Alien³

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.

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
This is the SNES port of Alien3, and the game's story is consistent to that of the movie. Lt. Ellen Ripley is asleep in the cryogenic chamber on board her spaceship, known as the “Sulaco”. A fire breaks out in the chamber, and Ripley is automatically placed into an E.E.V. (Emergency Escape Vehicle) and jettisoned into space. Later, the E.E.V. Lands on Florina “Fury” 161, a planet that houses a maximum security prison, which happens to be overrun by aliens.

The SNES version of Alien3 is very different to it counterparts. You see, there are six stages, which consist of 6-8 missions each, and you do a lot more than releasing prisoners who are chained up. You also repair broken pipes, fuse boxes, and junction boxes; restore power to different areas; seal off areas; and destroy alien eggs and mother aliens. Each stage takes place in one of the six huge areas of the prison, and you have to enter doors, which means that you have to walk around the prison's corridors a lot and climb through air ducts to get from one corridor to the next. There are blueprints to help you get to where you need to go. These blueprints are a great help, because they can save you time since you know exactly where to go instead of just wasting a lot of time trying to find the room. A lot of the rooms require you to walk through other rooms. Even when a mission doesn't require you to do so, you can still search for irregularities while heading to your destination.

Once you have accomplished your mission, you hear a beeping noise, telling you to return to your terminal so that you can receive your next mission. Making the missions difficult are different species of aliens, which include face huggers, chest busters, warriors, bambi busters, and queens. Some of these aliens crawl on both the ceiling and floors. The best-looking alien is the queen, which is less harmful than others as she constantly jumps around all over the place. You have a variety of weapons that you can use to destroy them, including pulse rifles, grenade launchers, and flamethrowers. Some of these weapons are much efficient in getting rid of the tougher aliens. I think that nothing beats the trusty flamethrower, as it can destroy a group of aliens in one shot. Even if you manage to destroy every alien on screen, more and more aliens appear, and you will eventually find out that it is best just to jump over them.

The graphics consist of static and moving backdrops, which look amazing. They are also consistent with the room's name. For instance, the backdrops used for cell blocks consist of cells that are right next to each other, and on different levels. The waste areas consist of just that, waste, with acid rain falling from the sky. The surface areas has a huge sun and its moon next to it. The furnace areas consists of huge pots of lava that are about to be poured onto objects. These backdrops help you determine whether you are at the right place, providing that you know what they look like.

The game's high-quality music can be heard during the game, and it changes after each mission. What music will be played depend on what your current mission objective is. I enjoyed listening to some tunes, especially when you destroy eggs and repair junction boxes. The sound effects are quite nice. A cool reloading sound is heard whenever you get a new weapon or ammo, Ripley says “Ugh” when she jumps or is injured. I also like the way that the prisoners call for help.

The controls are simple to use. You use the most controls to fire your weapons, and these weapons can shoot diagonally. One button activates the motion tracker, which can be useful for detecting aliens and prisoners above you, behind you, or in front of you. Aliens show up as blue dots, while prisoners show up as red dots. The beeping sound of the tracker is what you not hear in other versions of Alien3.

The Bad
I found it rather difficult to get rid of the floor-based aliens. You have to crawl to deal with these. You can't just hold the down button for one second, but for five seconds. Doing this otherwise will only cause you to shoot diagonally downward. And speaking of shooting, you can fire in all directions. You can shoot up while jumping, but not down. It would have been nice if you did.

The Bottom Line
The SNES version may have the same story as its other counterparts, but the game is totally different, as it is mission-based, and you need to do more than rescue prisoners. Once you have accomplished all missions in one of the six stages, you move on to the next one. Most of these missions require you to do a lot of walking, both in corridors and through air ducts. The missions in each stage are similar to what you may did previously, but most of them are challenging. The missions gets rather difficult with aliens crawling around each area, but you can deal with them using a variety of weapons. With great graphics, as well as an excellent soundtrack, I recommend this version if any one is looking for a copy of Alien3 to play.