Heart of the Alien follows immediatly off the heels of celebrated classic and multi format gem, Another World.
In Another World (or out of this world for those in the states) you played scientist and researcher Lester Kran who through a mishap in his private lab found himself propelled across space and time to a strange, mysterious, oppressive and cold alien planet, where it wasn’t very long until he found himself captive.
At this point Lester finds himself imprisoned along with one of the planets inhabitants only referred to as 'buddy' who worked together in an attempt to make an escape from the vicious alien city.
Heart of the Alien leaves off from that escape Lester and Buddy made on the back of a dragon like creature that brings them to a town ravaged by the oppressive alien race.
This is where you become buddy and it’s not very long until you see the strengths come through that are superior to that of Lester’s, he is more agile, powerful and in the early stages gets hold of a powerful laser whip that allows him to kill anyone out to kill him as well as help solve puzzles.
Like AW the game is unforgiving all about trial and error, frustratingly difficult at times and ultimately brief, however the graphical styling has aged perfectly well due to their uniqueness and specialization of motion capture technologies used
well before the games time. This title and its prequel enjoy a well celebrated emulation community spanning multiple formats, which is a good thing as HOTA was an exclusive title on the defunct Sega-CD system.
Although the ending to AW was disappointing to say the least players of HOTA will not be disappointed at how the story and its conclusion develop in this installment.
Another world and Heart of the Alien are made to be together as a cohesive title. Many players had want for this game for years due to its stunning visuals amazing story telling and fantastic sound track. The cohesion of puzzles and action made for suspenseful and fun play experience. Each screen was painstakingly animated with something always going on in the background and foregrounds something many games of the era these two titles existed in never had and as such made them masterpieces. Which is a shame as its continually a continually overlooked title by many games.
