When Ridley Scott unleashed Alien onto unsuspecting film fans way back in 1979, no one probably thought that the film would spawn a franchise that would take over the media landscape. Today, the franchise is still going strong, having conquered the box office, comics, novels, board games, action figures, and of course, video games.
With Fede Álvarez‘s Alien: Romulus set to invade theatres this week, it seems like a ripe opportunity to delve into the sea of video games that have spawned from the film franchise.
Really, there are a lot of games, both official and not-so-official. So, to keep this concise, we’ll look at official games that are directly related to the Alien franchise, keeping the Alien vs. Predator titles separate (for now).
Screenshots courtesy of Mobygames.
Alien – Atari 2600 (1982)
You had to start somewhere, and for 20th Century Fox’s video game division, this was it. Designed by Doug Neubauer and borrowing liberally from Pac-Man, Alien for the 2600 has you running around the maze-like hallways of your space ship (no mention of whether this is the Nostromo, mind you), crushing all of the eggs while collecting items for points. Unfortunately, you’ve got a couple of Xenomorphs running around the ship, as well. You can either avoid them, or use the flamethrower to temporarily stun them. Or, if you can grab the Pulsar (three in each stage), this causes the Xenomorphs to weaken and turn blue. Running over them with your character will destroy them.
Needless to say, you can see where the Pac-Man accusations came from. Reviewers at the time noted this, but at the same time, also commented about the sense of panic when you’re being stalked by the Xenomorphs. That alone made the game somewhat attractive, but nowadays, you can do a lot better.
Aliens: The Computer Game – Commodore 64, Apple II, ZX Spectrum (1986)
Jumping to the 1986 James Cameron classic, Aliens: The Computer Game has a bit of an interesting history to it. Activision’s UK subsidiary Electric Dreams Software had independently released their own version of this game with the same title as a simple action game. As a result, Activision had to rename their game for the European market as Aliens: US Version.
Name change aside, unlike Electric Dreams Software’s version, which was a straightforward action game, Aliens: The Computer Game features six mini games which are tied together with dialogue and images from the film. Two of those are action sequences has the player finding their way through the complex on LV-426 using a squad of four marines. The other sequences involve landing the ship from the Sulaco, finding their way through an air duct maze, fending off waves of Aliens as Ripley, and ultimately confronting the Alien Queen. The reviewers at the time praised the presentation, but in comparison, the six minigames failed to match up. Commodore 64 purists will probably get more out of this than anyone else.
Aliens – Arcade (1990)
Before Capcom graced us with their awesome Aliens vs. Predator cabinet, Konami took a stab with the Aliens license, and came up with a winner. Players either controlled a blonde-haired(!) Ripley or Corporal Hicks as they make their way through Hadley’s Hope, blasting through Xenomorphs until coming face to face with the Alien Queen.
Still fun to play to this day, Aliens does take a bit of artistic license when it comes to the Xenomorphs and the events of the film. You start out with a Smart Gun, but can upgrade to a flamethrower, missile launcher, or a 3-way shot that calls back to Contra. Speaking of Contra, there are moments where you shift perspective, having you face off against bosses who are coming from the top of the screen. There’s also a similar shift during the stages where you’re on top of an APC shooting down Xenomorphs. And yes, the boss battle against the Alien Queen inside the power loader is here, with you working to throw the Queen out via the airlock.
Alien 3 – Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Gear (1993)
Following the storyline of the film, Ripley’s ship crashes on the prison colony planet Fiorina 161. There, she and the unarmed prisoners have to figure out a way to survive the Xenomorphs terrorizing the colony until help arrives. As Ripley, players must navigate through the maze-like levels rescuing prisoners while fending off Xenomorphs. You’re timed while doing so, and you’ll have to rely on computers throughout the levels to figure out where the prisoners are. Not to mention that you’ll need to be quick on the trigger with the aliens, as they’re fast.
