Heart of the Alien

Last updated
Heart of the Alien
Heart of the Alien Coverart.png
Developer(s) Interplay Productions
Publisher(s) Virgin Interactive Entertainment
Director(s) Jeremy S. Barnes
Designer(s) Jeremy S. Barnes
Michael Burton
Doug Nonast
Platform(s) Sega CD
Release
  • NA: July 1994
Genre(s) Platform
Mode(s) Single-player

Heart of the Alien is a cinematic platform game developed by Interplay Productions and was released by Virgin Interactive Entertainment in 1994 for the Sega CD exclusively in North America. It is a sequel to Another World and continues the story directly from where the original ended. The game switches the player's role from Another World; this time the player takes control of Buddy, the main character's alien ally from the previous game.

Contents

Gameplay

The game's control scheme is largely similar to that of its predecessor Another World , though there are several new elements related to the character's powerful energized whip. For example, Buddy can swing from stalactites or similar objects and his shields are deployed instantly, unlike Lester's, which take a few seconds to charge. As in Another World, there is no heads-up display.

Plot

The story picks up immediately after the end of Another World. Buddy lands the flying creature in the ruins of his village, lays Lester down on a cot to rest and walks through the village, thinking of his past. A flashback follows showing that Buddy's people were captured by soldiers led by one of the alien humanoids with red eyes. After recovering his power whip Buddy returns to the prison he and Lester escaped from in the first game trying to save his people.

Buddy and Lester overcome various obstacles, but later in the game Buddy is knocked unconscious, and Lester saves him by attacking an enemy alien but is electrocuted while doing so. Eventually Buddy is able to find the red-eyed alien and traps him in a cage with a beast that kills him. At the end of the game, Buddy gives Lester's body a ceremonial cremation. It is shown later how Buddy's village is rebuilt with its citizens living again in harmony.

Development

Eric Chahi recalled: "Interplay insisted in making the sequel in order to make the most of the CD-ROM medium's capabilities. After discussion, I agreed. Rather than making a chronological development related to the first story, I decided that redesigning the game from the alien point of view was excellent, and would make the player discover Another World with other eyes. I could already picture scenes where Lester would be in the background fighting guards, while the player would control the alien in the foreground and then join our first hero, help him, etc... The concept was good but, alas, neither the animations nor the game, entirely developed by Interplay, were up to the job. It was a flop." [1] Reportedly, "quickly after it was released, Chahi made a public statement that the title did not represent his vision of the world he crafted and disowned it altogether from being treated as an official sequel." [2]

Legacy

After Heart of the Alien became unsupported and unavailable, a fan took up the effort of extracting a source code variant from the binary game by reverse engineering to make the game runnable again on modern platforms. [3] This extracted source code was made open-source and is hosted freely available on SourceForge. An Amiga version has since been released that uses the assets of the Sega CD original.

Reception

GamePro hailed the game as even better than the original Out of This World , praising its sharply animated cutscenes, ingenious level design, evocative soundtrack, and the inclusion of the original game on the disc. They acknowledged that the controls are sometimes frustrating, but felt that practice and patience would inevitably overcome this issue. [4] The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly likewise found it to be a strong sequel despite the control difficulties. They commented that the graphics suit the game's theme, the puzzle-like challenges are engaging, and the game's cinematic sequences and animations are outstanding. [5] Sebastian Sponsel of Sega-16 gave the game an 8/10 rating and, while criticizing its relentless difficulty and controls, called the game an "enjoyable experience [and] a true sequel to a classic". [6]

Related Research Articles

<i>Earthworm Jim</i> (video game) 1994 video game

Earthworm Jim is a 1994 run and gun platform game developed by Shiny Entertainment, featuring an earthworm named Jim, who wears a robotic suit and battles the forces of evil. The game was released for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System, before being subsequently ported to a number of other video game consoles.

<i>Blackthorne</i> 1994 video game

Blackthorne is a cinematic platform game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It was released for the Super NES and MS-DOS in 1994. The cover art for the SNES version was drawn by Jim Lee. The following year, Blackthorne was released for the Sega 32X with additional content. In 2013, Blizzard released the game for free on their Battle.net PC client. In celebration of the company's 30th anniversary, Blackthorne was re-released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One as part of the Blizzard Arcade Collection in February 2021.

