Much like most videogame versions of their movie counterparts, they are absolute and utter rubbish. Alien in particular has been on the receiving end of some seriously poor incarnations. But is that all about to change? Firstly lets take a look at how bad things were!!!
Back in 1982 (yes we’re starting old school) Alien turned up on the Atari 2600. Possibly one of the reasons why those Atari joysticks were so chewable (c’mon, you did it too) but it was basically Pacman, but instead of Blinky and company you had the actual Aliens. Well, I’m not sure what they were, more like glorified pixelated, walking Piranha plants from Mario Bros.
In 1984 Aliens arrived on the Spectrum 48K (God Bless its rubber keys!) and on the Commodore 64. While I was too poor to own it, looking at the youtube video below highlights what another disaster it was. Check out the attempt at poor old Ripley. For the love of God, I’m not sure what she looks like, but it doesn’t look like Ripley. But somebody decided it looked close enough. Then the actual gameplay. Maybe its me, but what the hell is the object here? This one looked like it was Game Over before it even started. Can you imagine back in the mid 80’s parting with your hard earned cash and rushing home. Listening to 10 minutes of banshee screeching as the Speccy loaded this up. Once you started playing you lost the will to live!
A few years went by, and Activison and Mr. Micro decided the world needed another disaster. This time, based on James Cameron’s Aliens. The first thing to notice is, to its credit, there were blocks of pixels that actually resembled Gieger’s creatures. Now, while I use the term resembled loosley, it was still a million miles away from the Mario plants a few years previous. If you had no life back then, and absolutely positively drooled over the using a powerloader, then you were in for a pixelated treat!And when I saw treat, more like misfortune.
Things picked up a bit in the 90’s though.In 1990, thanks to Konami,players were finally able to put on Ripley’s pants (Lets face it, we all wanted to put on her pants at some time) and unleash hell on some blood thirsty Xenomorphs. Based (again) on Cameron’s take, this was complete with Newt and some shitty driving sequences. Damn, it even had a proper motion tracker. You even got to hop into the powerloader (again). Except this time, instead of a bunch of pixels have a stroke, you were able to kick some serious ass!Up until this point, players had being completely punched in the balls with Alien based video games.
The Alien videogames were finally on a roll. In 1993, based on Fincher’s Alien 3 (which is a bit under rated to be fair) Probe entertainment released a decent enough platform shooter. With a decent soundtrack, this was really a very enjoyable play, esoecially on any of the 16 bit systems (like the SNES, Genesis / Megadrive and of course the all conquering Amiga)
After this point a bunch of Alien Vs Predator games turned up on a bunch of different systems but considering we’re concentrating on all things Alien here, we’ll leave the AvP stuff out. The Alien Trilogy (incorporating the first 3 movies) arrived in glorious first person shooter mode on the Playstation and the Sega Saturn, giving players a more immersive experience with their shiny new “next gen” consoles. While the game had some atmosphere, the graphics were a bit of a let down in places with facehuggers in particular being a big, pixelated mess. Still though, it got the sound effects spot on, which added greatly to the over experience. It even had a decent, pre rendered ending.
Taking its lead from the trilogy, 2000’s Alien Resurrection landed on PS1 and punished players relentlessly as it was insanely difficult. But it improved on what went before it and had a spooky enough atmosphere, especially when you would be wandering around for quite some time with nothing to shoot at. For complete absorption, you really had to turn off the lights and have some clean underpants.
With standing Aliens Unleashed on mobile phones (it was horrifically bad) a stand alone Alien game didn’t see the light of day until 2006 in video arcades. Visually Aliens Unleashed was really impressive. While it was just an on rails shooter, complete with light guns, it looked awesome and played fast and frantic. Unless you were the kid from Silver Spoons though, this was always going to be a bus ride away.
Not since 2000 though, did Aliens burst through your home console. 11 Years later, the rather decent and well reviewed Aliens: Infestation dropped into Nintendo DS slots everywhere. You were able to lead a specially selected team of Colonial Marines and and kick some Alien behind. It had an old school Contra / Metroid feel to it. Graphically, it was pretty awesome with the Aliens in particular being animated really well. While it took 11 years for gamers to get their hands on a standalone Alien game, this was worth the wait. However, if you didn’t have a DS, tough shit!
With decades of average and below par Alien games,last years Aliens: Colonial Marines had promised to finally deliver the game players had been waiting for. Instead though, Sega, delivered an absolute shit heap of a video game that was fraught with delays and with graphics that were straight out of 2007, more fun would have been had playing with a rabid badger….that you set on fire!
Finally, though, are we about to get an Alien game that will not only hold dear to the franchise and the original movie? Well, by all accounts Alien Isolation is promising just that! You play Ripley’s daughter, Amanda who is sent to recover the flight recorder of the Nostromo. Based on the video below, Sega (who really need to make up for Colonial Marines) seem to have come up with the goods here. The atmospherics and visuals seems spot on! Could this really be the best Alien video game ever? While that wouldn’t be hard, it’s not Game Over for the Alien gaming franchise just yet!
