Alien Carnage Dos
Xena Donovan
Alien Carnage, originally released as Halloween Harry, is a side-scrolling platform game developed by Interactive Binary Illusions and SubZero Software, and distributed by Apogee Software. The game features 256-colour VGA graphics and background music in MOD format. Alien Carnage is composed of four episodes. The first episode was released as shareware, and the rest were distributed commercially. In May 2007, John Passfield and 3D Realms released Alien Carnage as freeware.[1] In 2014, the game was re-released with Windows support.
The cartoon-style game features agent Halloween Harry, who has to save the world from aliens that want to take control of Earth by turning its population into green-skinned zombies. Some of the enemies reference Aliens, Gremlins, and Elvis Presley. Harry is helped by controller Diane, who gives him information via a video link.
In the game, the player has to shoot zombies and aliens with his flamethrower and other weapons, rescuing hostages along the way. Instead of jumping, Harry uses a jetpack to reach higher platforms. His jetpack shares ammo with his flamethrower, which means it is best for the player to use both sparingly. Harry can eat and drink junk food to gain health (rescuing hostages also restores Harry to full health), and upgrade to different kinds of ammo by using ammo dispensers. The player needs to collect coins dropped by killed enemies to buy this ammo. They can also pick up other power-ups with various effects, including a wrapped gift (additional ammo for Harry's current weapon), a money bag (30 additional credits; coins dropped by enemies are worth 5 credits each), and a 1-up icon (an extra life, plus full health). The game progress can be saved through the use of computer terminals scattered across the levels. To advance to the next level, Harry needs to rescue all the hostages, then use the elevator.[citation needed]
Alien Carnage was originally titled Halloween Harry, and was released under this title for its first two versions. After v1.2, Apogee suggested to the developers that the title should be changed because it might be viewed as a seasonal Halloween-themed game, limiting sales during the rest of the year.[2] They renamed it to Alien Carnage, and was re-released as "Alien Carnage v1.0" in 1994. Along with the name change, missions one and three were switched, and with Apogee's shareware model, this meant that half of the game could be played for free.
In 1996 a sequel called Zombie Wars was released. This game takes place three years after the original story. The aliens return to Earth to try to enslave its population. Harry and Diane, who has been promoted to field agent and is now also a playable character, have to save the world again. A number of other friendly characters have been added as NPCs.[citation needed]
Gee-Whiz Entertainment (formerly Interactive Binary Illusions) made plans for an animated cartoon based on the third, future Alien Carnage game. The cartoon was to include Harry and Diane, the NPCs, as well as probably recurring alien and zombie characters. The script was roughly based on the script for Zombie Wars, but both the game and the cartoon were never made.[citation needed]
Alien Carnage, starring the hero, Halloween Harry, is an impressive game with no detail overlooked. Professional musical soundtrack, brilliant full-VGA graphics, non-stop animation and huge start-game and end-game cinematics.
If Duke Nukem has a twin separated at birth, it's got to be the character of Halloween Harry! Harry has an armory of weapons he can find and use, besides the devastating flame thrower that he starts the game with. And Harry's jet pack takes him to spots on a level that normal heroes could not reach.
Earth is on the verge of a takeover by aliens intent on turning humans into mindless slave zombies, who can be used in their conquest of the universe. Harry's called into action to Space Station Liberty, and given orders to penetrate the alien ship which has burrowed itself under a high-rise city.
In addition to the flame thrower, Harry can use weapons dispensers he finds during the game, giving him weapons like the photon cannon, guided missiles, grenades, shields, micro nukes, and the very powerful Omega bomb. It's an arsenal that will have the aliens shakin' in their slimy shoes.
Alien Carnage (also known as Halloween Harry) is a follow-up to the 1985 game Halloween Harry, created for the Microbee System by John Passfield in 1985, but it has very little in common with the original game.
In this side-scrolling platformer, earth is being invaded by aliens who turn humans into zombies in order to enslave them. Harry is the only saviour of earth, and he has to traverse different levels and rescue the kidnapped humans. There are many different weapons to collect, and most have a limited amount of ammo.