It’s unfortunately easy at times to lose direction as to where you’ll need to go in order to exit the level, and the mentioned quickness of the Xenomorphs can make killing them frustrating (not to mention difficult to avoid being hit). Still, Alien 3 is a great side-scrolling platformer once you figure out your strategy. Each version of Alien 3 is slightly different, offering up different levels and layouts for each platform. Unlike the rest of the ports, the Game Boy version is played from an overhead perspective.
Alien 3: The Gun – Arcade (1993)
Long before Sega tackled the Alien franchise in the 2010s, they had come up with this unique take on the Alien 3 story. Focusing on neither Ripley or Hicks, you are part of a squad of marines that was sent to investigate why the Sulcao hadn’t returned from the end of Aliens. What you find on board is an infestation of Xenomorphs, which quickly decimate the squad until only two unnamed marines (aka you and a friend) are left. After cleaning out the ship, you crash land on Fiorina “Fury” 161, which has also become a hive. Once again, it’s bug stomping time.
Generous liberties with the source material aside, Alien 3: The Gun is a fun experience. You’re obviously on rails, and starting out on the Sulaco navigating the corridors blasting Xenomorphs, facehuggers and eggs never gets old. Particularly in part due to the over-the-top way the Xenomorphs are blown apart, leaving limbs and torsos wriggling as they litter the deck. It only continues from there in the game’s six stages. You can also take alternate paths in the game to give things a bit of variety. Strong animation, plenty of action and excellent sound design are topped off with a rather bleak ending (it’s not the film’s ending, for sure) that’s only fitting for capping off the-then trilogy of films.
Aliens: A Comic Book Adventure – PC (1995)
Mindscape’s entry turns the story focus to the Dark Horse Comics series for A Comic Book Adventure, borrowing themes from the four-issue Aliens: Labyrinth series that ran from September 1993-January 1994. You play as Lt. Col. Hericksen, an ex-colonial marine who is now the commander of a three-man terraforming team. After receiving a distress call coming from the remote outpost B54-C, Hericksen travels to the planet in order to investigate.
A Comic Book Adventure is your standard point-and-click adventure title, with a few inventory-based puzzles. You’ll also engage in a bit of grid-based combat, which is tedious, to say the least. Probably the most contentious aspect of the game are the timed puzzles and objectives, which were (and still are) a source of frustration. The CGI art still holds up (despite much of it being static images), but these days, you’re probably better off watching a “Let’s Play” video and experiencing the game that way.
Alien Trilogy – Saturn, PC, PlayStation (1996)
Despite Alien vs. Predator on the Jaguar beating it out of the gate, Alien Trilogy has aged far better than the former. Based on and combining elements from the first three movies, Alien Trilogy casts you as Ripley as you make your way through LV426 to restore contact with the colony. The colony is obviously now infested with Xenomorphs, so Ripley must clean house. Eventually, you make your way through the colony to the prison facility, then finally arriving at the derelict alien spaceship to battle the Queen.
Capturing the isolation and the fear that Alien fans wanted, Alien Trilogy still holds up today with the gameplay, despite the awkward control scheme and rather linear level design. Regardless of what difficulty setting you choose, the challenge ramps up pretty quickly, particularly with the enemies respawning in the higher difficulty settings. While purists might pull their hair out at the mangled storyline, what’s here is an okay effort. The DOS version had the edge over the PlayStation and Saturn versions by including multiplayer.
Aliens Online – PC (1998)
Speaking of multiplayer, Mythic Entertainment developed a massively multiplayer first-person shooter with Aliens Online that either put you in the boots of a marine sent in for a bug hunt, or as a member of the alien hive. Aliens Online offered up asymmetric teams, but you could only unlock the more powerful weapons if you were part of a squad. The game also had RPG elements, where in addition to being able to choose your class, you gained points per kills for increasing your rank as a marine. Or, as a Xenomorph, each kill you got closer to evolving into the Empress, which was the rank higher than the Queen.
