A while back, a bunch of fans of the Space Hulk board game, set in the Warhammer 40k universe, set out to make a freeware single player video game version. Unfortunately, despite what initially looked like some official support for the remake, the team ran afoul of the obvious legal hassles involved and had to take the download down. Well, the remake is back up, now with a new name, ‘Alien Assault’, and all Warhammer 40k terms changed to more generic science fiction space marine vocabulary.

The reskinning is extremely basic, and you wouldn’t notice the difference if you squint. The gameplay is almost exactly the same: you’re still trying to lead a few mechanized infantry with extremely cumbersome power armor through tight halls filled to the airducts with alien horrors. The aliens appear as ‘blips’ on your radar, giving you a vague idea of where on the spaceship they are, and you need to place your soldiers in tactically beneficial positions to stop the onslaught. The lack of knowledge about the enemy’s exact position, along with the enemy’s ability to tear through your entire group of power armored marines on a single turn in melee combat and the time limit that ticks away as the player makes his decisions, makes the game a hell of a lot scarier and frenetic than most of the ‘survival horror’ video games out there.

If you’ve ever been curious about the Space Hulk boardgame, or if you’re just interested in seeing some guys in power armor die horribly, I’d suggest you check it out. The difficulty is pretty high, despite a very nice and methodical tutorial, but it still might behoove you read a bit about the game’s rules before you take the plunge into the wonderful world of gun jams and flamethrower mishaps. Also note that Alien Assault is closer to the Space Hulk boardgame than to the earlier, official Space Hulk computer and video games, which were a mix of squad-based strategy and first person shooter. This one has you bleeding to death on a turn-based grid.