Still, Alien Breed Trilogy is predominantly great fun, sometimes exhilarating, and constantly provides a rare chance to enjoy the all-too-unfashionable isometric top-down shooter genre that was a stalwart of 1990s gaming.

This is not a release that exudes confidence, and rarely does it dazzle with the sharp design and witty flourishes that make a game from any era really shine. In realisation, it is modern and in form it accurately fits the retro gaming mould, but in balancing these two opposites it seems to have rather lost its spirit. Alien Breed Trilogy is simply deficient in the kind of vigour that so many will expect from a game with retro-fetishist leanings. While the original 1990s version was a less-than-frantic experience, it had an energy its successors lack. Where the compilation fails, however, is in its pace. Simple, responsive controls make for an immediacy of experience that absolutely evokes a sense of the arcade games of the past, while the relatively impressive visuals mean ABT looks absolutely contemporary. Passing through each level's maze of chambers and corridors, picking out monsters from the darkness with a range of rapid-fire weapons and overcoming obstacles to progress can be hugely rewarding. Their world is one of classic sci-fi tropes where aggressive aliens scurry through the crisscrossed shadows of half-abandoned spacecraft, as flickering computer terminals spew sparks that light the way through darkened walkways. It's not that the three overhead shooters included here are a disappointment, because taken on merit, they're not In fact, these three Alien Breed titles (previously released as download-only games) sometimes offer moments that are superbly atmospheric and nerve-racking. It's a problem that the team behind Alien Breed Trilogy has tried to overcome, with mixed results. Innovation and nostalgia make for awkward bedfellows, and capturing the energy of a game from the past while satisfying contemporary expectations can prove an impossible task – even for the finest games makers. W hen veteran UK games studio Team17 decided to revisit its classic 1991 shooter Alien Breed and update it for the Xbox generation, it was taking on an extremely testing design challenge.

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