''Alien Front Online'' is a 2001 video game released for the

Dreamcast The is the final home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was released in Japan on November 27, 1998, in North America on September 9, 1999 and in Europe on October 14, 1999. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, prec ...

. It is an online version of the arcade game ''Alien Front'', where it was bundled with the Microphone accessory. It was only released in North America. The game was brought back online by fans through private servers in 2016.

Gameplay

In the game, players use armored vehicles to fight battles staged in arenas. Players can choose which side to fight for; the Triclops or the military. Players can also choose one of three different vehicles, each having its own advantages and disadvantages. Although the game is fully playable for one person, it was primarily designed as an

online game An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms, including PCs, consoles and mobile devices, a ...

in which up to 8 players (up to 4 on each side) can play. Players move around the arena attempting to shoot each other, while also looking for power-ups for their vehicles. The game is played for a set number of minutes, after which the team with the most kills are declared the winners.

Development

Art director Gerardo Sprigg was working at Acclaim's struggling coin-op division on '' Magic: The Gathering: Armageddon,'' and before the studio closed, Sega employees paid a visit looking to buy arcade projects or people to recruit. Several months passed, when Sprigg received an email from Makoto Uchida, who had a small Japanese development team that were living in the US and working at Sega of America. Uchida's boss had mandated him to find some Americans to work with, with the idea to make their titles feel more American. Sprigg and Uchida met, where it was decided that the old Acclaim art team would reunite and join Wow Entertainment in the US to work on a new project that would appeal to American audiences. Uchida was a big fan of '' Tokyo Wars'' which was popular in arcades, and wanted to create a vehicle game as he noticed that people enjoyed cabinets with steering wheels and pedals. In contrast to ''Tokyo Wars'', Uchida was adamant on including

destructible environment In video games, destructible environments or deformable terrains are environments that can be destroyed by the player. It may refer to any part of the environment, including terrain, buildings and other man-made structures. A game may feature dest ...

s. During development, someone had suggested a premise of the US military fighting off an alien invasion, which the Americans liked but the Japanese were somewhat sceptical. Once a functional demo was running, testing for the ''Alien Front'' arcade game began in several California locations, and the game was brought to E3 2000, where it appeared to be fairly popular, despite being in the back corner of the Sega booth. Following the success of the cabinet, a home port was planned. New levels were added to the Dreamcast version, and online connectivity between the arcade and Dreamcast versions was even considered, but because the arcade never released outside Japan, the feature was scrapped.

Release

''Alien Front'' was released exclusively in Japanese arcades on January 23, 2001, and ''Alien Front Online'' was released on the Dreamcast exclusively in North America August 7, 2001. It was originally slated for release in Japan, but was cancelled. Copies of ''Alien Front Online'' were packaged with the Microphone accessory due to poor sales of ''

Seaman Seaman may refer to: * Sailor, a member of a marine watercraft's crew * Seaman (rank), a military rank in some navies * Seaman (name) (including a list of people with the name) * ''Seaman'' (video game), a 1999 simulation video game for the Seg ...

''. A related game, simply titled ''Alien Front'', was announced by Sega for the

N-Gage The N-Gage is a mobile device combining features of a cellular phone and a handheld game system developed by Nokia, released on 7 October 2003. Officially nicknamed the ''game deck'', the N-Gage's phone works on the GSM cellular network, and s ...

in 2004, but was eventually cancelled. A prototype

ROM image A ROM image, or ROM file, is a computer file which contains a copy of the data from a read-only memory Computer chip, chip, often from a ROM cartridge, video game cartridge, or used to contain a computer's firmware, or from an arcade game's arc ...

of the N-Gage version was leaked

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity, and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed as "on lin ...

in 2019.

Reception

The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. Rob Smolka of ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' said that the game was "not terribly original, but the basics are solid enough to make it fun, especially when you can taunt your foes and coordinate your attack with teammates online".

References

External links

* *{{moby game, id=/dreamcast/alien-front-online 2001 video games Video games about alien invasions Arcade video games Cancelled N-Gage games Dreamcast games Microphone-controlled video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Sega arcade games Sega video games Tank simulation video games Vehicular combat games Video games about extraterrestrial life Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Howard Drossin