Alien Swarm Reactive Drop Onslaught
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Alien Swarm Reactive Drop
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We understand that it can be difficult to disengage from the aggressor, but we heavily suggest reporting the post and avoiding further interaction with the poster.Please report rule breaking behaviour.SpoilersTo tag something as a spoiler, format the spoiler like so: spoiler subject(#s 'spoiler details')This'll show up as Other subreddits.- Discussion, bar the Hivemind.- For news.- For memes.- Go here to help you find your next game to play.- AskReddit for games.- Find out what's worth getting.- Nintendo-specific subreddit for general Nintendo news and discussion. Tl;dr: Alien Swarm Reactive Drop is a completely free game with a lot of content and depth, and there's absolutely no reason for you not to try it if you haven't already.The purpose of this post is to give credit where I feel credit is due, and hopefully convince a few people to try out this game and share in the fun with me.
If you haven't heard of this game, I would recommend watching this short before continuing for some visual context.CONTENTS:. Overview and History. A Challenging Game (Suited to Your Tastes). Importance of Teamwork and Decision-Making. Variety, Customization, and Replayability.
Details and Atmosphere. The Technicals. Conclusion. Discussion Questions. Overview and HistorySimply put, Alien Swarm Reactive Drop is a top-down tactical action game. You and up to 7 other players play as space marines attempting to complete a campaign of at least 5 individual missions. There are 4 classes: Officer (the heavy hitter who provides team buffs), Special Weapons (the crowd control unit), Tech (the unit responsible for hacking consoles to advance and the only class required to start a game), and Medic (healer).
Before each mission you choose your class, character, primary and secondary weapons, and offhand item. The basis of every mission is getting to your objectives and carrying out specific tasks while holding off endless waves of various aliens. At its core, it's not a complicated game, but it has amazing depth and replayability.Before I begin, I'd like to take a quick moment to point out this game's history just to point out how long this game, in some form, has been around. On May 28, 2004, Black Cat Games released a total conversion mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 named Alien Swarm. The game continued to receive continuous updates until 2010, when Valve hired the original team to create a Source-based, standalone version of the game. So on July 19, 2010, Alien Swarm, along with the complete code base, was released for free on Steam.
Nearly seven years later, on April 17, 2017, Reactive Drop released an extension of that game, Alien Swarm Reactive Drop, which is the subject of today's post.So where to begin? First and foremost, there is a lot of content in this game. There are nine full campaigns, each of which contain at least 4 different missions with different goals and maps. There is a four-mission campaign specifically for training.
You can play any of these campaigns offline with bot teammates or online, in both public and dedicated servers. There are four classes, each of which has two characters and class-specific items. There is a healthy list of unlockable weapons and side items. I haven't played it myself, but there is also online PvP.
All of these things are not including the game's Workshop support, which currently has a decent collection of new weapons, campaigns, assets, etc. The game also includes multiple difficulty and challenge options, which brings me to my first point: This game can get pretty challenging. A Challenging Game (Suited to Your Tastes)Now, before I begin talking about the challenging nature of this game, I think it's worth pointing out for people who aren't particularly interested in a difficult game that there is also an Easy setting that you can use both offline and online when hosting games. The challenge in this game is entirely optional and depends on how hard you want it (giggity).This game has a five difficulties ranging from Easy to Brutal. Some dedicated servers have an even harder Insane difficulty. The game also has three options to further increase difficulty: Hardcore Friendly Fire Mode (friendly fire is on by default, but in Hardcore Friendly Fire Mode it's a one shot kill), Onslaught Mode (the AI director randomly spawns waves of aliens), and challenges (the game comes with 7, but you can also find more in the Workshop). So right out of the gate, the game gives you a lot of ways to make the game harder.
But even in Normal mode with no changes, the game is challenging, and it's challenging in ways that don't feel forced or unfair. The aliens aren't bullet sponges. On the contrary; in Normal mode, even the bigger, tougher aliens don't take much effort to put down. But there are a lot of them. And they are fast. And they hit hard, they corner you, and in 90% of the places you'll be in the game, they can come from any direction.
And most importantly, they never stop coming. Even though mowing down waves of aliens isn't a hard thing to do, all it takes is one lull in action to take some serious damage.And speaking of mowing down aliens, you need to watch your ammo and you need to watch your friendly fire. Friendly fire is pretty self-explanatory, but it's a lot harder to be cautious and careful with your shots when you're surrounded on all sides and trying to press forward. Running out of ammo is also a very real possibility, and not because the game simply doesn't provide you enough. There are occasionally some ammo boxes in the map, but you can almost always make it to the end with just the ammo you started with.
That is, unless you take too long and cause too many extra aliens to spawn, or you shoot too carelessly and waste too much ammo. If you run out, you better hope you're near the end because otherwise you're done for. And that brings me to my next point:. Importance of Teamwork and Decision-MakingA common complaint you see with games that advertise 'choice' is that the choices often end up being too obvious, too limited, and/or overall not affecting the game that much. The importance of choice isn't something the game blatantly conveys (although it will attempt to give you some helpful hint for next time whenever you fail), but every single action you take has rewards and/or consequences.