Tails (<i>Sonic the Hedgehog</i>) Video game character

Miles Prower, better known by his nickname Tails, is a character from Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series. Tails also appears in several spin-off games in which he stars, comic books, cartoons, and films. He is the second character to consistently appear by Sonic's side in the series as his best friend, appearing in nearly every mainline and spin-off since his debut. The name "Miles Prower" is a pun on "miles per hour", a reference to the famed speed of Sonic the Hedgehog. Miles Prower is a two-tailed fox, hence the nickname.

<i>Comix Zone</i> 1995 video game

Comix Zone is a 1995 beat 'em up video game developed and published by Sega for the Genesis. It is set within the panels of a comic book with dialogue rendered within talk bubbles and sprites, and backgrounds possessing the bright colors and dynamic drawing style of superhero comics. This style is in previous video games, for example Ocean Software's Batman: The Caped Crusader in 1988, but Comix Zone stretched the idea to such an extent that Sega applied for and was granted a patent for a "videogame system for creating a simulated comic book game".

<i>Another World</i> (video game) Action-adventure video game

Another World is a cinematic platform action-adventure game designed by Éric Chahi and published by Delphine Software in November 1991. In North America it was published as Out of This World. The game tells the story of Lester, a young scientist who, as a result of an experiment gone wrong, finds himself on a dangerous alien world where he is forced to fight for his survival.

<i>Flashback</i> (1992 video game) 1992 video game

Flashback, released as Flashback: The Quest for Identity in the United States, is a 1992 science fiction cinematic platform game developed by Delphine Software of France and published by U.S. Gold in the United States and Europe, and Sunsoft in Japan.

<i>Fade to Black</i> (video game) 1995 video game

Fade to Black is a 1995 action-adventure game developed by Delphine Software International and published by Electronic Arts Studios. It is the sequel to the 1992 video game Flashback. The game was released for MS-DOS with full Gouraud-shaded 3D graphics, and PlayStation with fully textured 3D. A version for the Dreamcast was released in 2018 by JoshProd, rebranded as Fade to Black: Flashback 2.

<i>Heart of Darkness</i> (video game) 1998 video game

Heart of Darkness is a cinematic platform video game developed by French developer Amazing Studio for the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows. A Game Boy Advance port was announced in 2001 but it was never released.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Éric Chahi</span> French computer game designer and programmer

Éric Chahi is a French computer game designer and programmer, best known as the creator of Another World and Heart of Darkness.

<i>Silpheed</i> 1986 video game

Silpheed is a video game developed by Game Arts and designed by Takeshi Miyaji. It made its debut on the Japanese PC-8801 in 1986, and was ported to the Fujitsu FM-7 and DOS formats soon after. It was later remade for the Sega CD and has a sequel called Silpheed: The Lost Planet for the PlayStation 2.

<i>Cyberia</i> (video game) 1994 video game

Cyberia is a science fiction action adventure video game released for MS-DOS in January 1994, and released two years later on the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, 3DO and FM Towns consoles. A sequel, Cyberia 2: Resurrection, was released in 1995 for both DOS and Windows 9x formats.

<i>Puggsy</i> 1993 video game

Puggsy is a 1993 puzzle-platform game developed by Traveller's Tales and released by Psygnosis on the Mega Drive and Mega-CD consoles, as well as the Amiga home computer. Puggsy is the name of the title character, an orange space hopper–like alien who landed his spaceship on The Planet, intending to return home until his spaceship was stolen by the raccoon natives of the planet.

<i>The Lawnmower Man</i> (video game) 1993 video game

The Lawnmower Man is a video game based on the 1992 film of the same name. The game was published in Japan by Coconuts Japan (ココナッツジャパンエンターテイメント) under the title Virtual Wars.

<i>Radical Rex</i> 1994 video game

Radical Rex is an action platforming video game released in 1994 in North America, Europe and Australia. It is a remake of the 1993 Game Boy game Baby T-Rex. It was published by Activision and developed by Australian game studio Beam Software for the Super NES, Genesis, and Sega CD. A Microsoft Windows port of the Super NES version published by Piko Interactive was released on March 7, 2019. Piko also released the game as part of the Piko Interactive Collection 1 for the Evercade on June 8, 2020.

