The first-person shooter genre certainly seems to be bursting at the seams with AAA games that push the FPS genre forward. Practically every year a new game comes out that becomes the standard bearer for all future FPS games. One day your game might be the genre-defining example of innovative gameplay but within a week the game is old hat because something new came out. What about the FPS games that fall below the radar of the hype train that is the mainstream gaming press?  Alpha Prime is one of those games since it doesn’t try to offer a genre-breaking gameplay experience yet still packs plenty of firepower.

The story is your basic science-fiction story; the plot centers upon hubbardium, an element that powers space travel and is highly desired by race of man. A huge asteroid was soon discovered with a huge abundance of hubbardium and a mining facility was built on the asteroid by the Corporation. However the hubbardium soon started to cause insanity among the miners and the Corporation was forced to seal off the mine. The asteroid was named Alpha Prime and workers soon started to spread tales that the hubbardium was actually part of a living creature on asteroid. It didn’t take long before illegal traders and miners tried to exploit Alpha Prime for its hubbardium. You play the role of Arnold who has been persuaded by his former friend Warren and his old girlfriend Livia to help find out what’s wrong with Alpha Prime.

Tried-and-true gameplay elements make up the majority of Alpha Prime. You get the typical 'shoot as many people as possible and solve a few puzzles' element that we’ve seen in other games. You also get a large assortment of guns and a slow-motion effect that we’ve seen become popular over the past few years. Alpha Prime doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, so to speak; instead it offers a straight forward FPS game.

The basic gameplay centers upon you, Arnold, as he tries to find Warren in the mines of Alpha Prime. The enemies are a mixture of crazed workers from the mines and military units sent in by the Corporation to stop you. Almost right at the beginning of the game you will probably notice that the A.I. of the enemies is lacking. I would often stand next to an enemy who wouldn’t do anything. Other times the enemies would keep running into walls to get away from me when I chased after them. No matter how questionable the enemies’ intelligence was looking at me, their aim was always accurate. The only time an enemy missed me was when they would run away, which wasn’t that often. This made the difficulty challenging whenever you entered a room with more than two enemies at a time. No amount of cover or slow motion could compensate for five or six enemies with deadly accuracy.

Probably the best parts of the game are the visuals and story. Graphically the game reminded me of Doom 3 even though the game doesn’t use the Doom 3 engine. The character models and stages looked very similar to Doom 3. The framerate was consistent and rock solid regardless of the action on the screen. The story of the game unfolds nicely as you meet various characters in the game and find out more about Arnold and his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Livia. The voice acting in the game was well done which helped in making the story more believable regardless of the science-fiction setting.

The big issues for Alpha Prime are the A.I and gameplay. The A.I. is so inconsistent that you can never tell how each stage will play out. One minute the game is clipping along at a nice pace with some great encounters. The next minute you’re watching enemies run into walls or stand next to you without any action. But then you run into a room filled with enemies with pinpoint accuracy that causes you to replay the stage five or six times before finishing it. The gameplay itself is the tried-and-true experience we’ve already had in other games; nothing really stands out as new or exciting, especially for a FPS game.

Gameplay 6.5
The game is a typical FPS game you’ve probably already experienced a 100 times already. There is nothing really new or exciting but nothing majorly wrong that should keep you away.

Graphics 7.4
Visually the graphics are the one of the best portions of the game. This might not be a graphic tour de force compared to other new FPS games but the graphics are still solid.

Sound 7.6
The voice acting in the game does a great job of keeping the story going and believable. The music and sound effects in the game do a good job of setting the mood of each stage and setting.

Difficulty Medium/Hard
The hardest part of the game is getting past the accuracy of the enemy characters. Sometimes running into a room filled with enemies was a no-win situation because the enemy would never miss.

Concept 6.0
Alpha Prime doesn’t offer anything new that we haven’t seen before in previous FPS games.

Overall 6.9
Alpha Prime is a commendable game that offers a solid FPS gaming experience but lacks the innovation some might expect with a new game.