Alien Swarm, on the other hand, is a game that I haven't been keeping tabs on because it's not in any of my interest genres (come on, top-down shooters, isn't that the province of cheapo $5 indie games like Alien Shooter or whatever?) and comes swinging heavy handed out of left field as the gateway drug to Steam.
I find it amazing that such a deceptively simple-looking game with a standard premise contains such lasting replay value to the tune of me clocking up 36 hours on it in under a week (which alas, says a lot about my current levels of sleep deprivation.)
I believe the depth of gameplay stems from the cunning design decision to offer a variety of strategic choices but a limited slot loadout.
1) Number of players playing the game (1-4)
Here you get the choice of a full group challenge, with all the requisite cat-herding of coordinating multiple players. Or you increase your difficulty by doing it as a smaller group of 2-3 people, which allow the friends-only small group likers to find their niche. Or by tinkering with a console command, you play it solo, which sends the difficulty flying through the roof but provides a different kind of 'survivalist' strategic gameplay for crazy soloists who love that sort of thing.
2) Which character and class you choose to play? (8 choices, 4 classes)
Self-explanatory, different things come in handy at different times, so there is some significant planning involved at higher levels of difficulty (be it the standard difficulty settings or if you change people numbers.)
3) What equipment will you choose to take? (lots unlocked by level)
Ditto, see number 2.
4) What difficulty are you playing on?
Ditto, see number 2 and 3.
5) What type of meta-game are you playing?
This is king. It really is. Whoever created the Steam achievements for this game deserves a medal in game design. Let's face it, a lot of players are motivated like little rats for these virtual shinies. By devising these correctly, you nudge players into playing differenet metagames that your game can support. And by god, can Alien Swarm support a LOT of these metagames, including some not originally designed.
You have your standard 4-man shoot aliens get to the end game. That's the simple baseline that a beginning player will follow. They complete the campaign on easy and normal, racking up their story badges and getting familiar with the map levels, and then they start trying on hard and insane - which forces more strategic planning, more familiarity with the loadout options, more cooperation with each other, etc. And they do this because they're chasing xp and levels too, like good little hamsters on a wheel.
Somewhere along the line, it becomes obvious that you can play different types of metagames. You could clear all the aliens (except for the one or two drones who will always spawn and come at you to keep you on your toes). You could start running past the aliens to complete the map more quickly, because after all, there are shiny speedrun badges. (And then you realise the times are set so competitively that you're going to need a major cooperative and strategic effort between competent players because of the cunning map design that can branch in different directions.)
Combine these together and you get massively different games out of the same codebase, tickling different people's playstyles. One could do a solo insane survival/"speed" challenge - whereupon tons of replay value is gained by trying it over and over, practising to get good at 'this turn, that corner, shoot here, whack barrel, remember to flame this alien there' all by your lonesome. One could also do a 4-man cooperative challenge, wherein you try again and again to get your parts just right and for all the team synergies to come together to victory condition.
About 12 hours ago, I just had one of the most memorable epic experiences in game-playing in my quest to attain the Insane Campaign badge. The roadblock was the last mission - Timor Station. I'd taken to attempting solo tries at the badge, following the forums' strategic suggestion of using the tech Vegas, a flamethrower for the stun and a chainsaw for the damage. The trick was I left my solo game open to public to join.
Midway through umpteen attempts, getting really familiar with the alien spawn patterns of the first section, and adept at my flame and chainsaw, or flame and dodge past combos, I would have random weirdos joining in.
Half of them were way past their depth, naturally. The sheer craziness of Timor Insane would drive them off before long. But the other half, ah, that's the group I wanted. Those just as driven as I to get that last niggling campaign badge, and having enough familiarity with Alien Swarm to attempt Timor Insane.
The first few possibly successful attempts were with a Japanese or Korean group (I assumed, since I just got a lot of squares in people's names and talking) that joined more or less simultaneously. They played in a pretty coordinated fashion, some guy taking the marksman rifle to shoot the big bugs, one flamethrowing, etc. We smashed through about 3/4 of the level and proceeded to get facestomped by 4 shield bugs and lots of harvesters, because they blew their ammo load so lavishly in the few sections. Cue us throwing ourselves into the fray about 3-5 times before one quit and the other two followed soon after.
The next two guys to join in were cvoQ and <
Hell, I just want people who can work together in a team and are serious about the attempt. Best buds are my favorite people to play with because then I have a good duo to rely on, and all I have to do is not screw up my own end and look like an asset to them. Hey, if you can live with the lag, I have no issues, I'm the host and I have 5-25ms ping. :)
We waited for one more random pubbie to join in and went for it. Multiple times. Changing loadouts according to individual preference at first. The two were mic'ing to themselves in a complete unrecognizable language, I wondered if they were Euros. Then Cyrax took charge, after asking any suggestions? to which I said I had no clue, and making small changes to our loadout. "let's try two medic" "take tesla sentry" etc etc. And we progressively got better and better, as we started getting a feel for each other, and getting past stage after stage.
