ALIEN BREED I vs II vs III (AMIGA) - WHICH IS BEST?

[Cherno]

I like Tower Assault for it's environments which follow a much more realistic pattern than the confusing mazes of AB2, although AB2 has a nice variety of enemies to fight.

[Tsak]

It's hands down Tower Assault for me. I've finished all 3 games and the last one is a league of it's own in terms of quality, design and content. Better graphics, better atmosphere, better story, more varied and well justified (and realised) level design, tons of innovation and new ideas, multiple routes to take and multiple ways to finish the game. It's a freakin masterpiece and the absolute peak of the AB series imho.

[WalterEgo]

Cant say which one was the best one. But when I hear the music, sounds and ambience from Tower Assault I feel something!

[AmigaHope]

Tower Assault all the way. It made me feel like I was clearing a real place of alien infestation instead of just wandering video game mazes.

[ZEUSDAZ]

Voting over, Alien Breed TA wins with 23 votes, AB1 came a very close 2nd with 22 votes, and AB2 was a distant 3rd with just 6 votes, thanks to everyone who took part in this edition.

Jan 2020 edition will follow shortly on these forums!

[Nishicorn]

Originally Posted by Tsak

It's hands down Tower Assault for me. Better graphics,

I don't remember exactly how different the graphics are, but I thought the first game was brilliant in that light actually looks like light in it. It was the first game, where I experienced something like this. I guess they kept enough contrast between the 'bright' things and 'dark' things, that when you play on a bright display, everything else looks normal, but the gun flashes and such really look impressive.

I can't remember how well TA implemented this, I just remember being very impressed by this effect back in the day.

better atmosphere,

This seems a bit more like an opinion of individual experience than a factual statement, and hard to measure.

It's a freakin masterpiece and the absolute peak of the AB series imho.

Well, now we -know- you were just talking about subjective experience and individual opinion rather than objective comparison.

The 'absolute peak' of the 'AB' series is unquestionably Alien Breed 3D, of course. It has probably even more 'innovations' and arguably 'even better' graphics. If you want to talk about atmosphere, no other 3D shooter of its type even comes close! The textures alone OOZE so much atmosphere, I could just stare a wall for hours and not get bored.

It took the 'Doom' concept and fixed and enhanced it; it's REALLY 3D, when Doom is 2.5D. You can actually walk under and over a bridge, and there is even a staircase that has multiple height levels, so you can walk in the same place on multiple levels, not just two.

Need not to mention the brilliant level design and sense of exploration that even Doom couldn't match. Its levels are also so large, that even Quake engine can't properly duplicate them.

If any game was ever 'absolute peak', being so far ahead of Doom and even Quake, not to mention of its own time, it has got to be Alien Breed 3D.

It even has really interesting story told in text before each level, setting the mood perfectly.

When you walk in those beautifully shaded and atmospherically lit hallways and you hear a distant 'howl', your back hair rises up and you know something magnificent is going to happen soon..

Doom is a good game, but I had way more intense experiences and fun completing Alien Breed 3D.

Playing this game on a real Amiga is an experience I recommend to everyone, I can't imagine some repetitive, typical, already-done-multiple-times, unoriginal 2D 'upgrade' of an earlier 2D game is going to be able to compete.

The brilliant touch is to use a bit lower resolution, although at first it seems a bit annoying, it really draws the immersion and engages the imagination, so you have to imagine what things would look like in a higher resolution and more detail.

It's like in a horror movie - it's more scary when you don't see the monsters or ghosts, when you can't be quite sure what's causing the events, and who's in the closet. It's boring if you just see everything clearly all the time.

Robert Englund during daytime is not scary, but watching Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time scared me so much I could hardly sleep.

The same is tre in Alien Breed 3D - the best GPU in existence takes part in creating those graphics - your own imagination.

If anything is better than Alien Breed 3D, I don't want to know about it.. you can just pick this game and play and have fun any day (on a real Amiga anyway), even these days.

I can't imagine the same being true of any other Alien Breed.

[StevenJGore]

Originally Posted by Nishicorn

The 'absolute peak' of the 'AB' series is unquestionably Alien Breed 3D, of course.

I agree with the whole of your post. For me, if just one Amiga game sums up the excitement of playing it at the time, the new level design, the feeling like you're playing something new that nobody's experienced before (graphically and atmospherically), etc. then for me that game is Alien Breed 3D.

I didn't feel like that again until the original Half Life on the PC.

But to go back to the original question of this thread, my vote would have gone to Alien Breed II AGA.

[manossg]

Yes, AB 3d is top notch for me as well. Even though it doesn't look or play as well as Doom, its atmosphere is second to none.

[Konrad]

This thread is not about AB3D. A very long post to derail from the topic.

Nishicorn, you write that you dont really remember AB TA and still criticise that some opinions are subjective.
I would suggest that you first check out ABTA to check if it really is the case, or if there may be something objective to it.

Also, I dont see AB3D and AB3D2 really as part of the series. Except the name the games don't have much in common. Which may be the reason why this thread is just about the top down shooters.