Ludography
Alien Front Online cover

2001 · Sega Wow · Action · Shooter

Alien Front Online

Sega console exclusive

Alien Front Online is a Dreamcast video game originally released for the console in 2001.

Released
9 August 2001
Platforms
ArcadeDreamcastN-Gage
Genres
ActionShooter
Developers
Sega Wow
Publishers
—
Modes
MultiplayerSingle-player
Perspective
Third person
Themes
ActionScience fiction
Country
Japan
Age ratings
ESRB T
Composers
Howard Drossin

About

Alien Front Online is a 2001 video game released for the Dreamcast. 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.

Keywords

  • aliens
  • vehicular combat
  • time limit
  • online
  • capture the flag
  • tank
  • alien invasion
  • vehicle combat
  • death match
  • polygonal 3d
  • difficulty level
  • respawning

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

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 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 environments. 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.

Reception

The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Rob Smolka of Next Generation 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".

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Arcade9 August 2001Japan
Dreamcast9 August 2001North America

Editions and related releases

Ported as
Alien Front

Games like this

Collections4 collections

Platform libraries

Publishers

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.