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A futuristic shooter against alien hordes
that offers a tense setting and good mission variety.

Inspiration, it seems, is based on the success of others. Look what happened after the tremendous success of Vietnam-based titles like Vietcong. Soon everyone was leaping aboard the bandwagon, 'inspired' by the success, and we had titles like Vietnam: Med Evac and the awful Line of Sight: Vietnam thrown at us.

With the non-appearance to date of Halo on the PC, yet with its unrivalled success on those console machines things, it didn't take developers long to figure out that this was the way forward. Hence was born Breed.

It would be easy to criticise the apparent plagiarism, even though its appearance might be entirely coincidental, but with quite a few upcoming titles aspiring to the grandeur of Halo, you have to ask yourself, is this really a bad thing?

As you might have guessed then, Breed is a futuristic FPS, where humans and aliens are engaged in an ongoing war for supremacy. Naturally, you fight for the human side, and get to kick alien butt with all manner of powerful weaponry, and drive various hefty vehicles.

The Halo-esque aliens fight back with Halo-esque plasma guns, and drive Halo-esque vehicles to aid their cause.

One of the best things about Breed is that it is being developed purely for PC. The result of this is a game that doesn't have to stay within the capabilities of a console, but instead can fully exploit all the resources of a PC.

Take for instance the environments in which you fight. These are huge, sprawling, open landscapes, slightly akin to the expanses of the IGI titles, and you can explore the entire place without a single loading screen to hinder you.

Other tangible differences include the potential amount of enemies on-screen at any one time, allowing for vast hordes of aliens to attack you; graphics are not dumbed down; full mouse-control of your avatar and all vehicles; non-linearity; and also the inclusion of the infamous quick-save.

The curent game build is looking very promising indeed. The first thing that impressed was the tutorial, putting you into a holographic raining
course not entirely unlike the concept of The Matrix's training programs. A particularly bizarre but clever touch being the inclusion of a holographic image within the holographic simulation.

The mission themselves are looking to be quite special as well. The objectives aren't incredibly varied, but the mission themselves are. In one mission you might be leading a team of grunts on foot to attack a base. In the next you might be driving a tank around firing at vital targets.

The next mission you might be the top-mounted gunner of the tank while somebody else drives. Then you might be put in a giant robot suit for a frantic rescue mission. Or maybe be ordered to fly around in one of the planes for some objective or other.

No matter how limited or tired the subject matter, Breed exudes a multifarious nature, simply for the constantly changing methods of completing each mission. Add to this as well the feeling of non-linearity, as you usually get to forge your own path throughout a mission, and are not not restricted by anything but the terrain.

The graphics are quite impressive as well, everything modelled nicely, and the terrain although still a bit basic at the moment does look adequately believable, the trees even sway slightly in the wind.

Actions are all animated well, and the aliens move fluidly, as do your own grunts. This all takes its toll though, as Breed is a hefty system hog. It will utilise all your PCs power and then some, particularly on the higher graphical settings when things can get very chuggy indeed, even on a high-spec machine.

The AI is acceptable, with Breed aliens ducking and rolling when fired upon, but not standing out really. The problem with judging the AI of an alien is that they have no predefined intelligence, and so can be granted any AI that the developers think necessary.

Hopefully the AI will be improved in the final build though to include aliens taking cover when fired upon, or even retreating. If not, there is a multiplayer option with a few basic modes like deathmatch and assault that you can take respite in.

As usual there are currently a whole host of bugs and deficiencies that should be ironed out eventually. There are various clipping problems, I got stuck in the floor more than once, saw through a solid wall, and was shot by an alien behind a wall.

Baddies don't currently die when you run over them, weapons don't fire at times, even with full ammo, and I got stuck in a perpetual cutscene, only managing to get out after five minutes by changing team members.

The difficulty also needs a little weaking, with some missions too easy and some way too difficult. These and a many other bugs and glitches should hopefully be fixed by the final version.

So what can we look forward to? A futuristic shooter against alien hordes that offers a tense setting and good mission variety. It sounds great, I just hope it can live up to its potential and deliver a masterpiece to rival Halo.

Preview by Adam Shirley.