The Good
Beautiful VGA graphics!! This was the first Apogee game (along with Raptor) that was simply gorgeous to look at, with vivid colors, lush details (I loved those office levels early on!) and plenty of good animations and fxs. Furthermore as standard for all Apogee games, the controls are silky smooth making for a very satisfying experience even if it takes a bit to get used to the new way of "jumping".
The use of heavy-duty weaponry and especially the implementation of the flamethrower and the jetpack made for an interesting twist in gameplay since it worked as an effective way to ditch the jumping puzzles and kept the focus on the action. Ditto the updates that your partner gave you from HQ. They may not seem like much but it all amounted to a clever twist that kept you playing what was essentially a standard platformer, and certainly brought the game up from being just a Duke Nukem wanna-be!
The Good
Apogee is best known for creating their finest platform games for the PC, such as Duke Nukem, Monster Bash, Bio Menace, etc. The trouble was, with all of them, they were in EGA. So sometime in 1993, Apogee got together one day and decided to push the latest technologies to the limit with the release of Halloween Harry. It featured jaw-dropping VGA graphics and digital music consisting of MOD files since MOD was a popular music format. Not only that, it featured several cinematic sequences that were only viewed at the start of each mission, as well as the end.
In the year 2030 AD, Harry is called in to Space Station Liberty where his lovely boss, Diane, briefs him about Aliens taking over the earth and taking hostages with them. Not only that, but the government was told by the Alien Leader that they have 24 hours to surrender their planet, or innocent civilians will turn into zombies that will help destroy the planet.
Some hostages are blocked by walls that can only open if Harry flips a switch. Each switch has a color block under it. When flipped, the wall that has a color block, that corresponds to the one under the switch, will open up. It is easy to get lost in a level while finding the right wall and switch, so it pays to know the level really well.
When Harry flames a zombie, he can get a coin that can be used to get better weapons, including micro nukes, missiles, photons, and the Omega. Each coin is worth five credits, but he can get more by shooting green drums using his flame thrower to collect money bags that drop down from nowhere. All the weapons in the game have a limited supply, and using all your supply up causes the game to default to the previous weapon that has ammo still in it.
Harry has three lives and he loses a life when his energy is depleted, and, as usual, he loses energy by touching a zombie or come in contact with a set of spikes. Chances are, however, that he may come across a hot dog, a walnut, or a cup of coffee once in a while to get his energy back up. If he loses a life, Harry will start again at the start of each level unless he passes a terminal.
On May 24, 2007 Alien Carnage was released as freeware by 3D Realms with the permission of John Passfield. The game had previously been discontinued from their product line on April 21, 2000 due to it having problems running on Windows. They recommend using DOSBox to run the game on Windows 2000/XP/Vista.
Before it was named Alien Carnage, the name of the game was Halloween Harry. The name was supposedly changed so the game would have more appeal all throughout the year rather than just Halloween. The two versions play exactly the same, but Alien Carnage swapped Block 1: Office and Block 3: Sewers, as well as rotating the music for Blocks 1-3 around.
This game's first publicly available version as Halloween Harry was version 1.1 released on October 10th 1993. Version 1.0 of the shareware version was an incomplete version released only to a UK magazine.
A shareware version of Alien Carnage was released which had "Block 1: Sewers" playable. Halloween Harry's shareware version had "Block 1: Office" playable. Due to this, half the game ended up being released as shareware.
Their engine itselg started out as a one-off demo for a live action series called Tekkouki Mikazuki. In that, it featured a person at ground level controlling massive mecha via their individual limbs.
So when the first Earth Defense Force, or Chikyuu Boueigun, game turned up you still had this human sized protagonist but instead all the enemies you faced were immense in scale. From huge insects to massive alien war machines, you were the last resort to thwarting an alien invasion.
Over the years, Sandlot has built on the series further but it has also regressed a few times as well. Specifically after Earth Defense Force 2 on the PS2, the shift to the 360 actually pulled back some of the functionality, as you lost an all-new airborne playable character, had far fewer missions and simpler weapons.
This latter character also means that while in previous games you occasionally had vehicles dotted around each of the levels, it now means that you have to have an Air Raider in your party in order to have access to any vehicles at all.
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