Throughout Alpha Prime‘s ten levels of questions and answers, Arnold travels the interior and exterior of the asteroid mining facility in search of Warren, a rogue miner whose team landed on Prime to take advantage of its potent hubbardium deposits. However, the asteroid was technically deemed off limits by the multinational corporation that controlled it due to overexposure to the element. Still, those looking to make a quick buck aren’t going to let a little hubbardium induced insanity and active security systems stop them, are they? Besides, there’s much more money to be made by refining it into drugs rather than space fuel, so it must be worth the cost of multiple human lives, right? Arnold must navigate the base picking up clues, weapons and physics enabled objects to put the puzzle together of why exactly he fell into this in the first place. Was it for love? Was it avarice? A sense of duty to his lost friend, perhaps?

Not that it’s all just run and gun the whole time. There are also more technical opportunities to hack security cameras, allowing a visual edge on your enemy, or options to take control of loading machines to solve point A to point B puzzles. A drivable vehicle presents itself about halfway throughout the game, too, but I’ll get into that later on. Let’s just say for now that the outdoor things could’ve been a lot more fun.

The story and script of Alpha Prime is something to be noted, as it was penned by famous Czech author Ondrej Neff, and although the plot and ideas contained within are sound, you won’t be able to comprehend what’s going on due to localization issues. The actors don’t inflect appropriately for the situations in which they’re involved, so what could be regarded as a “dire” situation comes off rather monotone. Regardless, there are quite a few twists and turns, plus an Orin Henry-style ending that might take you by surprise. Wait for it, but watch closely as it happens almost too fast to be noticed.

Alpha Prime wears its influences proudly on its shoulder, right under the bargain price tag. The environment is familiar, we’ve shot these guns before and there’s more backstabbing than a ninja at a tunnel vision support group. So is it worth playing? Travel further down the mineshaft for the payload.