Alien Storm is a beat ‘em up arcade video game developed by Team Shinobi a subdivision of Sega R&D1 and published by Sega.  Initially developed for the arcade utilizing Sega’s System 18 arcade system board the game was then redesigned for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive home console.

The plot of the game centers around a homicidal alien race that is invading Earth to gain control over the world.  It is up to the special forces team known as the “Alien Busters” to stop the aliens from gaining world domination.  Players take control of one of the three members of the “Alien Busters” as they battle their way through various missions to rescue citizens and destroy the enemy’s UFO.

The original arcade version of the game consists of six missions while the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive version of the game contains eight missions.  The game was ported to other various platforms such as the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Sega Master System and ZX Spectrum however the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive version was more of a reimagination of the game.

While the gameplay found in the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive version of the game is virtually identical to the arcade version all levels were overhauled for the 16-bit console.  The levels were redesigned, and graphical elements were changed to better suit the console’s hardware capabilities.  Though the game plays almost identically to the arcade version each mission was shorter in length and new audio tracks were incorporated to better suit the redesigned levels.  The development team incorporated two additional missions into the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive version of the game and even though the changes are not extremely distinct in nature they are significant enough for many gamers to classify the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive version of the game as a different game opposed to a simple port of the arcade game.

The game received generally positive reviews when it released and was commonly compared to Golden Axe for its style of gameplay.  The gameplay was seen as a much faster paced and futuristic version of Golden Axe, Team Shinobi’s previous title.  The Sega Genesis / Mega Drive version of the game has been released on the Wii’s Virtual Console in 2007 and was included on the Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection that was released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.