Despite the cool premise, Aliens Online was a bit rough around the edges. The interface was cramped with your viewing field and the team chat, and there were balancing issues. Plus, as a xenomorph, you couldn’t climb walls! Aliens Online was free to download, but required players to joining the online gaming service GameStorm for $9.95 per month. Sadly, the servers were shut down in 2000 after GameStorm was sold to Electronic Arts.
Alien Resurrection – PlayStation (2000)
Following the same plot of the movie, the cloned Ellen Ripley awakens aboard the USM Auriga, which has become infested with Xenomorphs. Together with a group of mercenaries, Ripley must make her way through the ship, wipe out the infestation, and return the ship safely to Earth.
While Ripley is the main playable character for much of the game, you do get to play as Call, DiStephano, and Christie, with all four having their own unique weapon layouts. Ironically, Alien Resurrection was panned at the time for its control scheme, which looking back, was one of the first games to use both analogue sticks for simultaneous movement and aiming, beating out Halo for the modern FPS control scheme for a controller. Much like Alien Trilogy, Alien Resurrection nailed the atmosphere and isolation, but also had a jump in difficulty.
Aliens: Thanatos Encounter – Game Boy Color (2001)
Aliens: Thanatos Encounter is a standalone story inspired by Aliens. The story concerns a platoon of Colonial Marines that while en route to Earth from a training mission, are awakened from hypersleep by a distress signal from the space freighter Thanatos. Ordered to board the massive ship and investigate the situation, they discover the freighter is infested with xenomorphs. The platoon must now clear the ship of hostiles and rescue any survivors.
Released late in the Game Boy Color’s life, Thanatos Encounter crams quite a bit onto the cartridge. While the sound and music aren’t the best, developer Crawfish Interactive managed to get some good graphical fidelity out of the tiny screen. You can select from five different marines, each with varying stats. Thanatos Encounter uses a simple control scheme, where the A and B buttons correspond to the guns in your marine’s left and right hands. Yes, you can dual wield pulse rifles or smart guns, if you choose. While it’s a pretty run-of-the-mill shooter, Thanatos Encounter still offers up some fun, if straightforward, gameplay for Aliens fans.
Aliens: Extermination – Arcade (2006)
Once again using Aliens as its basis, Aliens: Extermination is a 3D light gun shooter taking place on LV-426, where the colony has been destroyed. An insertion team sent to the colony has not responded, and an infestation is suspected. You have been sent to exterminate the Xenomorphs, and search for the insertion team.
Your tried-and-true rail shooter, Aliens: Extermination moves the player automatically as you mow down Xenomorphs, eggs, facehuggers and synthetics with your pulse rifle and grenades, though you can also get a flamethrower or missile launcher for extra firepower. The game offers a total of four missions, with plenty of frantic action that’s not too difficult, but having extra tokens and a friend to help you makes things a little easier. Watch out for innocents getting caught in the crossfire!
Aliens: Infestation – Nintendo DS (2011)
Developed by the folks at WayForward, Infestation uses Aliens as inspiration for its story, where you once again follow a group of Colonial Marines. When the USS Sephora discovers the USS Sulaco adrift after the events of the film, a squad of Colonial Marines are sent aboard to investigate. Not only do the marines find a Xenomorph infestation aboard the ship, but also a group of Union of Progressive Peoples (UPP) soldiers, who don’t take too kindly to the Colonial Marines’ presence.
A combination of a Metroidvania and FPS, Infestation was clearly a labour of love for WayForward. Each of the marines has their own unique dialogue, which makes losing them a kick in the face, since it’s hard not to become attached to them. Coupled with a fan-pleasing story that includes elements from William Gibson‘s unproduced Alien 3 script (namely the UPP) and some excellent sprite work, Infestation is let down only by the linearity of the levels. Still, given that this was developed alongside Colonial Marines, this is a far better game.
