1. #1

    Older Alien games

    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.

  2. #2
    You missed one the best of the old alien games. Name was Aliens online you were able to play it on game storm along with many other games in the late 90's. In aliens online you could play as marine or alien and earned ranks for either our alien or marine character. Was one of the best games on gamestorm in 1998.

  3. #3
    Never even heard of it. Was Gamestorm some kind of browser-based multiplayer service?

    One fun factoid I forgot to mention was that Doom was originally almost meant to be an Aliens game when Fox offered id the license. They forfeited the offer to have more creative freedom.

  4. #4
    No gamestorm was a gaming service in the late 90's that was bought out by EA in 2000 because it pulled to many people from UO and their gaming service there was 30+ games u could play for 10$ a month.

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-16 at 06:02 PM ----------

    Also in aliens online u could play as a queen if u were queen alien rank or higher.

  5. #5
    High Overlord Tuulikki 27's Avatar
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    You should give AvP on the Jaguar a go. Fantastic game.

  6. #6
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    AvP2 probably the best aliens/predator game out there.

  7. #7
    AvP on the pc was fucking awesome.
    loved that game.

  8. #8
    Pandaren Monk shokter's Avatar
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    Alien3 for Super Nintendo was pretty great for its time.
    "Brevity is...wit"

  9. #9
    Alien Versus Predator 2 was pretty awesome. Though again it's basically a Half Life/Quake 2 engine game:



    Playing as the Alien in it was just epic too, though abrupt. It had more similarities to Thief or the like than anything else - playing heavily towards stealth and avoiding getting detected for some serious stealth kills.



    It's probably my favourite Alien related game so far, potentially either just better or on par with the Jaguar game (not taking into account how dated the games now are by modern standards).

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by shokter View Post
    Alien3 for Super Nintendo was pretty great for its time.
    Definitely. The music and the atmosphere in that game were astounding.


  11. #11
    First Alien versus Predator on PC, just for the acting

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