Back in 1982 (yes we’re starting old school) Alien turned up on the Atari 2600. Possibly one of the reasons why those Atari joysticks were so chewable (c’mon, you did it too) but it was basically Pacman, but instead of Blinky and company you had the actual Aliens. Well, I’m not sure what they were, more like glorified pixelated, walking Piranha plants from Mario Bros.
In 1984 Aliens arrived on the Spectrum 48K (God Bless its rubber keys!) and on the Commodore 64. While I was too poor to own it, looking at the youtube video below highlights what another disaster it was. Check out the attempt at poor old Ripley. For the love of God, I’m not sure what she looks like, but it doesn’t look like Ripley. But somebody decided it looked close enough. Then the actual gameplay. Maybe its me, but what the hell is the object here? This one looked like it was Game Over before it even started. Can you imagine back in the mid 80’s parting with your hard earned cash and rushing home. Listening to 10 minutes of banshee screeching as the Speccy loaded this up. Once you started playing you lost the will to live!
A few years went by, and Activison and Mr. Micro decided the world needed another disaster. This time, based on James Cameron’s Aliens. The first thing to notice is, to its credit, there were blocks of pixels that actually resembled Gieger’s creatures. Now, while I use the term resembled loosley, it was still a million miles away from the Mario plants a few years previous. If you had no life back then, and absolutely positively drooled over the using a powerloader, then you were in for a pixelated treat!And when I saw treat, more like misfortune.
Things picked up a bit in the 90’s though.In 1990, thanks to Konami,players were finally able to put on Ripley’s pants (Lets face it, we all wanted to put on her pants at some time) and unleash hell on some blood thirsty Xenomorphs. Based (again) on Cameron’s take, this was complete with Newt and some shitty driving sequences. Damn, it even had a proper motion tracker. You even got to hop into the powerloader (again). Except this time, instead of a bunch of pixels have a stroke, you were able to kick some serious ass!Up until this point, players had being completely punched in the balls with Alien based video games.
The Alien videogames were finally on a roll. In 1993, based on Fincher’s Alien 3 (which is a bit under rated to be fair) Probe entertainment released a decent enough platform shooter. With a decent soundtrack, this was really a very enjoyable play, esoecially on any of the 16 bit systems (like the SNES, Genesis / Megadrive and of course the all conquering Amiga)
After this point a bunch of Alien Vs Predator games turned up on a bunch of different systems but considering we’re concentrating on all things Alien here, we’ll leave the AvP stuff out. The Alien Trilogy (incorporating the first 3 movies) arrived in glorious first person shooter mode on the Playstation and the Sega Saturn, giving players a more immersive experience with their shiny new “next gen” consoles. While the game had some atmosphere, the graphics were a bit of a let down in places with facehuggers in particular being a big, pixelated mess. Still though, it got the sound effects spot on, which added greatly to the over experience. It even had a decent, pre rendered ending.
Taking its lead from the trilogy, 2000’s Alien Resurrection landed on PS1 and punished players relentlessly as it was insanely difficult. But it improved on what went before it and had a spooky enough atmosphere, especially when you would be wandering around for quite some time with nothing to shoot at. For complete absorption, you really had to turn off the lights and have some clean underpants.
With standing Aliens Unleashed on mobile phones (it was horrifically bad) a stand alone Alien game didn’t see the light of day until 2006 in video arcades. Visually Aliens Unleashed was really impressive. While it was just an on rails shooter, complete with light guns, it looked awesome and played fast and frantic. Unless you were the kid from Silver Spoons though, this was always going to be a bus ride away.
Not since 2000 though, did Aliens burst through your home console. 11 Years later, the rather decent and well reviewed Aliens: Infestation dropped into Nintendo DS slots everywhere. You were able to lead a specially selected team of Colonial Marines and and kick some Alien behind. It had an old school Contra / Metroid feel to it. Graphically, it was pretty awesome with the Aliens in particular being animated really well. While it took 11 years for gamers to get their hands on a standalone Alien game, this was worth the wait. However, if you didn’t have a DS, tough shit!
With decades of average and below par Alien games,last years Aliens: Colonial Marines had promised to finally deliver the game players had been waiting for. Instead though, Sega, delivered an absolute shit heap of a video game that was fraught with delays and with graphics that were straight out of 2007, more fun would have been had playing with a rabid badger….that you set on fire!
Finally, though, are we about to get an Alien game that will not only hold dear to the franchise and the original movie? Well, by all accounts Alien Isolation is promising just that! You play Ripley’s daughter, Amanda who is sent to recover the flight recorder of the Nostromo. Based on the video below, Sega (who really need to make up for Colonial Marines) seem to have come up with the goods here. The atmospherics and visuals seems spot on! Could this really be the best Alien video game ever? While that wouldn’t be hard, it’s not Game Over for the Alien gaming franchise just yet!
