Aliens (1990 video game)

Aliens is a 1990 shoot 'em up video game developed and published for arcades by Konami. It is based on the 1986 film of the same title.[1]

Aliens
Developer(s)Konami
Publisher(s)Konami
Director(s)S. Okamoto
Composer(s)Masanori Adachi
SeriesAlien
Platform(s)Arcade
Release1990
Genre(s)Run and gun
Mode(s)1 or 2 players

Gameplay

Aliens is primarily a side-scrolling shooter in which the player must defend against various Aliens, with certain parts of the game switching to a third-person rail shooter perspective. The player can play as either Ellen Ripley or Corporal Hicks, who both begin the game with a smart gun and can upgrade to other weapons such as flamethrowers and missile or grenade launchers. The player is given several health points, one of which is lost if the player is attacked by an Alien. The player loses a life if all the health points are lost, and the game ends if all the player's lives are depleted. Boss enemies are encountered at the end of each level, with the final boss being the Alien Queen, which the player fights with a power exoskeleton loader. A two-player mode is also available. The enemies range from standard ones seen in the films to specialized ones created exclusively for this game. When fighting the Alien Queen, two victorious outcomes are possible. In the first, the player simply opens the airlock, as in the 1986 film. If the player chooses, they can fight the Queen further, wearing her down until she bursts apart.[2][3][4]

Reception

Upon release, Julian Rignall of Computer & Video Games gave Aliens an overall score of 91%, noting its "simply brilliant" graphics and describing it as "one of the goriest coin-ops since Splatterhouse."[5] CU Amiga gave Aliens a 44 percent rating and criticized its "uniformly bland and drab" graphics, its "irritatingly unresponsive" controls, and its "dull" action.[3]

More than a decade and a half later, Retro Gamer editor-in-chief Darran Jones praised it as a "superb" game.[6] In a more reserved opinion, Stephen Kleckner of GamesBeat included Aliens in his list of "must-play" Alien franchise games, but wrote it "is competent and entertaining for a quarter sucker, but it lacks the creative push in gameplay found in other entries on this list."[7] Brett Alan Weiss of AllGame gave Aliens three and a half stars, calling it an "enjoyably fast-paced" and "graphically creepy, smoothly animated game".[2] Den of Geek! described it as "one of the best Alien games ever."[8]

See also

References
  1. "Aliens Merchandise". Jamescamerononline.com. Retrieved 2015-07-17.
  2. Weiss, Brett Alan. "Aliens – Review". AllGame. All Media Network. Archived from the original on 2014-11-14.
  3. James, Steve, ed. (March 1990). "Arcades – Aliens". CU Amiga. EMAP Frontline. pp. 86–87. Retrieved 2016-08-17 – via Internet Archive.
  4. Knight, Kyle. "Aliens – Overview". AllGame. Archived from the original on 2014-11-14. Retrieved 2016-08-17.
  5. Rignall, Julian (March 1990). "Aliens". Arcade Action. C+VG. No. 100. EMAP Frontline. p. 76 – via Internet Archive.
  6. Retro Gamer issue 33 page 16.
  7. Kleckner, Stephen (7 October 2014). "Games of the Alien series, Part 2: The 'must play' edition". VentureBeat.
  8. Lambie, Ryan (26 April 2018). "Aliens: Konami's Arcade Game Is Still Amazing". Den of Geek!. Dennis Publishing.
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