A Review: Alien Trilogy, DOS 1996
Alien Trilogy is one of the first ever FPS games to have been developed and released for the home gaming market. Featuring the story from the Alien film trilogy, this game puts the player in the role of Ellen Ripley as she tries to survive and fight back against an infestation of hyper-aggressive aliens, known as Xenomorphs. Complete with voice lines from the film when you kill enemy creatures, this game is also the first title ever to use 3D motion-capturing technology for the Aliens in-game models. The sound effects and noises are also sampled directly from the film soundtracks. It was noted during an interview with the game development team that they did everything that they possibly could to keep this game as faithful as possible to the film's plot and settings.
I played this game after reading some of the reviews from the time, and some of them were absolutely scathing too. Yet I'm not so sure that the heat was really warranted. For me, this is one of those games that fell victim to the hype train. The developer and publisher spent a lot of money on the marketing for Alien Trilogy. Highlighting its new and exciting features, but I think that ultimately, this had the reverse effect. Without a beefy computer at the time, all those extras and buzzword features meant nothing. To that end, I felt that this game was oversold and that people had come to expect so much more than they actually got. Did I have fun, though? Sure, I did, but I also didn't give a rat's ass about the motion capture or sampled sounds and voices. I just enjoyed this for what it was—an Alien film trilogy that you could play. Something that immediately bothered me with this game, however, was that my character couldn't jump! It's wonderful that the game came with motion-captured whatever, but I can't have something as simple as a jump mechanic?! It was so annoying and frustrating to have to go all the way to the start of a thin walkway section, all because there was no jump feature. Great that you have a gimmick; all the power to you, but can I not have had a basic gameplay mechanic instead? Otherwise, though, the game wasn't all that bad. I liked the constant action, and more than once, the tension and suspense gave me a jump scare when a Facehugger got one up on me. The weapons selection was pretty diverse, and it was cool that you could use the same weapons as the ones in the films. Level design and layouts worked well, and they weren't too complex or too simple, giving the player a gentle push in the right direction but also allowing the player to search for pickups and items. The boss battles were fun and challenging; I liked those. I found that the lack of a precise aiming mechanic hurt the gameplay a little though, as sometimes the auto aim was a little dense and this made the combat feel clunky.
Visually, I felt that this game was a little bit 'meh' overall. Yes, the various locations and settings looked good and were pretty faithful recreations of the film sets, but they were also a little basic at times. A lot of the various sections looked like a lot of copying and pasting was used. There was little individuality to the various corridor panels, and I didn't like that. I did like the animations, and the breaking glass with weapons fire was pretty cool, but it got old quick. The aliens and other creatures looked pretty good, but I will admit that the actual aliens sometimes looked goofy and out of place when walking. They looked like images added over the top of the rest of the game, rather than actual parts of it. Whereas the Facehugger's looked better for some reason that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I did find that the interface and HUD were a little too cluttered, but I thought that the minimap was a great recreation of the film's motion tracker. Though I thought that it was pretty useless in-game as a mechanic. Blood and fluids were well done, I'll admit that about this game, with some nicely rendered pits and pools.
Overall, this game fell short of the hype and wasn't all that great; it was fun, don't get me wrong, and I enjoyed playing through it. Just that it was one of those titles that, once complete, held little to no more value for me. I also felt that this game was one of the earliest examples of a title being overhyped.
6/10 – Good Fun!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
I played this game after reading some of the reviews from the time, and some of them were absolutely scathing too. Yet I'm not so sure that the heat was really warranted. For me, this is one of those games that fell victim to the hype train. The developer and publisher spent a lot of money on the marketing for Alien Trilogy. Highlighting its new and exciting features, but I think that ultimately, this had the reverse effect. Without a beefy computer at the time, all those extras and buzzword features meant nothing. To that end, I felt that this game was oversold and that people had come to expect so much more than they actually got. Did I have fun, though? Sure, I did, but I also didn't give a rat's ass about the motion capture or sampled sounds and voices. I just enjoyed this for what it was—an Alien film trilogy that you could play. Something that immediately bothered me with this game, however, was that my character couldn't jump! It's wonderful that the game came with motion-captured whatever, but I can't have something as simple as a jump mechanic?! It was so annoying and frustrating to have to go all the way to the start of a thin walkway section, all because there was no jump feature. Great that you have a gimmick; all the power to you, but can I not have had a basic gameplay mechanic instead? Otherwise, though, the game wasn't all that bad. I liked the constant action, and more than once, the tension and suspense gave me a jump scare when a Facehugger got one up on me. The weapons selection was pretty diverse, and it was cool that you could use the same weapons as the ones in the films. Level design and layouts worked well, and they weren't too complex or too simple, giving the player a gentle push in the right direction but also allowing the player to search for pickups and items. The boss battles were fun and challenging; I liked those. I found that the lack of a precise aiming mechanic hurt the gameplay a little though, as sometimes the auto aim was a little dense and this made the combat feel clunky.
Visually, I felt that this game was a little bit 'meh' overall. Yes, the various locations and settings looked good and were pretty faithful recreations of the film sets, but they were also a little basic at times. A lot of the various sections looked like a lot of copying and pasting was used. There was little individuality to the various corridor panels, and I didn't like that. I did like the animations, and the breaking glass with weapons fire was pretty cool, but it got old quick. The aliens and other creatures looked pretty good, but I will admit that the actual aliens sometimes looked goofy and out of place when walking. They looked like images added over the top of the rest of the game, rather than actual parts of it. Whereas the Facehugger's looked better for some reason that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I did find that the interface and HUD were a little too cluttered, but I thought that the minimap was a great recreation of the film's motion tracker. Though I thought that it was pretty useless in-game as a mechanic. Blood and fluids were well done, I'll admit that about this game, with some nicely rendered pits and pools.
Overall, this game fell short of the hype and wasn't all that great; it was fun, don't get me wrong, and I enjoyed playing through it. Just that it was one of those titles that, once complete, held little to no more value for me. I also felt that this game was one of the earliest examples of a title being overhyped.
6/10 – Good Fun!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
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