Please only post comments about today's game giveaway; other comments either inappropriate, or not about today's game will be deleted at the moderator or administrators discretion; however a little light banter among community members and with the moderator to keep this a friendly place to visit is acceptable and welcomed. All comments not specifically about today's game giveaway will be judged by the moderator and if deemed not appropriate, will be deleted with no explanation. Please see the end of this review for a link to more details about posting comments, other game deals and other links. If you need to contact the give away team you can do so HERE and if you're unsure about posting comments the moderation policy is HERE and the FAQ's thread is HERE.

Action Alien

In Brief

Action Alien is a casual single player first person action adventure shooter created by a one man game studio called DevDan Studio. Eight Thousand keys were given away via the game giveawayoftheday early in March this year and since then the developer has made some improvements to the game and is giving away another shed load of keys. The game uses an older Unreal game engine and is dirt cheap, so don't expect cutting edge graphics, but, for the usual price and the fact that the developer has put a lot of effort into updating the game recently, I reckon it's worth a try. The game reminds me vaguely of Dead Island and Fallout : New Vegas in some of the environments you come across.

Suggestions:

If you get a key for Action Alien please give some feedback about your opinion of the game, for example, what you liked or disliked about it, or how it could be improved from your point of view . If you don't like this genre at all, please explain why. What, improvements, if any, would change your opinion? There are thousands of subscribers to the game giveaway of the day every weekend which makes this an ideal forum for giving developers ideas as to what their consumers (i.e you) would like to see in a game. For example, you could suggest extra content such as better or more original mini games, or a level editor that you would like to see that would make it more appealing to you. Maybe you think the graphics are a little dated and are in need of re skinning, or maybe you've just had enough of the genre and want to see something different or something with more originality?

If you don't win a key, don't mind playing games via Steam or miss the offer totally you can get the game 24/7 via Steam HERE. It usually costs £3.99/4.99$,

Introduction:

Jump into the action and battle your way through hordes of aliens from canyon deserts to tropical islands !

Reference accessed HERE 4th March 2017

Installation:

Once you've found your key for Action Alien (should be sent to the email you used to enter the giveaway - it must be the email you first used to sign into the game giveaway site. If you’ve used a throwaway email there may be problems getting a key, because the key may be sent to that email. If you have any problems use the contact formHERE. You have to activate the game via your Steam client. Once activated it will be permanently tied to your Steam profile and you'll be able to install the game at any time, anywhere on any computer, so long as you can validate who you are (usually via emails etc.). If you don't have a Steam account you will first have to download and install the Steam client HERE

Then create a Steam profile/account. Once that has been completed you can input the Steam code that you've received (after completing the form filling) via the game button along the top of the Steam client, (located between friends and Help. From the drop down menu select 'Activate a product on Steam'. This opens a product activation window. Just follow the prompts to complete activation. Once the Steam code has been accepted, the game will be permanently associated with your Steam account and can be installed any time you wish.

If you have a problem installing or activating or getting Action Alien to work, please visit the problems section over in the Game Discussion forums, which I've now incorporated into the FAQ's thread, and which you can find HERE

The Game:

Action Alien reminds me (vaguely) of a couple of games I played extensively a few years back called Fallout: New Vegas and Dead Island, mainly for the environments portrayed in today's game, with even a little Crysis thrown in, though the older Unreal game engine used gives the impression of an older FPS game. Still, as a budget FPS game this is a decent shooter, with lots of up-gradable weapons and perks that improve health, speed, jumping abilities as well as the ability to carry more ammo, reload your weapons faster and even improves melee such a s stronger leg kicks, which are useful if you are being attacked in the middle of a reload.

Keyboard controls are fixed, i.e. you cannot change the key bindings, but are pretty much standard FPS controls, i.e. left mouse click = fire, right mouse click gives you melee numbers 1 and 2 enable you to switch wepons, Tab gives you your objectives, E allows you to grab weapons, G is throw grenade and shift is sprint. Selecting from menus is standard i.e mouse left click That's about it.

Complete the story-driven levels by collecting gas cans and defeating boss aliens to unlock upgraded weapons and perks to achieve the maximum fire-power, or play the survival game mode and try to hold on for as long as possible ! There are many different kinds of aliens to fight in various environments, as much as weapons and items to find !

Action Alien was formerly known as The Alien Wasteland, HERE is a blog post explaining the reasons of the change. Basically the developers of the game Wasteland and Wasteland 2, InXile Entertainment (who I supported during their Kickstarter campaign for Wasteland 2), threatened DevDan Games (a one man development studio) with legal action over the original name of the game, so it was changed to the less impressive Action Alien . Personally I think it it was ridiculous and I've lost respect for inXile for their action against a small struggling studio (I was a supporter of inXile when they put up Wasteland 2 on Kickstarter several years ago and have purchased all of their recent games).

Edited reference accessed HERE 4th March 2017

Features:

3 large open world maps set in different places and guided by story lines
2 survival maps with the goal of resisting against aliens for as long as possible.
8 weapons ranging from the revolver, the Tommy gun to the grenade launcher with each one having 2 levels of upgrade increasing their efficiency.
3 species of aliens requiring different tactics and weapons to defeat them.
Fully destructible environments as much by the player as by the aliens.
Perk system using credits points earned during playing to increase health, speed, jumps, melee kicks, etc...
19 achievements to unlock
Support of Steam trading cards.
Support of Steam cloud to keep all progress available on any computer.
Playable with Xbox-like game pads.
Many customizable settings and tweaks.

Other Reviews, Videos and a Slideshow of images:

You can see Steam community reviews of Action Alien HERE, and some videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. You can see a slideshow of over 30 images HERE

Conclusion:

This is a cheap First Person Shooter, not the best I've seen, but for the price it's actually quite decent. The graphics are alittle dated, but that's down to the older unreal game engine used . Personally I love wasteland type games like this. Action Alien was possibly inspired by games like the Fallout Series created by Bethesda Studios but I do see other influences such as Dead Island (especially the beach area's of the game). For free you can't go wrong. Get it before all the keys go.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the developer DevDan Studios for giving away 5000 keys for this First Person Action Adventure Shooter and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games, in this case a Steam key.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

The problems section that used to be posted here in the Game review is now included in the Game Discussion FAQ's thread; which you can find HERE.

I've updated the games section that used to be posted with the review. The thread is now called 'Weekly round up of game deals', formerly the games section of the weekly reviews. You can find the new thread (which I've posted in the sticky section of the game discussion forums to make it easier to find if you are perusing the game discussion forums) HERE.

The rest of the information that used to be posted here can be found in the forums HERE. Don't forget, if you have an account with DOT.emu, you need to download any games you have before June, when the site closes permanently. Finally, check out Delenns thread over in the forums HERE. There are games available for free, some of which are limited to the number of free keys available.

The following information was taken from the previous time this was given away. Problems with duplicate keys or completing tasks, please contact the giveaway team HERE, and/or also the developer. Take a screen capture of the message you get either after completing all the tasks and/or when trying to activate the game on Steam, so that you have proof of the issue.