DAY 71 / GAME 71
Alien Trilogy
Back when my brother and I used to rent a PS1 for the weekend and a game or two, one of the games we gave a go a few times was Alien Trilogy. I had pretty much grown up on the Alien films since I first saw Aliens when I was about 8 or 9. (Geeze that seems young.) So this was a sure fire pick for me. Eventually I got a copy for Sega Saturn when I had finally owned one and played it pretty much all the way through, although I think it was with help from some cheat codes..
It's a little oddball that they decided to make the story of Alien Trilogy the way they did. They start the game out with a with a rough approximation of the Aliens script, then somehow mix parts of the Alien 3 story into the second act of the game; on the same planet. Then spend the last act of the game inside the derelict spacecraft from the first movie. It's only occurs to me as odd now that I go back and think about it. At the time it really didn't matter. All that mattered was that it played well, it was dark, and that it featured locations, tech, major plot points and characters from the movies.
It featured an interesting soundtrack that didn't seem to pull from the movies at all. And yet, it worked really well. It had the air of a '90s sci-fi video game, but was eerie enough to suit the mood. That mood being frightening as hell. This was one of the scarier games I had played at the time. Though, most of it wasn't intentional. (Very) limited draw distance meant that there were no long hallways or open areas where you could feel safe. Everything was very dark and aliens would come quickly out of the darkness to eat your face. Hell, I'm writing about this now, listening to the soundtrack alone at midnight and I'm getting the willies remembering how creepy it was to play this game.
It was actually quite well put together considering at the time FPS game were still just finding their footing properly. Most of them being real Doom clones, but some were trying new inventive stuff. It was actually a while before another Alien FPS game was released. This was '96 and Alien vs Predator didn't come out for another 4 years. I remember people working on Quake mods, trying to make an Alien game that eventually got shut down by Fox. Not that I didn't enjoy Alien Trilogy, but I was definitely wanting more.
I'm not sure if this is necessarily my favorite Alien franchise game, but it certainly ranks up there. They have a surprisingly hard time making good games out of what you would think would be a cornucopia of sci-fi action content. I'm super stoked about the new Alien: Isolation game, but even then, it's going to be more of a survival horror along the lines of Amnesia instead of an action horror like Dead Space or Metro 2033. So in the meantime, I'll just load this one back up in the Saturn and give it a spin.
Alien Trilogy
Back when my brother and I used to rent a PS1 for the weekend and a game or two, one of the games we gave a go a few times was Alien Trilogy. I had pretty much grown up on the Alien films since I first saw Aliens when I was about 8 or 9. (Geeze that seems young.) So this was a sure fire pick for me. Eventually I got a copy for Sega Saturn when I had finally owned one and played it pretty much all the way through, although I think it was with help from some cheat codes..It's a little oddball that they decided to make the story of Alien Trilogy the way they did. They start the game out with a with a rough approximation of the Aliens script, then somehow mix parts of the Alien 3 story into the second act of the game; on the same planet. Then spend the last act of the game inside the derelict spacecraft from the first movie. It's only occurs to me as odd now that I go back and think about it. At the time it really didn't matter. All that mattered was that it played well, it was dark, and that it featured locations, tech, major plot points and characters from the movies.
I'm not sure if this is necessarily my favorite Alien franchise game, but it certainly ranks up there. They have a surprisingly hard time making good games out of what you would think would be a cornucopia of sci-fi action content. I'm super stoked about the new Alien: Isolation game, but even then, it's going to be more of a survival horror along the lines of Amnesia instead of an action horror like Dead Space or Metro 2033. So in the meantime, I'll just load this one back up in the Saturn and give it a spin.
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