Alien Trilogy (DOS)

By: The J Man 

I was introduced to this game as an early Playstation title. I remember rumblings about it when the PS launched, and was certainly looking forward to it, considering I like the films, and the PS launch first-person-shooters were the likes of Kileak: The DNA Imperative - a game so ball-less that they actually took out "The Blood" as a subtitle and replace it with "The DNA Imperative." Urk, Kileak... Just a second, could you step away from that trash can right there?

*BLELLEAACHHCHAAHAHCHACHH - spit*

Moving on, aside from the slew of Alien 3 games released alongside the movie, and a few unspeakable Atari 2600-era cow pies, Alien Trilogy marks the first real attempt to document the adventures of Ellen Ripley in gaming form. An extremely loose plot ties together the three films - you'll go back to LV-426, despite the fact that it was blown to smithereenies at the end of Aliens. You'll then shuttle over to the prison complex from Alien 3, despite the fact that it was on another planet altogether. Finally, you'll head over to Giger's ship from Alien and, well at this point, who really cares why? If you're looking for Alien Trilogy to make sense, just give up right now.

Mission briefings populate your load screens, and give you some idea of what you're meant to do. In most cases, these can be completely ignored. Alien Trilogy is not a mission-based game, and the briefings are really just meant as an attempt to half-handedly assign some purpose to each level. It's as if the game wants to trick you into thinking you're not doing the same Doom "hallway crawl and key hunt," despite the fact that you so obviously are. Levels are very linear affairs, and generally require you to poke around some rooms, throw some switches to open up other rooms, and ultimately find a coveted battery. You then plug the battery into a special console which opens up the exit, find this exit, and leave. Repeat with somewhat different-looking levels until you make it to the final boss - THE DREADED QUEEN. After you kill her, you'll battle through the next film until you meet that boss - ANOTHER QUEEN. Then through the final film and the final boss - YET ANOTHER QUEEN. Three movies. Three queens. More than attended the "Republican Party Drag Fest and Fundraiser," but still a silly and unnecessary number.

Between the "films" are some cutscenes meant to tie the levels together and offer some eye candy. They also featured prominently in the advertising, in the standard practice of suggesting the game looks better than it actually does. They're impressive CG animation for the time, and feature some early motion capture most apparent in the swagger and cautious advances of the Marines. It's not quite Toy Story, of course, but for a game on a game's budget, they might just be the most impressive part of the title. Sad, really, when you consider they're the part of the game you truly have no involvement in at all.

The textures may not hold up, and the engine is pretty clunky, but the atmosphere is definitely there.

About the only thing Alien Trilogy gets right is recreating the atmosphere of the films. It does not recreate the films, mind you, or even proper locations from, but the feeling is there. This is especially true for the hive levels, which are downright unsettling and even contain humans mounted on the walls with surprises in their bellies. Texture work is fitting for each area and colored well, if a bit pixelated. A lot of effort was put into recreating the look of the areas, such as the trapezoidal shape of the Aliens colony's hallways, complete with flourescents running down the length. Lighting was rightfully another major consideration, with colored, dimming, and flickering lighting throughout. Red and amber emergency strobes make frequent appearances, as well as some areas eerily lit entirely by blue screens. Dark rooms are also plentiful, which must be powered on by local switches. In all, it's a great homage to the styles of the films (as great as period technology would allow), and often genuinely spooky. My only wish is that they'd gone with a Nostromo level, as the lighting and smoke sprites would have served it impressively. The recreation of Giger's ship is bland and disappointing by comparison.

But while spooky locales abound, the gameplay doesn't hold up. Part of it is the goofy-looking Aliens, who somewhat resemble the old action figures, with maybe three frames of animation. As if to compensate for this, they run through those three frames really fast. Sure the Aliens are supposed to be shadowy and nimble, but their actions make no effort to showcase this, and their look seems overly awkward and out of place. They stand stock still or circle around until they spot you, then they will charge right at you, standing upright, until they die. It's like in a fan mod, when an enemy coded with one intention is "adapted" with some simple sprite changes and a few minor parameter tweaks. The Aliens become the cannon fodder they're not supposed to be, instead of the crafty, silent nightmares from the first two flicks. They will occasionally crawl along the ceiling to raise the creepiness factor, but they'll still simply charge at you. Don't expect them to offer any intentional sneak attacks or crash out from hidden alcoves. The best you're going to get is if you walk through a door and miss the one hiding off to the left.

The idea of deadly, close-range Aliens versus your powerful futuristic arsenal does come across somewhat, so the game isn't entirely just a standard FPS with a slipshod coat of franchise paint. You will not encounter a wild range of crossbred Aliens with varying abilities as in the comics, or any cheap and obvious attempts to better fit the films into an FPS mold - you know, like Mecha-Alien with guns for arms (don't laugh, becuase AvP 1 for the PC actually did this!). The game as a whole stays pretty close to the source films. It still, at least in spirit, feels a lot like a fan-made mod for Doom or a similar FPS. In fact, I remember the actual fan mod "Aliens Doom" being a bit more fun than this one. The action was faster, Aliens didn't require entire magazines of bullets to kill simply for the sake of offering a challenge, and they even managed to throw in the powerloader battle in that one. It's a bad sign when your company's effort is outclassed in the gameplay department by a handful of guys working for free in their spare time.

Admittedly, by staying close to the films, the designers eschew any chance to offer variety in their foes. You'll be fighting the same dumb-as-a-brick Aliens throughout the whole game, with the only change being the appearance of the Dog Aliens in the Alien 3 levels. I presume to make up for having retarded villains run at you whilst spouting acid blood, the designers included "infected" humans. I'm not real clear what they're infected with, but it somehow makes them very aggressive and able to take ten bullets to the chest. You might not have been expecting to fight humans in an Aliens game, but you will - equally mindless ones that charge right at you and fire their little pistols; later, some androids who charge right at you with bigger guns and take even more bullets to the chest. Speaking of, the guns you will bring to the table sound decent, but are extremely underpowered. I'm guessing this is an attempt to get the most mileage out of each encounter with the pitifiul Alien AI, and force more "tense" (annoying) fights. Naturally, you won't get the best guns until later in the levels, but it does seem odd that the Marines send Ripley into the first level alone to "clear the way," with nothing more than a Colt .45.

Ultimately, your real enemy is going to be the buttery controls that have you sliding past foes in an endless game of you trying to get some distance to shoot, while they try to close that distance and tear off your face. I suppose from a distance, the fights would look like medieval jousts. I appreciate that no attempt was made to change the mythos for the sake of making the game more "interesting" - Aliens is interesting enough as it is. But by removing the Aliens' close range prowess, their sneak attacks, their craftiness, and instead just giving them a hefty set of armour and the desire to charge straight on, the designers have changed the mythos. You've got enviornments that, with the technology of the period, do an excellent job of making you feel like you're in one of the Alien films. You've got Aliens who do not. So you're left with some decent-looking levels, which still pale in comparison to more current Aliens vs Predator titles - and those have better gameplay to boot. Not a requirement in the least for Alien or FPS fans.

-reviewed 5/16/06 - game copyright 1996 Acclaim

Nice recreation of the atmosphere of the films.

The enemies that populate those levels are hardly worthy of a game.

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	46%

Alien Trilogy on MobyGames
Gameplay video on YouTube (Playstation)
Intro video on YouTube (MoCap showcase)