Let's use an example: Let's say you're playing Wolfe, one of the Special Weapons characters. You've placed a sentry down in the middle of a firefight, things are starting to go south, you're beginning to be overrun and your teammates run forward. Now you have to decide: Do you take the extra few seconds to pick up your sentry, or do you leave it there so you don't get separated from your team?
Alien Swarm Wiki
This one decision has the potential to impact you in a number of ways: Maybe you have to complete the mission without a sentry. Maybe a swarm forms between you and your teammates and you get killed. Or maybe you don't get killed, but you end up spending an extra clip of ammo getting back to your team and maybe you end up running out of ammo too soon. Each mission provides multiple decisions for every player, and every one has some effect on the game.
So for this reason, not only do your decisions matter, your teammates' decisions matter as well.One of the aspects that I think sets this game out, at least in my eyes, is how it encourages and requires teamwork. First of all, each player needs each other. Techs are required to complete nearly every mission in the game (and are the only class you're required to have). Techs cannot defend themselves while they hack into consoles, and don't have access to the higher firepower weapons Officer and Special Weapons classes do. Officers and Special Weapons have powerful weapons and higher health, but can't hack consoles and can only heal themselves (and just themselves) if they have a Personal Healing Kit. Medics also have low health and weaker weapons, but are your only option of healing multiple people at once and can save you from having to carry your own kit.On the flip side, you will be punished for not being a team player. Trying to go solo is not a good strategy.
Getting separated from your team is a good way to get surrounded and killed quickly, and every time a member of your team dies the game pans every player's camera over to a slow-mo close-up shot of their death. Alien Swarm Reactive Drop makes sure everyone knows the moment another player dies because when a player dies, the challenge is upped significantly. Variety, Customization, and ReplayabilityThe great amount of content, the focus on teamplay, and the previously mentioned various difficulty settings in the game naturally give way to a lot of variety and replayablity. In one game you may be Special Weapons, mowing down rows of aliens with an autogun, laying down your defensive turret when things are getting hairy, and throwing freeze grenades to freeze all the aliens around you when you're cornered.
In the next, you could be a Tech, frantically attempting to hack into the console your team needs to advance while they are (hopefully) holding off the enemy long enough. Each class has access to multiple primary and secondary weapons as well as offhand items (some of which are class specific), and the classes and items are balanced well enough to allow you to experiment with different combinations without feeling underpowered or disadvantaged. I've never felt I lost a game because I picked the wrong loadout; almost every mission failure can be traced back to player decisions. Details and AtmosphereThis game also pays attention to details.
When you reload your gun, you have the option to attempt a fast reload (a la Gears of War) in which a success will give you a quick reload and a failure will jam your gun for a second. When a Tech hacks into a console, they have to solve a certain number of simple puzzles (there is only one puzzle type, but sometimes you have to do different numbers of them). There are explosive barrels scattered around some maps. There is a short limit on how long your teammates can be hit by your flamethrower without catching on fire (except in Hardcore Friendly Fire mode where it is immediate) and you have to put them out with a fire extinguisher. Your marines leave footprints in the snow.
There is an offhand item called Adrenaline which, when used, slows the game down for everyone to make large fights easier (and much, much cooler). There is an emote system you can use and you can write on the team's minimap without having to enter a menu. Taken apart, these are all neat little extras; added altogether, and they add a lot to the atmosphere and experience of the games. The TechnicalsI haven't mentioned any of the technical details of the game yet, and with all of things the game got right you would likely forgive it if the technical aspects were a little lackluster. I'm happy to report, though, that this is not the case. The graphics, design, and sound of this game are all on point in my opinion and compliment the gameplay perfectly.
Everything seems as it should be: The graphics aren't fancy, but they are easy to look at. The design is what you would expect of a game about space marines, but all the design choices are clean and crisp. The UI is intuitive. Everything is easy to control. Most importantly for some people, the game runs on the Source engine and can pretty much run on anything. ConclusionAll in all, I hope this post serves two purposes: First and foremost, I hope I can convince at least one of you to check out this game.
It's free and it'll run on anything. There is no IAP.
There are absolutely no strings attached to trying this game out. If you don't like it, all you've lost is the time it took you to download it and realize you don't.
If you do, though, who knows how many potential hours of entertainment might be in store for you!The second purpose of this post is simply to shine a light on what I consider to be a breath of fresh air. A lot of gaming discussion centers on the bad: Games that are excessively P2W, games that have poor developer support, games that are released in a broken state or don't live up to the hype, etc.
So to have this game that is free, well-optimized, fully fleshed out, fun and replayable is truly something to appreciate in my opinion. I hope I get to see some of you in-game in the near future, and thanks for reading. Discussion QuestionThe original Alien Swarm was released in 2010. It received mostly positive reviews, with most negativity centering around the limited campaigns and lack of Workshop support. For this reason, the game's community mostly died down. Do you think an extension such as Alien Swarm Reactive Drop can revitalize a game's community?EDIT:Since this post took off more than I expected, I'd like to point everyone to the. It's not a very active subreddit at the moment, but maybe if the game picks up some steam it could be.
