It has arrived on the Nintendo Switch Earthfall: Alien Horde, an improved and updated version of the original Earthfall, released it last July on other platforms.
The game immediately presents itself as a clone of the famous Left 4 Dead, replacing traditional zombies with an army of alien invaders.
The original title, however, did not turn out particularly well exhilarating; will have managed to overcome the own flaws and find new life on hybrid console of Nintendo?
The struggle for survival
The story provides just the key elements to launch the player into action: aliens have arrived on Earth, and now it is necessary to kill them all in order to survive and take back the planet.
At the beginning of each game we will be able to choose to play the role of one of the four characters. However, this choice will only affect the voice of our avatar, as the skills e the equipment are identical for all four options.
The campaign goes on for 11 chapters, with enough maps linear which will propose different clashes e other goals before reaching its conclusion.
Quite repetitive gameplay
Each chapter is not particularly different from the previous one, if not in the settings. In all of them, in fact, only the occasional hordes of aliens and some secondary objective they will distract us from walking towards the end of the level, in a path without detours or alternative routes.
Even the aliens, despite having gods design e pattern very well characterized, they do not excel as a variety of types.
Each is distinct for some peculiar abilities such as, for example, that of to land our characters, diffuse gas poisonous or create shields of energy. However, in addition to those already described there will be no many other alien species.
The difficulty it is guaranteed, more than by one tactical complexity of the clashes, from number of enemies that are released in the area at each encounter.
At higher difficulty levels they only earn one greater resistance to our weapons, but a well-aimed blow to the head it will always be enough to eliminate them instantly.
In addition to the campaign, the game offers only one other game mode, Survival mode. As the name suggests, we will always have to eliminate hordes more violent e crowded of enemies, all locked up in one small e claustrophobic underground cave.
Between a series of enemies and the other we will have the opportunity to cure us, place traps e barricades, and use 3D printers to build new weapons, munitions e useful items.
Both game modes can be played in co-op up to 4 players, both online and locally wireless.
This is where it resides the main attraction of the game, as playing with friends will be possibleand coordinate better e help each other each other, so we don't have to wait for a CPU-controlled ally to notice we're in trouble.
A rough optimization
Su Nintendo Switch, this title does not present itself in the best way. Despite the low resolution in both laptop and docked mode, the console fails to maintain 30 fps, showing occasional dips.
However, the game does not appear particularly challenging from a graphic point of view, with very simple models and fairly detailed settings but with always few elements on the screen.
A particularly uncomfortable choice however, it resides in the game menu: although we are on a console, in fact, we will have to use a pointer to make the various selections, as if we were playing on PC with mouse and keyboard.
However, the game does not support either the touch screen nor i motion sensors of Nintendo Switch, forcing us to move the cursor slowly across the screen with the left analog.
Conclusions
Earthfall: Alien Horde è a very repetitive experience, with the various chapters of the campaign all too similar between them and one little variety of creatures to eliminate.
Also the Survival mode, at first very funny in company of some friend, it becomes fast boring and without substantial news.
Together with the technical defects the result is still a product unripe, which will still need numerous updates before becoming truly valid.
On the official website however, there is one update roadmap expected for the foreseeable future, both for Nintendo Switch than for other platforms.