<i>Loaded</i> (video game) 1995 video game

Loaded is a science fiction-themed top-down multidirectional shooter developed by Gremlin Interactive and published by Interplay Productions. Loaded was released on December 15, 1995 on the PlayStation, and was ported to the Sega Saturn the following year. The game had origins in DC Comics as well as the more adult-orientated Vertigo Comics, and there was a small graphic novel based on the game. The six playable characters of the game are a combination of villains, anti-heroes, psychopaths, perverts, mutants, and flamboyant murderers. They are, however, the best hope to stop the intergalactic supervillain nicknamed F.U.B. and save the universe. The characters were created and designed with contributions from Garth Ennis of Vertigo Comics and Greg Staples of 2000AD.

Earthworm Jim is a series of platform games featuring an earthworm named Jim who wears a robotic suit and battles the forces of evil. The series is noted for its platforming and shooting gameplay, surreal humor, and edgy art style. Four games were released in the series: Earthworm Jim, Earthworm Jim 2, Earthworm Jim 3D, and Earthworm Jim: Menace 2 the Galaxy, with the first game released in 1994. The series had lain dormant for almost a decade before Gameloft remade the original game in HD for PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade in 2010. Interplay announced Earthworm Jim 4 in 2008; little to no information had been surfaced until May 2019 and August 2020.

<i>Microcosm</i> (video game) 1993 video game

Microcosm is a 3D rail shooter video game developed and published by Psygnosis in 1993. It was originally developed for the FM Towns, and also ported for the Sega Mega-CD, Amiga CD32, 3DO, and MS-DOS. Microcosm featured realistic FMV animation, with the graphics being rendered on Silicon Graphics workstations. The game is either in first-person or third-person view depending on the gaming system.

<i>The Lost Vikings 2</i> 1997 video game

Lost Vikings 2 is a 1997 puzzle-platform game developed by Beam Software and published by Interplay. All versions of the game, except the SNES release, were titled Lost Vikings 2: Norse by Norsewest. The sequel to The Lost Vikings, it features the original three characters plus two new playable characters: Fang the werewolf and Scorch the dragon. The gameplay remains largely the same, though the three Viking characters all have new or modified abilities.

<i>Snatcher</i> (video game) 1988 visual novel directed by Hideo Kojima

Snatcher is a cyberpunk graphic adventure game developed and published by Konami. It was written and designed by Hideo Kojima and first released in 1988 for the PC-8801 and MSX2 in Japan. Snatcher is set in a future East Asian metropolis where humanoid robots dubbed "Snatchers" have been discovered killing humans and replacing them in society. The game follows Gillian Seed, an amnesiac who joins an anti-Snatcher agency in search of his past. Gameplay takes place primarily through a menu-based interface through which the player can choose to examine items, search rooms, speak to characters, explore a semi-open world, and perform other actions.

<i>Alien Odyssey</i> 1995 video game

Alien Odyssey is an action-adventure game developed by Argonaut Software and published by Philips Media in 1995. The game features a mixture of first-person and third-person gameplay, with sequences involving shooter, adventure and puzzle mechanics. Alien Odyssey makes use of 3D rendering and full motion video cutscenes which were developed using the developer's proprietary B-Render graphics software. Upon release, the game received a mixed reception, with reviewers praising the visual presentation of the game, whilst critiquing the game's inconsistent mixture of game modes and short length.

References

  1. ↑ ANOTHER WORLD - Site officiel on anotherworld.fr
  2. ↑ anotherworld2 on hardcoregaming101.net
  3. ↑ Heart of the Alien Redux on sourceforge.net
  4. ↑ "ProReview: Heart of the Alien". GamePro . No. 62. IDG. September 1994. pp. 64–65.
  5. ↑ "Review Crew: Heart of the Alien". Electronic Gaming Monthly . No. 66. Ziff Davis. January 1995. p. 42.
  6. ↑ Sponsel, Sebastian (18 February 2010). "Sega-16 – Heart of the Alien". Sega-16. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.