Aliens: Colonial Marines – PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (2013)
And speaking of which, Aliens: Colonial Marines takes place after the events of the film, where the player takes control of the United States Colonial Marine Christopher Winter. Winter is part of a search and rescue team that has to investigate the space ship U.S.S. Sulaco and what remains of Hadley’s Hope to find out what has happened to the team that was sent to LV-426. The team arrives on the space ship U.S.S. Sephora, only to find it infested with Xenomorphs. The ensuring battle has the remaining marines take shelter in the ruins of the Hadley’s Hope colony complex on LV-426.
The nightmarish development of Colonial Marines has been long documented, along with the shenanigans that went on at Gearbox during this time, and the game’s eventual release. The result of all of this was Colonial Marines having crippling performance issues (despite early demos demonstrating the contrary), inept AI that was eventually fixed by a modder by correcting a typo in the code, large plot-holes in the story and weak writing (despite the supposedly canonical events that were endorsed by 20th Century Fox), and generally lacklustre gameplay. When the behind-the-scenes stories from developers are more entertaining than the game itself, you know you need to avoid this one.
Alien: Isolation – PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Switch (2019)
Fifteen years after the events of Ridley Scott’s Alien, Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda is looking for answers. Working as an engineer for Weiland-Yutani Corporation, she finds out that the logs from USCSS Nostromo have been located and transported to the Sevastopol space station. She decides to join a small crew sent by Weiland-Yutani to retrieve the data. However, the ship that found the logs that reached Sevastopol also contained a Xenomorph, which has murdered the majority of station’s population.
We wouldn’t be able to live it down if we didn’t mention this one. Isolation perfectly captures the atmosphere of Ridley Scott’s original film with its graphics, along with the fear of being pursued by the Xenomorph. The AI was programmed with a complex set of behavioural designs that slowly unlock as it encounters the player, creating the illusion that it learns from each interaction. While criticism can be levelled at the lack of growth in Isolation‘s characters, the sheer terror you feel in this game hits you on a personal level that not many other survival horror titles can claim.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite – PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PC, Xbox Series (2021)
Fireteam Elite is set 23 years after the original trilogy. You’re a member of a fireteam of Colonial Marines aboard the USS Endeavor. When you receive a distress call from the Katanga refinery station orbiting the planet LV-895, your team is sent to investigate. You discover that the refinery is infested with Xenomorphs. After rescuing the sole survivor, it’s revealed that Weyland-Yutani have been secretly breeding Xenomorphs and experimenting with a mysterious mutagenic substance before the Xenomorphs broke containment. Your team heads to LV-895 to investigate and clean up.
While it never reaches the height and staying power of the co-op action you’d find in Left 4 Dead (though that’s an admittedly high benchmark), Fireteam Elite is still a fun romp. Cold Iron Studios nailed the atmosphere and tension of Aliens, despite its story not really bringing anything new to the overall Alien universe. The game appears to have done well enough that Cold Iron Studios is rumoured to be working on a sequel.
Aliens: Dark Descent – PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox Series (2023)
Once again set after the original trilogy of films, Dark Descent puts you in command of a squad of Colonial Marines. On the moon of Lethe, the shuttle Bentonville drops off cargo at Pioneer Station that turns out to contain Xenomorphs, which massacre the station’s crew. After activating the Cerberus Protocol that destroys the Bentonville, a freighter, and cripples the nearby Colonial Marine frigate, the USS Otago, Deputy Administrator Maeko Hayes is extracted by Sgt. Jonas Harper and his squad of Colonial Marines to Lethe. The group must now deal not only with the Xenomorph outbreak on Lethe, but also rogue agents from the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.
Similar to Fireteam Elite‘s take on co-op shooters, Aliens: Dark Descent doesn’t offer up much new for strategy fans, but what’s here is still some excellent tension, particularly when you’re facing off against a seemingly endless horde of Xenomorphs. The mechanic of having to deal with your squad’s mental fortitude is a nice touch, as is the idea of changes you make in the level potentially affecting your route later on. The high difficulty of Dark Descent may be a turn off for some players, while console players might take offence at the control scheme when compared to their PC counterparts.
The post The Long Legacy of ‘Alien’ Franchise Video Games appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.