Aliens Infestation.
The Alien franchise has always had bad luck when translating into video games. I have no idea why, it's got all the elements of an incredible action shooter or a suspenseful horror and yet they always manage to miss out on the opportunity to make something spectacular. I'd imagine part of it is simply that so many existing video games already borrow so much from the series that producing something original may be tough. Or perhaps it just suffers the same fate most games do when the property is owned by a film distributor who will always have some say in the final product.
One of the Alien games I recently tried had really showed up under-the-radar for me on the Nintendo DS handheld. Aliens Infestation was lent to me by a friend at work who recommended it; I was a tad weary since it looks like a real oddball one-off but it turned out to be considerably better than most Alien games that have been released in the past decade or so.
Infestation takes place just after the events of James Cameron's Aliens movie. Similar to the concept for Aliens: Colonial Marines, a group of Marines arrive on the
abandoned Sulaco to discover the mess leftover after the mess on LV-426 colony below. In this case, the game takes place back and forth between the colony and the Sulaco in a 'metroidvania' style of side-scrolling gameplay where new access to weapons and tools and keycards gain you access to new areas of the ship. The map is a good size and offers quite a bit of exploration, rewarding you in not only the advance in storyline but also weapon upgrades, health pack and additional marines. This is important as the game doesn't offer multiple lives for your player character; instead you start out with an initial squad that includes 4 members. You can switch between them at save points along with your weapon loadout (You can choose as you find them between the pulse rifle, shotgun, flamethrower and smartgun.) and if you die, that marine is gone for good. So essentially you have four lives. As you make your way through the game however you discover new marines who have been separated from their squad and if you have an extra slot, they will join you. Otherwise you can return to them if you remember where they are on the map.
The nice part about this is simply that there are 19 different marines, each with their own personality and a great comic-book style design by comic artist Chris Bachalo of X-Men fame. The designs themselves are at least half the reason why I enjoyed this game so much. They're perfectly gritty and contain a half-decent balance of both male and female characters. It seems to me as well that during the text-cutscene portions of the game each marine has different written reponses, which is really respectable and makes me curious to play this game through multiple times. Which is easy since it really is a quick game to go though, taking only about 5 hours or so front-to-back. Which is find in the end since it's a portable title that doesn't command a huge price.
Aliens Infestation is easily one of those games I would have completely missed out on had I not been so lucky as to have it recommended. It's solid, with decent controls and some great artwork. This is one of the few Alien games that I'd really love to see a sequel to, especially if it can be put together by the same development team. If you have a DS or 3DS, this is easy to find dirt-cheap. If you're even half and Aliens fan, pick it up. You'll get to enjoy this if you beat it:
The Alien franchise has always had bad luck when translating into video games. I have no idea why, it's got all the elements of an incredible action shooter or a suspenseful horror and yet they always manage to miss out on the opportunity to make something spectacular. I'd imagine part of it is simply that so many existing video games already borrow so much from the series that producing something original may be tough. Or perhaps it just suffers the same fate most games do when the property is owned by a film distributor who will always have some say in the final product. One of the Alien games I recently tried had really showed up under-the-radar for me on the Nintendo DS handheld. Aliens Infestation was lent to me by a friend at work who recommended it; I was a tad weary since it looks like a real oddball one-off but it turned out to be considerably better than most Alien games that have been released in the past decade or so.
Infestation takes place just after the events of James Cameron's Aliens movie. Similar to the concept for Aliens: Colonial Marines, a group of Marines arrive on the
The nice part about this is simply that there are 19 different marines, each with their own personality and a great comic-book style design by comic artist Chris Bachalo of X-Men fame. The designs themselves are at least half the reason why I enjoyed this game so much. They're perfectly gritty and contain a half-decent balance of both male and female characters. It seems to me as well that during the text-cutscene portions of the game each marine has different written reponses, which is really respectable and makes me curious to play this game through multiple times. Which is easy since it really is a quick game to go though, taking only about 5 hours or so front-to-back. Which is find in the end since it's a portable title that doesn't command a huge price.Aliens Infestation is easily one of those games I would have completely missed out on had I not been so lucky as to have it recommended. It's solid, with decent controls and some great artwork. This is one of the few Alien games that I'd really love to see a sequel to, especially if it can be put together by the same development team. If you have a DS or 3DS, this is easy to find dirt-cheap. If you're even half and Aliens fan, pick it up. You'll get to enjoy this if you beat it:
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