Article 39782 of rec.games.video: Path: uwm.edu!biosci!agate!doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!dcl-cs!marc From: marc@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Marc Goldman) Newsgroups: rec.games.video Subject: [Genesis] Alien 3 review. Message-ID: <1992Oct6.174112.14191@comp.lancs.ac.uk> Date: 6 Oct 92 17:41:12 GMT Organization: Department of Computing at Lancaster University, UK. Lines: 142 Got a couple of new carts recently and as i have nothing better to do right now i'll review them, we'll start with the good...... Alien 3 - Sega Genesis One player No password or level select # of levels: 18 + boss levels (not stated but i'm sure thats what i read in pre-release hype and magazine reviews) Up to 9 continues 3 difficulty settings. Well if you thought the film had plot holes you should see the game conversion, the secenario is similar but similarities with the film soon end. You wondered how a single face hugger got onto the Sulaco in the film, well how on earth did hundreds of aliens follow Ripley to Fiorina 161 in the game ???? Okay so probe has taken film concept and messed around with it, and while this failed for thier Terminator conversion it works well with Alien 3, just how can you make a good arcade game with only one alien in it and no weapons was the question, the answer was you can't. So what do you get? A whole bunch of hungry aliens and lots of fire power! The story so far..... Ripley and co have crash landed on Fiorina 161, she is the only survivor. Unfortunately the aliens have followed her there and have overun the prison complex there, cocooning all the prisioners and building thier numbers for an attack on earth. Ripleys job is to free all the prisoners and kill as many aliens as possible to stem the invasion. The game.... The prison is a subterrainian complex and is made up of many rooms, claustraphobic shafts and tunnelsand is essentially one big maze. It is presented side on and the screen scrolls in all directions to keep up with the gameplay. To help Ripley she has a whole arsnel of weaponry each with varying attributes and each more appropriate at a certian time, for example the grenades are often useful for thorwing down ventilator shafts to remove any unwanted aliens. The available weapons are: machine gun, flame thrower, grenades and grenade launcher. Each has an ammo supply which dwindles rapidly although more can be found around the complex. Weapons can be fired up and down ladders but not horizontally off them, which can be annoying when you see an alien that you know is going to drop on your head but you cant have a blast at him before he does so. Another useful item is the motion sensor as this shows locations of Prisoners and aliens in close proximity. Unfortunately this obviously doesnt show still aliens so you can still bump into them quite easily. It is also battery powered, and boy does it eat them, so more often than not you dont have a montion sensor! The best policy is to always assume there is an alien there! (because there usually is!) Searching out the prisoners is not the only problem as there are plenty of aliens around to make life difficult, there are a few kinds of aliens including face huggers which spring from eggs, most move extremely quickly and some even spit acid. If that didnt make it hard enough then the time limit wont help as you only have a limited amout of time before the little critters start bursting from the prisoners chests. (although how rescuing them saves them from the chest busters i dont know) The levels come in 3 types, mission: search out prisoners whilst wasting as many aliens as possible, mayhem: kill as many aliens as possible before time expires and rescue: forget the aliens just get the prisoners as time is really tight. Essentially the types of level are pretty similar, and each level tends to be pretty big after the early ones. Quite often you'll find a much quicker route after you've died horribly going the long way round a number of times. There are also bosses which appear at intervals throughout the game, so far i have seen one between levels 3 and 4, at least they dont count the boss as a lvel like they do in some games. You have one life, but you do have an energy bar which decreases as you sustain damage. Further attempts are allowed up to a maximum of nine which can be chosen at the option screen. The game has no level select or passwords which will make the game take some time to finnish as there seem are a lot of levels and a lot to do. The lack of any way to select levels may become annoying due to the playing time involved, a cheat would be handy. The graphics in the game are very good, the prison complex is impressively dark and forboding, ripleys sprite looks good despite how bad the shaved head looked in screenshots and moves about smoothly. And the Aliens are very nicely defined, particularly the doglike ones. Some of the background graphics are pretty gruesome and lots of things tend to drip blood. All this is nicely scrolled around with a couple of layers of parralax too. Soundwise things are also impressive, the guns and explosions have some nice meaty effects. It's quite satisfying to see and hear an alien explode and the sound of an egg opening is almost spot on. The tunes whilst good are not in the same league with a couple of the latter ones, whilst being good, not really matching the dark mood of the game. Obviously the sound and graphics arent everything and fortunately the gameplay lives up to them, the controls are are responsive although sometimes you can find yourself using the wrong weapon which can often prove fatal! The aliens vary from the most stupid sit there and shoot me to intelligent enough to cope with doors, and they pose a big enough threat to make killing them satisfying, add that to the tension the time limit creates when you only have one prisoner left to find and time is running out, make the game very satisfying. Overall i'm very impressed, this is one of the better new releases, the lack of level select and similarity between the levels could put some people off but the amount of on screen action more than makes up for it for me. The game reminds me a little of the arcade game 'Aliens' without the 3d shootem up bits, except it's looks and plays better! So a big thumbs up for Alien 3, not an accurate film conversion but a well used licence. Oh i perhaps ought to mention that i played on the normal setting and found the game very challenging which makes a change. There is of course a hard setting for those of you who never want to finnish this game! And if you thought i'm just going to praise games then read my next review...... Cheers Marc -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ** ** * ****** *** * | On the net, ** * ** *** ** ** * * | no-one can hear you scream! ** * ** *** **** ** * * |------------------------------------- ** * ** *** ** ** * * | email marc@comp.lancs.ac.uk ** * ****** * ****** ** ** | marc@computing.lancaster.ac.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Article 39789 of rec.games.video: Path: uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!agate!stanford.edu!rutgers!ub!acsu.buffalo.edu!ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu!v062nm65 From: v062nm65@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (ARCHANGEL) Newsgroups: rec.games.video Subject: Alien^3 Message-ID: Date: 6 Oct 92 18:54:00 GMT Sender: nntp@acsu.buffalo.edu Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 44 News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41 Nntp-Posting-Host: ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu I just picked this one up after returning Cadash (too easy once you get to higher levels...) at the reccomendation of the salesguy at Electronics Boutique, and was wondering what people who had played it thought of it. My opinions follow... This is one of the "kill everything" games that I really like. The gameplay is smooth and consistent, the graphics are well done (especially the backgrounds at later levels...) and so far, it's provided a decent challenge. It involves a fair amount of strategy, as you have to decide the best path to rescue hostages and get past the Aliens. Also, you have to decide on which weapon (there are four) would be best used in the situation. Power-ups are scattered throughout the game just enough to keep you going, but not enough to make the game too easy... The weapons are: Pulse Rifle (can be used while moving) Flame Thrower Grenade Launcher (the most powerful of your weapons) Hand Grenades (good for tunnels and as a last resort) Overall, the graphics are very good, and they don't cover up inferior gameplay. Sound/music is great, although after a while, it gets a bit annoying. Gameplay, of course, is very good. THis cart offers a decent challenge. After a couple of days of tinkering around on the easy level, I still haven't finished it, and it offers 2 other levels of difficulty. All in all, a very good game. these of course, are my opinions. yours are welcome. Chris