Somerville Is The Greatest Alien Invasion Sport Since Half-Life 2

Combating aliens in video video games have been an essential a part of the medium since its inception. The very first online game, House Conflict, was a few struggle in area. House Invaders was an early cultural phenomenon that was rumored to have inhaled so many cash that it created provide points for the foreign money in Japan. Halo, one of many largest online game franchises ever created, is about an ongoing struggle with aliens. We take pleasure in combating aliens in video video games as a result of it’s straightforward to make creatures from one other planet the enemy they usually can seem like something.

The smaller, extra private alien invasion story, nonetheless, is a selected sub-genre of extra-terrestrial narrative we don’t usually see in video video games. After we battle aliens, it’s often an influence journey meant to supply a playground of motion prospects, however Somerville tells the story of a household simply attempting to determine the right way to survive within the face of an unknown menace. You’re not looking for the very best weapon to hit the aliens’ weak level. You’re not even taking the time to get a great have a look at the aliens. You’re simply attempting to get to the subsequent level of security.

Somerville is thrilling because of this, and in its finest moments, it jogged my memory of the final time I skilled a really nice alien invasion in a online game: Half-Life 2.

Now, there’s a semantic argument to be made that Half-Life and particularly its sequel just isn’t an alien invasion story. Half-Life’s enemies, the Mix, are from a special dimension versus an alien world, however the core Spielburg-ian concept is identical – there are new unusual beings on the planet, we don’t know what they’re, and we don’t know the right way to take care of them.

Not like Somerville, which by no means actually places you ready of energy (despite the fact that you do have some particular talents), Half-Life 2 does turn into an influence fantasy fairly rapidly. The Gravity Gun is able to some really unimaginable feats particularly late within the sport, however it by no means abandons the awe and confusion of a world reckoning with an invasion.

In Half-Life 2, you’re dropped right into a world that has been coping with the Mix for years. Humanity is scared and confused – however they’re alive. And through the opening hours of the sport, you get an opportunity to stroll round and take all of it in. If Half-Life 2 is about how humanity tries to reply to an invasion, Somerville is concerning the day it occurred.

The 2 are remarkably totally different video games in utterly totally different genres (even when the protagonists have the identical facial hair), however I couldn’t assist pondering of taking my first steps into Metropolis 17, Breen’s voice booming over the loudspeaker welcoming to me to my new actuality, whereas my canine and I attempted to outrun the big purple gentle breaking by means of the timber. If you happen to appreciated the overall tone of Half-Life 2, I counsel you take a look at Somerville. And should you like Somerville, however have by no means performed Half-Life 2, now’s nearly as good a time as any to go to Metropolis 17.