, a parasite will kill you, and spawn another four that pose a significant risk to your teammates. Better to die in battle, charging into the largest mass of aliens before dropping all your grenades at your feet.
Blood Knight: Karl Jaeger lives for the glory of battle.
Boxed Crook: Wolfe is an ex-con who chose military service over life imprisonment. In a less-seen variation, he turns out to enjoy the military far more than his previous life of crime, and sticks with it as a career.
Vegas chose this mission over imprisonment for a Noodle Incident.
Bullet Time: The adrenaline rush. Happens automatically at some points in the game, but there is also an item that grants it. In both cases, it affects the entire squad.
Also, whenever a character dies, we have a slow-mo cutscene of him or her dying. Generally, this is used to get the last edifying reactions from their squadmates. These are normally variations on theme of "oh shit", "noooo", "lol" or "oops".
Chainsaw Good: Oddly enough, the blade of this game's chainsaw is horizontally-aligned. Still chops the Swarm up good though.
Probably because a vertical chainsaw would be harder to maneuver side-to-side through multiple swarm while being held comfortably.
Character Level: EXP is awarded at the end of various stages. To add to that, items and weapons unlock when you level up; thus, the more you play, the larger your arsenal.
There is also the Rank system, where you can trade 26 levels for another Rank. This has no positive impact on the game however, and actually takes away your weapons if you choose to do so (level 27 being coincidentally the highest you can get).
Some of these achievements can be redone every mission, providing the experience bonus each time.
Then there is the promotion option at level 27. It resets your level and gives you a medal next to your level ingame.
Which is nothing but a Bragging Rights Reward, since all it shows is how many times you've relocked your kit and reset your levels.
The Cracker: David Murphy, aka "Crash". He apparently brought down an entire financial network at the age of 21. He's serving time with the military as a result.
Cutting the Knot: A chainsaw often opens doors faster than a player can hack the locks. You'll want to play a tech anyway though, since Vegas gets a large bonus to chainsaw damage.
Difficult, But Awesome: If you can master the grenade launcher, it's one of the most effective weapons in the game. If you can't master it, it's one of the most effective ways to kill yourself.
Dummied Out: A look in the sounds folder reveals several Marine voice files that address a tech named Flynn, who is not present in the game.
Alas, poor Flynn. His fate is unknown - he was present in the Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, but was replaced by Vegas for reasons unknown. Could have been voice actor troubles.
There also exists a fully working Queen alien, complete with massive "boss" health bar on top of the screen, but she doesn't appear anywhere in the game's original campaign. You can still place the entity in maps or spawn it from the console.
The green ones leak gas or chemicals that are hazardous to marine and bug alike instead. Very hazardous. Good for covering your back.
Expy: The Autogun is the smartgun in all but name.
Parasites to the Facehuggers, to the point where Valve would probably owe 20th Century Fox royalties if the game wasn't freeware.
Friendly Fireproof: Averted, though how much damage it does depends on the difficulty. On Easy, the game will register the hit and count it against your XP gains but no damage is dealt.
The Tesla gun however is Friendly Fireproof under pretty much all circumstances. It's justified because it's programmed to ignore human biosigns.
There is a special absorption system in place to limit the amount of FF received, at least early on. It drops off over time, though.
Game Breaking Bugs: Originally crashed on loading for some people. A patch fixed that, though.
Game Mod: Like Killing Floor, it started out as a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004. Valvehired three of the original developers, who then remade it on the Source engine in their "spare time". The game also supports custom maps, but since the game was just released, it will be a matter of time before people will use this feature.
Plus the mods for the game itself that the community creates. The game is also fully open-source, meaning you can edit the files however you want.
Gatling Good: The Special Weapons class starts with an Autogun, which is like a less powerful minigun that can lock onto targets. You can unlock an actual minigun when you reach level 17, which trades off accuracy for a faster fire rate.
Goomba Stomp: If you land on an enemy after jumping with the Assault Jets, they go squish.
Guns Akimbo: Dual pistols and Personal Defense Weapons are available. The pistols' description notes that they are issued in pairs.
Gunship Rescue: The Drop ShipBloodhound gives you covering fire twice over the course of the campaign.
Gratuitous German: Jaeger sometimes yells "Scheisse!" when a parasite jumps on him. He also taunts the drones in German occasionally.
Gratuitous Spanish: Vegas usually spouts some "Ten cuidado, bastardo!" ("Watch it, bastard!") when shot at.
Of note is that the Captions for some of his lines are translated to Spanish even though they are in English and viceversa. So, double the Gratuitous Spanish!
Grenade Launcher: Underbarrel varieties appear on many basic guns, while a stand-alone rotary-chamber version is also available.
Hacking Minigame: Techs must play it to unlock doors and access encrypted files, so the rest of the squad must hold off the aliens while they do.
Harder Than Hard: Insane difficulty. The game on Normal difficulty is challenging enough, this makes the swarms faster, stronger and spawns them in more places (you get parasites on the first level). It demands good teamwork otherwise you won't get very far.
A recent update outclasses Insane with Brutal difficulty for people who say Insane isn't hard enough! How hard is it? Hard enough that none of the developers could complete a mission on Brutal difficulty!
