After having finished the very rewarding yet equally grindy AD&D CRPG Curse of the Azure Bonds, I really needed a bit of a break. My next game needed to be arcade-style and ideally it would offer some atmosphere. After running a quick poll on Twitter for a little light-hearted help, I locked in on Sega's 1987 arcade sleeper Alien Syndrome. Out of 41 total votes cast, Syndrome collected 32% of the total - just enough to make it the winner.
I then happened across an insanely lucky auction on Ebay for a NOS shrink-wrapped and sealed box for the 1987/88 sci-fi shooter (originally made in 1987, ported in 1988). I remembered the game being a ton of fun on the C64 so went ahead and picked it up. I'm not familiar with the Amiga version, but I'm looking forward to it.
Naturally, I needed to destroy history and open this box a.s.a.p. once it arrived today. I mainly needed to see if the disk still worked, but I'm always curious about the packaging and content. To be honest, the contents were pretty lame: just a black and white manual with just a few pages of cross-platform instructions and a warranty card.
But I'm happy to report that the disk does still work!
And while the slow synth music isn't particularly mind blowing it is quite foreboding and a bit creepy, and sounds quite a bit like the arcade IIRC.