Alien Swarm FAQ

[Rumina]

Alien Swarm FAQ

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Key Information

• Alien Swarm is being released for free by Valve.
• Is a tactical, 4 player co-op action game with a top-down perspective.
• Complete game code and mod tools available to the community.
• The SDK is separate from that of other Source games.
• Features 4 unique classes.
• Over 40 weapons and equipment with many configurations.
• 8 unique characters.
• Has Easy, Normal, Hard, Insane, and Brutal difficulties.
• Features only Campaign Mode and Offline Practice Mode.
• Uses L4D2 style add-on system for custom campaigns.
• Much less randomization than L4D so players can observe, learn, and overcome challenges.
• Uses a modified Source engine between the L4D2 and Portal 2 iterations.
• Supports dedicated and listen servers.
• Contains Valve game easter eggs.
• 66 achievements
• Does not currently support Mac or controllers.

Game Overview

Alien Swarm is a game and Source SDK release from a group of talented designers at Valve who were hired from the Mod community.

Available free of charge, the game thrusts players into an epic bug hunt featuring a unique blend of co-op play and squad-level tactics. With your friends, form a squad of four distinct IAF Marine classes. Plan your attack using an unlockable arsenal of weapons with countless loadout configurations against a wide variety of aliens. Blaze your way through an overrun, off-world colony, eradicating the alien infestation in environments ranging from the icy planet's surface, to a subterranean lava-flooded mining facility.

Along with the game get the complete code base for Alien Swarm that features updates to the Source engine as well as the SDK. Alien Swarm adds 3rd person camera, depth of field, improved dynamic shadows and a wide variety of gameplay additions to the Source engine.

Classes and Characters

There are 4 distinct playable IAF (Interstellar Armed Forces) marine classes to choose from in the game. Each class and character has it's own set of strengths and weaknesses and will feature 2 playable characters to choose from for a total of 8. Each character has it's own unique appearance and back story.

Medic
They do pretty much what you would expect and they do it well. Capable of healing allies and even laying down a slow radius heal they can keep your party alive when things get rough.

• Corporal Eva 'Faith' Jensen
• Private Leon Bastille AKA "The French Man"

Technical Specialist
Capable of hacking into computers and supporting the party with ammo they fill a vital role in your group. On some maps if your Tech dies you will automatically get a game over due to being unable to finish the map so it's a good idea to keep them safe.

• Vegas
• Private David 'Crash' Murphy

Officer
Officers are great for taking charge of the party and dealing out some serious damage. They have a valuable leadership ability that ups the effectiveness of the whole party.

• Master Sergeant Joseph 'Sarge' Conrad
• Corporal Karl Jaeger

Special Weapons
These guys are great at dishing it out, reloading fast, and using autoguns. They're pretty much made to just kill like crazy.

• Private First Class Adele 'Wildcat' Lyon
• Private Thomas Wolfe

Campaigns

The game comes with one campaign, Jacob's Rest, containing seven maps for players to battle their way through, we'll see what we get in the future through updates and community content. Here is a list of maps and their objectives.

Landing Bay

• Access Inner Perimeter
• Download the Flight Data
• Get to the Landing Bay Exit

Cargo Elevator

• Activate the Cargo Elevator and Descend
• Reach the Facility Exterior

Deima Surface Bridge

• Gain Access to the Pipeline
• Destroy Infested Pipeline
• Get to the Colony Reactor Entrance

Rydberg Reactor

• Bring the Reactor Online
• Reach the North Exit

SynTek Residential

• Destroy Swarm Eggs 0/26
• Destroy Biomass 0/8
• Escape Using the Elevators

Sewer Junction B5

• Seal the Access Tunnel
• Destroy Swarm Eggs 0/20

Timor Station

• Activate Cable Railway
• Detonate Warhead
• Escape via Bloodhound

Alien Swarm History

Average gamers who weren't familiar with Alien Swarm already were a bit thrown off by Valve's announcement a few days before the games launch. Alien Swarm originally started out as a total conversion mod for Unreal Tournament 2k4 and released in 2004 by Black Cat Games. After receiving several updates and rising in popularity the team behind it began work on a full stand alone version.

It wasn't long before Valve did what it was good at, noticed some small time talent, and picked the team up before the game actually saw release. As the team was absorbed into Valve studios they continued work on the game through the Source engine. Jumping forward to July 2010, Valve announced the release of the game over Steam just mere days before hand. The decision to release the game for free was made most likely to promote the Steam Platform and as a show of good faith to the community. While the immediate monetary profit is not seen, these sorts of unique business maneuvers have usually profited Valve more in the long run and pushed them to the top of the PC gaming industry.

System Requirements

• OS: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
• Processor: Pentium 4 3.0GHz
• Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
• Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with 128 MB, Shader model 2.0. ATI X800, NVidia 6600 or better
• Hard Drive: At least 2.5 GB of free space
• Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Major Alien Swarm Updates

Aug 23, 2010 - Alien Swarm Adds AI Director, New Difficulty

Since release, we've received a ton of feedback and feature requests from the Alien Swarm community. The most requested additions are more variety and greater difficulty.

With that in mind, we've added "Onslaught" mode, which introduces an AI Director that dynamically generates swarms of aliens based on several factors, such as the squad's stress level. Onslaught works with any difficulty setting and ensures no mission plays the same way twice.

Speaking of difficulty, we've also added a "Brutal" difficulty level for those of you who told us "Insane" wasn't insane enough. How brutal is Brutal? Nobody on the Alien Swarm team has managed to complete a mission on it.

If for some crazy reason Brutal is still too easy for you, there's now a "Hardcore Friendly Fire" toggle. When enabled, friendly fire deals full damage immediately, flamethrowers set teammates on fire much faster, and turrets will hurt you if get caught in their crossfire. HCFF truly tests your team’s ability to work as a elite squad. Coordinating movement and firing lines become an even more integral part of the game.

Finally, to reward the most dedicated players, we've added 3 new IAF Promotion Ranks: Platinum Star, Osmium Star, and the coveted Iridium Medallion.

[sasuke2490]

yay i want more faqs and a wiki

[J*Rod]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Swarm

[Rumina]

Ah, nice. Well I suppose I'll just set this up as a basic faq then and not go too in-depth. I'll link the Wiki in the faq.

[»MλRCO«]

Lol at Hat trik achievement

[TheDude7053]

someone sticky this mans thread please

[catbarf]

'Cargo elevator' sounds less like a map and more like a defend-this-area gauntlet within a map. Is it definitely a map?

[Rumina]

Looking through the achievements, there is one for doing a speed run of this map so I would say it's a safe bet. That's where I got the map names from and then the objectives from the screen shots. It's with the scheme of the rest but if it turns out to be something else I'll fix it.

[Snausages]

who knows, maybe the campaign will feature a long, intense elevator ride with hordes of bugs swarming in

[eXistance]

Wow, this game is quite different from Valve's usual games.
Looking forward to it.

[catbarf]

Originally Posted by Snausages

who knows, maybe the campaign will feature a long, intense elevator ride with hordes of bugs swarming in

You can't speed run an elevator ride. So I guess it is a full level.

[Snausages]

Originally Posted by catbarf

You can't speed run an elevator ride. So I guess it is a full level.

I said it might feature an elevator ride; that doesn't mean the campaign is gonna be that alone.

[rickmus]

Sticky'd

[RussianWolf]

One of the the two Spec Weapons characters is called Thomas Wolfe.

[Francis_4_Dead]

I see cake in achievement list.

Other than that, this game sounds great.
Praise the holy Valve for doing such amazing things.