Who knows!. Nothing but praise for this game. It's taken the barebones release from a few years ago and really fleshed it out.
Balances and tweaking are just the beginning.It's a simple idea with a lot of depth and customization. It's been expanded with tons of first party content that is surprisingly really good. On top of that it has the workshop. That alone gives it points.I would suggest not playing it solo.
It's meant as a team game. It's balanced around a group working together. I think you could run it with three without much difficulty, but less than that and you run into problems.It's free.FREE. I hadn't heard at all about this expansion before now. Diablo 2 expansion download.
Alien Swarm Reactive Drop Onslaught List
Why was this not advertised at all? I'm not sure how much involvement Valve had with the development of Reactive Drop, but I don't understand why they wouldn't at least advertise it on Steam, given that they seem to have backed it as a semi-official expansion. I guess it's another example of how out-of-touch Valve is becoming.From what I understand, the expansion was made by a team of modders. I'm not sure if they have any connection to Valve; surprisingly, I can't figure out who made the game, beyond Reactive Drop.Wow.I remember enjoying Alien Swarm 2010, but it was so held back by its lack of content.That was the general consensus back then, I think. As said, it was a really barebones release. The idea was there, and there was still fun to be had, but with so few options the replayability just wasn't there.Definitely give it a shot if you liked it back then. It's basically the same barebones game from 2010, it just had time to grow.
19 MayAn update for Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Steam. The major changes include:. Added Bonus Mission 7, which is the original undivided Area9800 Power Plant mission(thanks to ). Cheat cvars and commands will no longer work in single player mode. Grenade Launcher's grenade will now correctly collide with doors. Player's status in Steam Friends window will now be shown correctly if player is playing on a dedicated server which has lobbies disabled.
Dedicated servers will not(by default) check for workshop updates on mission restart(this can be controlled by a cvar). Improved pathing in Sewer Junction. Aliens couldn't follow marines in a few places, hordes failed spawn because of this too. Changelog. Fix nodegraph in SewerJunction. Aliens couldn't follow marines in a few places, hordes failed spawn because of this too. Used aishowconnectcrawl to find problematic spots.
First place is on stairs after turning west. Second place is the passage that is created by exploding barrels. Added Bonus Mission 7(thanks to jhheight). This is the original undivided version of Area9800 Power Plant, or, in other words, Power Plant's Cooling Pump and Generator in one mission.
Fix grenades collide with doors during open or close animationGrenades previously were exploding on contact with air in door frameswhen the door was opening or closing. Now grenades correctly fly throughthe door frame and only collide with the door itself.
This didn't happen to rifle grenades, but to grenade launcher, vindicator,freeze and hand grenades. Add rdgrenadelauncherexplodeoncontact cvar.
If set to 0 grenade will not explode on contact with rigid world. However grenades will explode on contact with aliens. Add rdgrenadelaunchernumclusters cvar.
Fix leader crown is not displayed during briefing when autoready is on. Remove blood effects from Grenade Launcher grenades. Previously grenade when flying in air would emit blood because it was damaged by explosions from other grenades.
Fix rich presence for clients who play on dedicated servers without lobby info. Previously clients who play on dedicated server that hassvallowlobbyconnectonly 0 were displaying incorrect Steam rich status. Prevent grenades to fly into the sky in place after the biomass block on TimorStation. Add rdinterpenetratingentitieswarning cvar. Add several fence models to lights.rad.
Make ChaseNearestMarine VScript function wake alien if it is asleepPreviously this function did nothing if alien was far from marines andwas sleeping. Add rdclearhouseonmissioncomplete cvar.
If 1 all NPCs will be removed from map on round end. Add rdworkshopupdateeveryround cvar. If 1 dedicated server will check for workshop items during each mission restart(workshop.cfg will be executed).
If 0, workshop items will only update once during server startup. Prevent displaying of computer interface if aswsimplehacking 1. Computer hacks, such as the computer at the end of Landing Bay, willno longer show a UI for hacking if aswsimplehacking is set to 1.
By element109. Suppress weapon stats missing message. When setting 'rdweaponsshowhidden 1” messages display inconsole just changed to DevMsg. By element109. Add new. Fix horde positions are blocked by player clip brushes.
Changelog. Fixed frame rate stutter and various little things in.
Medic bot now heals infested marine without waiting until health reaches low limit. By element109. Make medic bot immediately heal marine which is on fire. Also fix medic couldn't start healing infested marines because their health was not lower than 85% of total health. Add more fence models to lights.rad to forcetextureshadow list. These affect Deima map, near the first hack there was a big black unrealistic shadow coming from a fence. About This GameAlien Swarm: Reactive Drop extends Alien Swarm, bringing more of everything: maps, aliens, game modes, guns.