SEGA’s WOW Entertainment has a very eclectic resume, featuring games like the simulation-style racer SEGA GT, the dating sim Candy Stripe, the mutants teaching typing game The Typing of the Dead (co-developed with Smilebit), and today’s Tuesday Tunes spotlighted title, the online aliens versus army game Alien Front Online.
Initially released worldwide to arcades as Alien Front, Alien Front Online was soon released to the Dreamcast. Despite being Japanese developed, Alien Front Online was made to strongly connect with Western audiences. The game was simple, featuring online combat with voice communication allowing players to take on opposing sides of an army versus aliens war. Unfortunately, the game’s release was poorly planned out as Alien Front Online was released to North America six months after SEGA made the announcement that they were discontinuing the Dreamcast. The game ended up not releasing to other territories, and to make matters worse, shortly after release SEGA shifted to a pay to play model for their online games. I recall renting Alien Front Online when it released, and even through the game was just a few weeks old, the online community was incredibly small.
Despite having an unsuccessful launch, and losing its online functionality after SEGA pulled the plug on their online games, Alien Front Online is still a great game to play with a group of friends gathered around the TV. This week on Tuesday Tunes, I wanted to highlight the game’s soundtrack with the theme tunes to the game’s opposing forces, the army and the aliens. The first tune, featured at the top of this article, is the aliens theme. Featuring a mix of hard techno and rock, my favorite bit about this theme is the intro which evokes classic arcade music – fitting for a horde of evil space invaders. The second theme, found below, is the army’s anthem which combines heavy driving rock music with a more classical army march, making it both badass and slightly humorous.
Hopefully hearing these tunes triggered happy memories of playing the Dreamcast online, or it gave you enough of a reason to hit ebay to find this under-appreciated game.
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Funnily enough it reminds me a lot of Sega’s later game by Petroglyph, Universe at War: Earth assault.
At least music wise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgC2uNCVQ-g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Hgx0D4NmA
I don’t think I ever played it online, but I still remember the local multiplayer and my attempts at the campaign, I loved all the Alien themes, and the Tokyo alien theme still drills my head remembering it.