Onslaught mode, another new feature added to the game, can be borderline Nintendo Hard since the aliens now are randomly generated and a huge swarm may randomly appear to slaughter the team, just like in Left 4 Dead. As if this and Brutal difficulty wasn't enough, Valve also added a Hardcore Friendly Fire option that makes all friendly fire deal full damage to teammates and people who are set on fire stay lit a lot longer. And yes, this can turned on for Insane and Brutal difficulties.
There's an achievement for beating a mission on Brutal with Onslaught and Hardcore FF turned on. Have fun!
Heal Thy Self: Along with the medical beacon and the unlockable Healgun, first aid kits, although they are self use only. Marines that are low on health will have their Power Armor emitting sparks.
Inventory Management Puzzle: You can only carry one of the game's many equippable items at a time. It's your choice whether to take something that benefits you (Health Kit, armor upgrade) something that harms the Swarm (tripmines, rocket pack) or something that helps the team (Damage amp beacon, flares, Welder).
Killed Off for Real: Unlike Left 4 Dead and many other multiplayer shooters, players who are killed stay dead until the next round.
Given how flamethrowers work, it could be that the ammo counter is measuring propellent, not fuel and suppressant.
Laser Sight: All weapons in the game have one equipped. Pretty much necessary, given the top-down camera. The deployable tripmines also use these.
Leeroy Jenkins: Players who attempt to speed run a map and not tell anyone else (which will usually get the Leeroy killed or their team killed) and/or guys who mishandle power weapons like the Flamethrower and constantly cause friendly fire damage with them.
Mercy Kill: If there are no medics, healing packs, or shock armor left, an infected player has no chance of survival. Better to burn them to death than wait for a swarm of parasites to emerge from their corpse once they die.
Mook Maker: The last level features a giant spider-like enemy which spawns tiny suicide bombers, and releases a whole pile of them on death.
If a parasite kills a player, it also releases a bunch upon death. Protip: Don't stand near a player who will be killed by a parasite. And don't stand near other players if you're going to die to one!
More Dakka: The Autogun really lays down some covering fire, but the Minigun does even more, at the cost of accuracy.
X33 Damage Amplifier item does exactly what it says for characters standing in it's radius, doubling damage done for the duration.
Including damage to teammates. As if shotguns weren't dangerous enough...
Noodle Incident: Several of the marines mention previous battles where things got pretty rough, to which Sarge replies that he hopes their current mission doesn't get that bad.
One-Hit Polykill: The Special Weapons skill Piercing Bullets gives each shot fired a chance to pass through multiple enemies in its path.
Also see the Railgun and Scoped Rifle.
One-Man Army: Averted. You can't start a campaign without at least two people. Unless, of course, you enter a console command. You'll probably die if you go it alone, though, even on easy.
If you suck, sure. It is, however, possible to solo speedrun certain levels, with the right setup.
Palette Swap: The Telsa Cannon and the Mining Laser both share the same models with different colors.
Power Armor: What the characters wear, color-coded based on their class. Officer = Green, Medic = White with red stripe, Heavy Weapons = Bluish grey, Tech = Yellow. There are also some design differences; medics, officers, and techs have different flavors of backpack for their armor while the heavy weapons character has what looks to be an ammo drum.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Half of the characters have a shady, if not downright criminal past.
Recursive Ammo: Jaeger and the Hand Grenade Unlockable. Normally, the Hand Grenades suck, and are basically a copy of the standard Assault Rifle's Grenades. It is worth noting, however, that the Explosives skill increases the damage by 10 per point, and adds one cluster munition to the main grenade per point. Jaeger has Explosives 4. That's five explosions from one grenade dealing 120 damage each. There Is No Kill Like Overkill.
Shock and Awe: The Tesla Cannon. It slows enemies down and can deal damage to them through doors. it's programmed to ignore human biosigns and is therefore Friendly Fireproof. There is also the Tesla Sentry, which does this for you while you take the shocked Swarm down with your own preferred weapon.
According to the Wiki, the pilot's name is Williams.
The unoffical Telic campaign expansion for the ut2k4 mod added a cigar equipable by Sarge. Given that it did nothing but took up the equipment slot, it's whole purpose was looking cool.
Solo Character Run: Requires a console command, but is possible. Done for bragging rights.
Theres No Kill Like Overkill: The Smart Bomb tends to kill every single thing on the user's screen.... and still have some left over missiles flying around.
Token Minority: Vegas is the only black person in the Valve version of the game. On the other hand, it has two women, Wildcat and Faith.
Weaponized Exhaust: The two hidden items, the Blink Pack and Assault Jets. The first is a teleporter which has a side-effect of electrocuting everything around you at start and finish. The other is your standard rocket jump boots, and can light enemies on fire if you're next to them when you take off.
We Cannot Go On Without You: Any level that requires a Tech marine will become an instant failure if they are killed. Sometimes it's a good idea to have two Tech guys as a backup plan.
Weld The Lock: If you have the Welder equipped, you can weld doors to temporarily hold off the Swarm. You also find some doors already welded that if unwelded, may reveal extra items if not the way forward.
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