Any genuine extraterrestrial emergency would surely involve Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones, but neither shows up for Alien Crisis' third-person rail-shooting. Instead, painfully unfunny dim bulb archaeologist-turned-art-thief Peter Delacoeur gets recruited into the Men in Black after he pinches a mysterious ancient Egyptian tome.
Some ill-advised and mercifully brief sequences demand that you engage stiff non-entities in pointless conversation or scan "hidden" (read: glowing) objects for intel, and fleeting stealth sequences involve sniping security cameras and dull-witted sentries without raising alarms. Mostly, though, you'll blast the generic alien thugs that dutifully parade into your line of fire.
Aliens have little regard for their own safety. Blast away!This turns out to be almost no fun whatsoever, with or without a Top Shot Elite lightgun. Hosing down goons and dodging fire should've been exciting; instead, Alien Crisis merely nudges you from one lifeless gallery to the next. Even worse, it stubbornly restricts your movement to side-stepping spaces so narrow that many incoming grenades are simply unavoidable. Using secondary weapons to invert gravity or wrap civilians in protective bubbles could've been whimsical fun. Instead, you'll curse the constant ungainly need to aim off the edge of the screen to pan your viewpoint and locate shy and silent stragglers.
To add insult to injury, the entire story mode lasts under three hours. Sure, you'll rack up almost all the Achievements with minimal effort, and a handful of challenge missions might extend a masochist's stay. But there's just no way this charmless slapdash mess is worth anywhere near its asking price, much less your hard-earned recreation time.
Bigger dudes don't require any more strategy, although they can withstand more damage.PUBLISHER: Activision • DEVELOPER: FunLabs • ESRB: Teen • MULTIPLAYER: 2 in split-screen (competitive "V.R. Missions" only), 4 on same screen (taking turns in hotseat "V.R. Missions" only) • RELEASE DATE: May 22, 2012
+ One of the few non-hunting lightgun games; a few hours yields lots of Achievement points.
– Dull gunplay; ugly graphics; the least amusing "comedy" script imaginable.
– Plodding conversations; rote hidden-object hunts; stealth sequences add nothing of value.
? Why didn't someone pull the plug on this disaster?
