Shooting things is fun. Blasting hordes of slimy alien attackers into space goo is fun with a purpose. Expanding on this corollary, Strategy First's new turret-based action shooter -- Alien Blast: The Encounter -- should be an absolute hoot. Sadly, it's not even close. In fact, Alien Blast is so decidedly unfun that there really should be a warning label on the box to alert unsuspecting PC gamers to this fact.

The game's backstory is as straightforward as it is banal. It's the year 2060 and you're part of a human military force tasked with defending the colony planet Rexus from alien attack (we won't ask where NASA got the funding to make that happen; we'll be lucky to be on Mars by 2030). With no snazzy spaceships or land vehicles to tool around in, however, you must fend off these swarming creatures from several fixed-turret emplacements dotted throughout the planet's surface. Entirely on your own -- without even a turret buddy to help with the workload -- you'll face successive waves of ground-based and airborne alien attackers who share a common strategy: to overwhelm and overrun you with sheer numbers.

Your turret is equipped with a variety of weapons (some of which must be unlocked) as well as a short-range radar screen to warn you of approaching threats. You can rotate your "guns" in any direction -- or elevate them to pick off airborne enemies -- but, rooted to the spot as you are, there isn't a heckuva lot of battle planning involved here. Simply blast away at everything that moves and hope like hell that you don't run out of ammunition before the level ends. A hovering mother ship will drop additional ammo crates as the battle rages on, and these can only be collected by shooting them with your active weapon before a timer runs out and they vaporize into thin air.

Anchoring you to one spot clearly saved the developer (Los Angeles-based Made By Kiddies, Inc.) the hassle of creating proper 3D environments for Alien Blast, and this just reinforces the overall cheapness of this budget-priced title. The sky coloring and landscape around your turret are changed regularly to give the appearance of different locations, but little effort was expended here. The alien attackers -- represented as squealing, insect-like hordes, flying bugs and lizards, and even gargantuan mechs in some of the boss levels -- are equally disappointing. Their low-poly renderings give them a distinct 2D look when viewed up close, and the game's pathetic-looking pyrotechnics are shameful for a game of this type. When blowing stuff up is all you've got, then that stuff should blow up real good!