Alien Shooter Thousands of aliens, one corridor

The mission is simple: clear the base at all costs. Offices, storehouses and mysterious laboratories of a military complex are packed with creatures, about a thousand per map, with up to a hundred on screen at once. You blast open access to the teleports they pour out of, hold areas with a stationary gun, and keep moving while the horde closes in from every corridor. The isometric view means corners stay hidden until something comes around them, which keeps the tension up even between waves. When dozens of enemies rush you at once, the screen turns into a proper bloodbath, and the game lets you pick whether it is red or green. Subtle it is not. Satisfying it very much is.

Between missions you spend your pay in the arming area: nine weapons of mass destruction, from guns that freeze and burn to ones that blow whole clusters apart, plus biomechanical implants that push your fighting abilities past human limits. You pick a male or female character and upgrade them as you go, so checking every corner of a map for cash and secrets actually pays off. Gadgets help you survive: flash lights for the pitch-black stretches, medkits, and battle drones that fight at your side. The music reacts to the action and drives it along. The campaign runs ten missions, and the last one is genuinely hard, so the build you chose matters by the end.