Alien Carnage / Halloween Harry is a game that has definitely not aged well, and I say this as someone who tends to have a lot of nostalgia for these shareware era games. Then again, since I'd never played it before, I guess the nostalgia goggles were off for this one, which made its flaws all the more noticeable.

To start, it's a pretty basic 2D platformer, from an era when games couldn't be extremely complex, although that doesn't mean they couldn't be fun, and in this case, I feel it doesn't deliver. You play as Halloween Harry, who gets tasked with saving Earth from invading aliens who're turning people into zombies. Don't expect a deep story nor anything like that, and I gotta say, I found Harry to be a bit of a doofus. Innocently harmless in its humour, but I feel it doesn't quite stick the landing, or at the very least, it feels dated nowadays.

Now, back onto the game. There's four zones you have to go through: the sewers, an industrial zone, an office building, and finally, the alien ship. Each zone has four levels, and a final boss level. To progress through the levels, you need to rescue all the hostages the aliens have captured; some of the hostages are trapped in place, while others wander around. There's also dispenser machines you can buy weapons and ammo from with the coins you get from enemies you kill. Rather simple gameplay, and honestly I wouldn't complain, if it weren't for the overreliance on hidden paths and levers that you need to hunt down in order to progress.

Another issue with the level design, and related to the game's weird title, is that Zone 3, the office building, feels like it should've been the starting zone. You get a bunch of early game hints in that area, like how to use levers and vending machines, while the sewers have nothing of the sort. While this stuff is also in the instructions menu, it feels really out of place. So, regarding the title, apparently the game had two releases, as Alien Carnage, and as Halloween Harry; these releases had the sewers and the office building swapped.

The graphics... Well, it's a DOS-era game, so they aren't nothing to write home about. I guess they get the job done, as the game isn't necessarily ugly to look that, and the soundtrack; same, honestly. It does what it has to do.

All things considered, I personally can't recommend this game.

Alien Carnage is a sidescrolling shooter platformer that made me realize that I don't enjoy DOS platformers. The obscure secrets and hidden hostages needed to advance to the next level get annoying very quickly.

Halloween Harry

I was a massive fan of Commander Keen back in the day. I could never finish the dam games because they always released the first few levels as shareware and then you had to purchase the full copy. As a young kid, I never knew where I was supposed to purchase the full game from because not once did I ever see one of these Apogee games for sale in a shop anywhere in my country at the time.

I had never heard of Alien Carnage but figured because of my love for Commander Keen I would give this a go. After 30 min spent with it, I had to kill it. We have moved leaps and bounds ahead now so the only time I would ever recommend this is if you are purchasing it for nostalgia sake. Levels are bland, controls are terrible, enemy layout and placement is just so old-school which makes the game feel even more terribly dated and not in that "good kind of way" dated.

While these curios are a great way to reflect on the history of video games and how far we have actually come, they are certainly not great to play anymore. Some of the opening pixel art is beautiful though.

Dated

None

Commander Keen, Secret Agent, Realms of Chaos

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=869455503

3/10

i never played this when i was younger and now it was kinda of annoying. i didn't like how the jetpack managed and the game just felt lacking for me. while i did give it a decent time to try it out i just didn't get into it. so personally i don't recommend it.

I'm sure it had its fans and i know for a fact i was always happy to see old games i use to play come to steam so maybe for those people who enjoyed it they should pick it up. just for anyone new don't hate on it just because its old. i at least gave it a chance.

...a promising intro that took me back to my C64 gaming days was quickly crushed with the poor controls, choppy performance (sure, give me a retro game, but at least make it playable) - a totally pointless nostalgia cash-in... for a minute there I thought this would be a step back in time to a simpler gaming time... instead we get poorly implemented, imprecise chopiness... avoid.

Old game ... im into old games .. controls and theme .. eeehhh there are alot and i mean alot better games both old and new ... nah

It's an average DOS-era platformer: Dated level design, non-fluid controls, and the camera is super zoomed-in and claustrophobic.

From my 10 mins or so with it, I did not see how it could do anything to save itself.

I was very into all of these Apogee platformers as a child, but I never really enjoyed Halloween Harry. I was too young to really articulate why, but after revisiting it, I think I can put it into words. The game sucks. Specifically, the level design is terrible. Each level is essentially a maze with no flow, rhyme, or reason to it. It's a series of identical looking hallways filled with the same few enemies over and over again. There's other stuff that isn't very well designed, but what will suck your will to live, or at least will to play this game with those few fleeting moments you have before shuffling off this mortal coil, is the lack of interesting places to explore. For an exploration-based platformer, that's kind of sub-optimal.

It's a shame because the technical aspects of the game are pretty good, and WAIT A MINUTE ABOUT THE LEVEL DESIGN. Since the levels are non-descript, you'll have to trudge through the same hallways a few times while you find all of the hostages so you can go to the exit and go to the next level that is gray this time instead of brown. So naturally, the enemies aggressively respawn, and you have limited ammo that needs to be refilled. Also, your ammo is also your fuel, without which, you can't jump. To be clear, this isn't actually hard, but it is really annoying. It's like playing an old RPG where you're trying to find the exit to the dungeon and every four steps an easy random encounter sucks you into a different screen where you have to kill the same four cave rats over and over and over again.

It's like that. But if you can get past how what you're actually doing in the game not being any fun, the game is fine. 18 stars!

Not enjoyable any more. The controls, level design and basically everything else is super dated. It just feels annoying to play.