Attic of the Underdogs

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Review by Underdogs:

Alien Virus is the first adventure game from Trecision, the Italy-based developer responsible for Nightlong, one of the best adventure games in recent years. It's one of those adventure games that you really want to like but can't due to insipid puzzles and other annoying quirks.

You will want to like Alien Virus because it has many positives going for it. The plot, for starters, is an interesting sci-fi mystery reminiscent of Alien movies. Upon arrival at an outpost on a routine cargo mission, you find it deserted. And worse, something is stalking the few remaining survivors... and it won't be long until it detects your presence.

Unfortunately, the game never takes advantage of this promising premise. Instead of looking for survivors and trying to find your foe, you will spend most of the time in Alien Virus looking for ways to open countless locked doors. There are non-player characters, but they are few and far between, and static game screens -- although nicely rendered in SVGA -- hardly gives the sense of urgency necessary to immerse you in the plot.

Thankfully, the point-and-click interface is both simple and easy to use that playing the game is not a tedious affair, despite the fact that most rooms do look remarkably similar, i.e. bland without anything you can interact with. Had the puzzles been more varied and interesting, the game would have been much better. As it stands, Alien Virus is just a downright average, often boring adventure you'll struggle to finish just because you are curious to see how it all ends. Fortunately for adventure gamers, Trecision improved their act significantly with each subsequent release.

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