We made it to the shield bugs and got facestomped naturally. But we were committed to this. We wanted it bad. We were running out of ammo, so Cyrax asked me to carry an ammo load too (we were carting at least 1 or 2 at this point). I had one more gun to pick, and I normally carry a flamer as does everyone. But flamers just didn't seem to be cutting it on the larger bugs. So I scanned through my loadout list, thinking, what the hell does high damage and doesn't use up too much ammo? I couldn't trust myself with a rail gun or marksman rifle, my aim is the shits, especially when I get freaked out, and there's so much freakout on Insane. I like a shotty, but I wasn't playing Jaeger or an Officer, so the standard shotty has terrible ammo capacity. And then I saw it.
The Chainsaw. It does big damage. Wtf, was I certifiably insane? The chainsaw is a melee weapon. It's a good secondary. I'm carrying an ammo load though. I'd have no primary gun. Oh what the heck, I thought, and grabbed it. I'd look like a right idiot running around like a chainsaw Rambo, but... it doesn't use any ammo, and I was confident of my ping and dodging like heck skills.
And you know what? It turned out to be the key. Between random multiple attempts of me being a medic with a medigun and a chainsaw, and the random pubbie dropping in and out and getting replaced by one or two way out of their depth, eventually, the tech position freed up and I snatched up Vegas (with his melee damage bonus) and I trusted my own survival rate and caution (if the tech dies, mission fails).
One of the random pubs who had quit for a while made it back - gunoki - and he was a good sport, turning into a full on peace medic healer with medigun and medpack. I was the tech with a chainsaw and an ammo load. Cyrax was another medic with flamethrower and medigun. And cvoQ was our Officer/SW (we kept trying different things, Jaeger/vindicator - Wolfe/autogun). We all picked tesla sentries for the slow/stun effect with the shield bugs.
And by god, we knew we had this as we ran through multiple attempts getting our timing just picture perfect.
Cyrax flamed the small stuff, the Spawn and the parasites. As he flamed the big guys to hold them in position and stopped the moment I got there, I would chainsaw the momentarily stunned beastie into zillions of pieces in 1-4 seconds flat - which was far better than 50 rounds of ammo emptied into each big thing. cvoQ alternately held back and vanguard as required per section. gunoki had his people to heal back and forth in places.
The amount of coordination is really hard to describe in words. From my point of view: Cyrax takes out 3 Spawn, flames a harvester, I move up and chainsaw, cvoQ helps with shotty.
Next, I knew that I had to be in a certain location -there- to head off an alien spawn climbing over the railing, help Cyrax whack a harvester, fall back to let him flame some Spawn. cvoQ and gunoki are meanwhile guarding our back from onrushing Drones climbing over the back railing. We hit the warhead button and the door panel.
And then follow Cyrax literally on his footsteps through two Rangers, two drones, dodge one Boomer, chainsaw massacre a Mortar as Cyrax flames 3 eggs and u-turns, both of us dodging mortar rounds all this while. On the u-turn, we meet up with gunoki and we spam heal up, cvoQ has headed down to engage the second mortar, Cyrax rushes down to flame it, I follow up to chainsaw it to death. The two engage a harvester with spawn, I follow up to kill it, having held off one or two back drones to save our peace medic gunoki.
At the same point, which is right by the rocks which require a mining laser to cut through, a bunch of drones drop, Cyrax flames wildly, we all individually take them out as best we can... meanwhile I run to the rocks with the chainsaw to open them out without having to swap for a mining laser.
Next up, a whole bunch of parasite eggs and one parasite. Cyrax and cvoQ go up to flame and shotty them. Me and gunoki guard our back from drones. I head up to the tech hack door and just chainsaw it down. I actually waited for the parasite to go away to the left, but on hmm, second thought, if I ever try this again, I bet I could drop the door on the parasite. I head back down to a special spot to chainsaw the last wave of drones.
Cyrax comes up and flames the parasite and spawn. I follow him up. He heads right to flame harvester, a ranger or two, and hit the button for the bridge. I go left, chainsaw through two spawn eggs, one ranger, drop a tesla right on the railing where a horde of drones spawn. gunoki follows me to keep me healed up. cvoQ helps Cyrax and rearguard. I proceed to massively chainsaw the drones down, while hotfooting it away from the mortar rounds who are unreachable, but help to destroy the drones too, and watch the vent for rangers which spawn. cvoQ and Cyrax join us as the bridge drops in place.
Up on the bridge, two sections of 7-10 parasites. gunoki and I hold back, dodging mortars. Cyrax goes up to flame them to death, cvoQ guarding his back. We go up and left and brief respite. Ammo drop, medpack drop, heal up.
