Aliens is a 1990 side-scrolling shooting game developed and published by Konami for arcades. It is based on the 1986 film of the same name. It never received a console port and remains as an arcade exclusive to this day.
Plot
The multinational conglomerate Weyland-Yutani Corporation has lost contact with its mining colony, Hadley's Hope, in LV426 Acheron. In response, the Colonial Marine troops of the USS Sulaco decide to send their team to investigate. The marines soon find out that the place is infested by an unknown parasitic life form and that the Hadley's Hope crew was either exterminated or used as hosts to breed their offspring.
The game is a retelling of the events that take place in film; as such, it follows a similar main plot, although it makes a few minor alterations to the story in order to accommodate it to game format.
Gameplay
Players take the role of either Lieutenant Ellen Ripley or Corporal Dwayne Hicks in their investigative search throughout the remains of the space colony while fending off against a myriad of xenomorphs of all kinds and life cycle states. The game is at heart a side-scrolling shooter, although unlike most games in this genre, the character sprites are considerably large and the playfield is mainly set in a 2.5D perspective, allowing up and down movement, sharing as a result many similarities to games in the beat 'em up genre. An innovation this game introduces to the genre is the ability to crouch, which is helpful for killing short height creatures and is a stance adopted by default while traveling through ventilation shafts.
The player character makes use of the M56 Smartgun as their default weapon to fight against the aliens, but can also pick up different power-ups that come in the form of missile launchers, flamethrowers, and laser-improved weapons. In addition, players can throw bombs for crowd control by pressing both buttons simultaneously. Furthermore, in some levels they can find and make use of the franchise's iconic Power Loader, a one-time power-up that switches their ranged weapon combat capabilities to a strictly melee mode, but which in turn greatly enhances their offensive output, allowing them to make short work of the aliens, killing most of them in a single hit.
The game counts with a wide assortment of minibosses and bosses which are fought in the normal 2.5D perspective. Adding variety to the main gameplay mechanics, at the end of some levels the player must fight an alien boss which attacks from the background, in a sort of vertical shooter. After defeating each of these particular bosses, the player enters a driving section where they hop atop an armored car and must shoot incoming aliens while it travels at full speed.
The game has six levels, with some of them being based on the film. Newt makes a few cameos in some of these levels, where she can be either seen escaping from the aliens, being abducted by them, or finally being rescued by the player. Her appearances are just aesthetic, though, and the player cannot interact with her or directly defend her in any way.
The final boss of the game is the Alien Queen, which is a stowaway in the Sulaco after surviving a previous encounter against the player. Once she is defeated and after the credits finish rolling, the game continues on to its next loop.
Regional differences
Gallery
Trivia
- Ellen Ripley, who had dark brown (almost brunette) hair in the films, is portrayed with short blond hair in the game. American promotional images and arcade game flyers show a different actress (not Sigourney Weaver) with long blond hair who also looks very different from the original character.