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Video Game / Breathless

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Breathless is a First-Person Shooter developed by Fields of Vision, a rather short-lived company and one of their very few outputs, and being released in 1995 it's predictably among the numerous Doom clones at the time, though gameplay-wise the controls seems to be copied from Alien Breed: The Killing Grounds.

In the future, after humans lose a war against aliens, surviving human soldiers are converted into cyborgs and pitted against each other for the amusement of the alien overlords. You are one of the many cyborg gladiators, but after escaping from your cell you then battle your way through the alien forces as well as converted human slaves.

Unrelated to the film.


You Have 3 Retries Left...

  • Aliens Are Bastards: Apparently taking over earth and enslaving humans isn't bad enough, because now the alien overlords are forcefully converting human prisoners to fight each other for amusement.
  • All There in the Manual: The game itself doesn't contain any details about the backstory, the game's setting and what exactly are you battling against. Everything else is explained in flyers, booklets and promotional materials.
  • Arm Cannon: Most of the human-sized enemies uses these weapons to shoot at you. No word if the cannon is organically grafted to their bodies or not, though.
  • Body Armor as Hit Points: Just like Doom, you have a numerical counter for "Health" and "Shields", and a high shield score can cushion projectile hits inflicted on your health. In fact, the shield meter tends to absorb majority of damage to the point where the shield level can be below 20 points but your health is at 80%.
  • Captain Ersatz: When you encounter them later in the game, the alien overlords are clearly the Alien from Alien.
  • Cut and Paste Environments: Taken to the extreme, but the game is sorely lacking in interior designs. Literally every single indoor stage is the same series of drab, grey corridors, while the few outdoor stages have background which varies slightly, most of the differences are in the distance which you can't interact with anyways - the foreground consisting of crates and structures are mostly the same everywhere you go.
  • Face on the Cover: Whatever little promotional materials the game has, most of them depicts what is presumably your character's face plastered on the cover art and posters.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: The first weapon you obtain is a missile launcher that spams projectiles full-auto.
  • Mooks, but no Bosses: The game doesn't have a "boss" enemy you need to contend with.
  • Nameless Narrative: None are given to the player's character, or any of the mooks, at all.
  • Password Save: Finishing a level gives you an "Access Code", a lengthy (18-digits!) series of randomized numbers and alphabets that functions as a savepoint.
  • Scary Scorpions: One of the more unique enemy designs, you can sometimes be attacked by gigantic robot scorpions.
  • To Be Continued: Complete the final stage and escape the alien base and the game ends with these words. Said ending was Left Hanging, likely forever, due to the game's obscurity and negative reception.
  • Unrobotic Reveal: Provided if you went straight into the gameplay without checking out the backstory or manual... the first wave of enemies the game throws at you all looks mechanical, but when killed they let out an audible, human-like "URRRGH!" before falling apart in a bloody red mess.
  • Unwilling Roboticisation: The fate of captured human captives, be converted into robotic gladiators for the aliens.

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