Two pairs of ranger/harvester now. Cyrax goes up, flames, we do chainsaw/shotty on one pair. Cyrax turns right. Next pair goes down. One mortar gets flamed. It goes down. Next harvester gets flamed, it dies too. We're now at the next stage of biomass holding the bomb back. Cyrax/cvoQ clear the two spawn eggs there. The biomass is flamed and incoming wave. I sit in the pocket and hold new rearguard against a sporadic drone drop from the ceiling. The three head backward to fight off a wave of drones and rangers and things. The door is meanwhile getting banged on, and I position myself just so against a corner. My tank/aggro sense helps here, because I discover by chance that a drone wave heads in a straight line towards the nearest enemy. Angling just right, with chainsaw revving, the drones bang the door down and run straight into the chainsaw in a most satisfactory manner. (Come to think of it, I could also try bringing the door down onto them.)
Next up, the shield bug and harvester phase. Cyrax goes north, drops a tesla sentry, flames. I head up and chainsaw the shield bug held in place. We go left, gunoki and cvoQ hold off our back with drones, Cyrax and I go up to deal with two more shield bugs using teslas. It's extremely chancy here because I get hit by spawn from the harvesters near by. More aggressive flames would help. To be honest, I think freeze grenades would work too. We worked out we didn't need that much ammo load, so I carried a sentry gun in our last attempts. This gets dropped to help clear spawn. We go right and shotty/flame/chainsaw the horde of harvesters blocking the last rocks to be mined, falling back as needed. One more drone wave comes from wherever, front or back, to be held off. Oh yes, gunoki has picked up a mining laser at some point, having exhausted his medigun, so we open the way.
Last section, a ton of parasites and spawn eggs. The sentry gun gets mounted up. The three go in to clear. As the very valuable tech with no way to defend myself - chainsaw+parasite=bad, I get to sit at the top staircase in the middle and scream like a little girl if a parasite comes near me. Oh, and I suppose my auto scanner helps to alert them with little red dots to where the parasite is. When everything is slowly cleared, I come down for the final hack.
This by the way happened once only, since we wiped without the sentry gun on parasites when they were unaware there was an egg up front, and I now describe our epic win. Anyway, I come down for the hack.... Cling clang goes the timer. Detonation sequence activated.
Run run run run. Cyrax beats me to the punch, and I let him go first, because he has the flamer to briefly stun the spawning aliens, and I hope to god that he remembers there are parasites on the bridge. CvoQ and gunoki follow hot on our heels. I try in passing to chainsaw a few drones to help out the rearguard but it's halfhearted because I'm full on running.
And OH GOD he DOESN'T remember there are parasites that spawn, or maybe he has no more flamer ammo, but whatever the case, I see him reeling around infected as I race past him. He has thankfully flamed the rest into oblivion. BANG he explodes, spewing more parasites that the last two are guaranteed to run into, and I know there's nothing for it but me now.
Sure enough, cvoQ mustn't have been able to shotty the onrushing parasites in time, because we get another cutscene death of one of them exploding, I race forward another few seconds. And then the last guy explodes, more cutscene interruption, and I dash forward yet again, dancing around the waves of drones that are just popping up.
Thank goodness I've done this last run countless times on other difficulties before, so I roughly know what spawns when, but this is Insane, and shit pops up in Insane that doesn't turn up anywhere else. I have one last Tesla sentry left. I'm saving it for the big room where I know a ton of shield bugs and crap pop up. I make it, and sure enough, at least 3 shield bugs and a horde of uncountable things appear. I throw down the tesla, dodging like an inspired running back and somehow make it past them to the ending edge.
gunoki is going NICE. NICE MAN. Because they're all dead and spectating me and praying for me to win...
...but wait, it's not over yet, because there are still precious breaths to wait as my rescue ship arrives to pick me up, and a literal TRAIN of aliens are coming straight at me. I hold out my chainsaw and pray. The drones splat themselves onto it. But NO, a shield bug is stomping up in my face with two more coming up, and MORE drones from all angles.
I make a mad dash down and left, they follow, I run around the crates by the landing pad, wondering in that split second how I'm going to lead them on a merry go around while the ship arrives. There is a heart stopping moment when I'm literally backed in from all sides by aliens. Thankfully, the nearest are drones, operating on sheer instinct and adrenaline, I swing my chainsaw for a split second to clear the way and let go of the mouse button (because operating a chainsaw slows down my speed, and Vegas is not very fast to begin with) and -just- make it back to the edge as the ship arrives, a breath away from getting flattened.
MISSION COMPLETE
dear fucking god, is my shared exhalation to them, as the Insane Campaign achievement pops up for three of us - Cyrax, cvoQ and me. The two of them are going jaaaa and JAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. And I presume that's yes in whatever the hell language they speak. (Turns out they are from Czech and Slovakia after looking up their Steam profiles later. No wonder I couldn't make out whatever they were saying over the mic.)
We share a calmer round of thank yous, gg, smiley faces and nices, before we head off for a long and well-deserved break. Presumably gunoki still has the other levels to complete on Insane, but he has finished the most difficult of them by far. I couldn't see his profile on Steam, presumably he's got it on a private setting.
So see, you CAN pug and get some great teams. Just takes some patience. :) Sure, it'll probably have gone faster in a hardcore group of friends coordinating over mic or in the same room, but not everyone has that kind of luxury. Long live PUGing.
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