Alien Brigade
 Atari 7800 box cover | |
| Developer(s) | Ken Grant |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Atari Corporation |
| Platform(s) | Atari 7800 |
| Release |
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| Genre(s) | Shooting gallery |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Alien Brigade is a side-scrolling shooting game, released in 1990 for the Atari 7800 Prosystem. Similar in style to Operation Wolf, Alien Brigade tells the story of a soldier who is forced to do battle with aliens that are invading the planet and taking over the bodies of fellow soldiers in the process.
Alien Brigade is 144K in size, making it one of the largest commercially released Atari 7800 games.
Gameplay
Like Operation Wolf, the game is played from a first-person point of view. The game scrolls horizontally in two directions as various enemy creatures, possessed soldiers, human vehicles and alien vehicles attack the player character. Alien Brigade can either be played with the Atari 7800 joystick or with an Atari light gun.
The game has five levels and four difficulty modes.[1] The initial mission is to rescue hostages from an enemy camp, but the game then progresses to a waterfront battle, an underwater melee, a showdown in an underground mine, and then a final mountaintop battle. Adding to the challenge, the player must be careful not to shoot innocent bystanders.[1]
Between levels, the player is briefed by the commanding officer, who advises of the situation and rates the player's performance in the level.
Release
Despite Alien Brigade being released late in the Atari 7800's life cycle, Atari Corporation made more efforts to market the game than it had with other Atari 7800 titles. The game had its own print advertisement[2] and was also referenced in Atari's 1990 shooter, Planet Smashers (Alien Brigade, when completed, would return the favor by advertising Planet Smashers). The game was also reviewed in the September 1991 issue of their own Atari Explorer magazine.[3]