"Yeah ok so its a routine plot". This refreshing honesty welcomes you to Alien Bash II, the sequel to an equally unknown freeware game. In the predecessor, the protagonist escaped from an alien prison ship - or rather he would have, in case anyone actually finished that not-very-good game. Now, he wants to end the alien threat once and for all by committing genocide on the aliens' homeworld. Routine indeed.

The game itself is more interesting, though. It strongly resembles the commercial classic Chaos Engine. Especially the graphics style is very similar. Not a bad choice which game to imitate. Chaos Engine, in turn, borrowed from Gauntlet's gameplay. That makes Alien Bash II a Gauntlet clone as well: you run around in top-down view and shoot monsters. At the end of each level, a 'generator' is waiting to be destroyed in a shootout with gradually rising difficulty per level.

A few extras can be collected, and money can be used to buy powerups between the levels. All the usual categories are covered: better guns, hand grenades, additional lives and so on. Special attention has been paid to the excellent controls. You can choose between three 'modes', determining whether or not (or how) you can move and shoot simultanously.

One important aspect of most Gauntlet-style games which also makes Chaos Engine so great is lacking, unfortunately: the two-player action. You're always on your own against the evil hordes.

With this one exception, Alien Bash II can even measure up to professional standards. Compared to the ackward first part, that is especially surprising! A gem amongst the masses of free stuff.


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