Alien³

The Good
It's not an adaptation of the Alien 3 game released for other consoles, but a whole new game.

The engine is one of the best that appeared on the Super Nintendo. Graphics are great. Sound and music are great. It has a mission-based system with different kind of goals. There is a good assortment of enemies and weapons.

Best of all, unlike other Alien 3 games, this one has no time limit. For this thing alone, this game should be considered the best adaptation, but...

The Bad
Gameplay is horrible. Facehuggers and chestburster can only be killed by crawling when firing. Because monsters are randomly generated, the only way not to keep getting hurt is to crawl all the time. Who wants to play an entire game on his knees? Not me.

Sometimes the game goes crazy and you face wave after wave of monsters. No matter how much you defend yourself, they inflict a great deal of damage or just kill you. It's very frustrating.

This forces you to backtrack, over and over again, to the medic bay and the weapons room for health and ammo. On the first half of the game, this is not a problem, but on the second half, both places are hard to reach.

The Bottom Line
Playing this game starts as a troublesome experience and ends up being a torture. If it wasn't an Alien 3 game, I would not have finished it.

The Good
The game, despite what film in the series it is based on, is highly action-packed. Ripley as a video game character is in top form with her combination pulse rifle/flamethrower and grenades, blasting every stage of alien growth in sight. The game allows for a few breathers in pacing, but gives more than its fair share of close-quarter fire fights. For anyone who has wanted to blast apart countless aliens, this game is ideal.

Graphic and sounds are not a disappointment. The music is tense, fast-paced or dark and somber, which is appropriate for the wide expanses of the prison planet that Ripley must travel through. There is almost a "Super Metroid" feel to the environment, and the location choices are diverse and beautiful. Some of the outside areas were particularly impressive. Ripley herself animates well, as do the aliens exploding into goo and the firepower looking really nice.

The game also controls well, which is important for a game like this. Ripley has to climb, crawl, swing, shoot and run through numerous obstacles and enemies, and for the variety of missions (repair, blockades, rescue, hunting), this is necessary, and welcome that the game works as well as it does. The game is not all mindless shooting. Certain things must be done in order to progress to the next area.

The Bad
The game does suffer a little repetition in missions from time to time. While the game tries to keep things diverse, some of the missions seem a bit similar in content and overall feel.

The game completely excludes the source material of which it is based on. For the gameplay, this is likely for the best, but there's no opportunity for scenarios such as dog aliens, violent prisoners to contend with, losing impregnated prisioners to alien chestbursters, or even a race against time, as Ripley learns the truth about what has happened to her during her time in cryosleep. That point is referenced in the end, but it's presented as an "Oh, by the way" sort of moment. The only clues you get that you are playing a game based on the third movie are the opening and ending cut scenes.

The Bottom Line
"Alien 3" as a film would be exceedingly difficult to put together as a game. It lacked the cramped spaces of "Alien", and it lacked the countless xenomorphs of "Aliens", so the developers wisely chucked away the concept of "Alien 3" and gave it a style of gameplay, more befitting to the second film. Despite what movie in the series this game is based on, this is "Aliens". Pure and simple.

Fans of the series will notice that it bases the overall plot on the third movie. The levels look like locales from the penal colony, and even Ripley sports her shaved head. But that's where the similarities end.

As a Super Nintendo game, it's great action-adventure platformer, and one of Acclaim's better games. What is interesting/amusing about this title is that shortly after this games release, Acclaim began pumping out game after game based on this exact same engine and style of gameplay ("Judge Dredd" and "Stargate" come to mind). None of the following games were able to compare to or surpass the level of quality of this title.

A lot of "Alien 3" games were released at the time of the movie. This, however, was the best and most unique of the lot. "Alien" fans seeking a good xenomorph blaster or anyone seeking a good adventure game should not be disappointed with this title.

Recommended.

The Good
It's actually a lot of fun. The prison colony looks and feels how it's supposed to, taken from scenes in the movie, although with a lot of air vent passageways and strange platform design. There is a feeling of dimness and darkness around several areas...

Ripley's weapons of Flamethrower/Machine-gun and grenades are surprisingly effective against all sorts of aliens, and yet still limited (making the gameplay a joy). The missions are varied... at least at first and range from repair to explosives to alien carnage and egg hunting. There are several types of unique Alien breeds (including queens) each with their own attack, around 7 altogether.

The Bad
First of all there's the obvious fact that this is a pretty bad licensed title. Quite simply, in Alien3... Ripley had to contend with a SINGLE (that means ONE) alien in an unarmed prison colony. Yet somehow here we have a game where you end up using the combination Flamethrower/Machine-gun weapon from Aliens (the previous movie). How did that happen?

There's also a lot of repetition, especially in the later levels. The reason is this: many of your missions require you to go to a specific area or to pickup and object from a specific area and deliver it someplace else. The thing is that first there are only so many areas, and second, you have to cross areas to get to other areas due to the game's map. What this means is that you might see the Medical Bay 3 level MANY MANY MANY times if it's associated or on the way to mission objectives. And since the Aliens respawn in roughly the same places, you'll be encountering very similar action in these areas.

Also aside from Ripley and the mission computer, there are no other characters in this game. so it does get lonely.

The Bottom Line
it's a fairly enjoyable platforrmer, despite the flaws from it's movie parent... flaws that are also apparent in most other movie-to-videogame licensed titles.