Since the scandals and disappointment surrounding Gearbox's Aliens: Colonial Marines has been such a hot topic lately, it got me thinking about older Alien games and how they've held up.
I think the first actual game I played from the franchise was Alien Trilogy on the Saturn. I also played the demo on PC, but I can't recall which one I tried first. One of the first FPS games with simulated view bob I believe. Another peculiar detail I remember is that your handgun fired slow (well, slow relative to being instant as you are used to) projectiles.
Much later I purchased Alien Resurrection for the PS1. The game came out years after the dreadful movie it was based on, in 2000 I think. From what I remember the game itself was solid enough, the graphics and atmosphere were great for the platform and I think it may possibly be the best PS1-exclusive FPS (not that there's much competition)
Alien Vs Predator on PC. Wish I had spent more time with this back in the heyday, as I only tried the demo a bit. Looking at some videos now it appears to have aged quite poorly though. The Quake-like movement and pacing doesn't really suit this type of game.
Most are probably already familiar with the Capcom AvP beat em up which was really solid fun, although judged on Alien merits it's far from what I'm looking for. I think the threat of the xenos was too trivialized when you make them the equivalent of street thug fodder. Not even James Cameron did that with his focus on action.
Then there's the really early games based on the first and second movie on the C64. I never played them thus don't know much about them, but apparently they're widely praised and try a lot of unique things design-wise to capture the same feel you get from the movies.
I think survival horror is one of the key terms to remember here for the best type of Alien game. With Resident Evil 6 and Dead Space 3, it's painfully obvious that horror is on its way out from the mainstream side of gaming development. When I saw Angry Joe's review for Colonial Marines, at the end he mentioned that his ultimate Alien game would be akin to Amnesia with some action/shooting elements. That sounds like a brilliant idea to me, but there's virtually zero chance any AAA publisher (in this case, Sega which is the current license holder) is going to let that happen.