Alien Trilogy
Sega Saturn
Being a Sega Saturn owner wasn't easy. I had a certain sense of brand loyalty to Sega after being a proud Genesis owner in my early years, but I could tell that the system was floundering as the PlayStation flourished and grew in popularity. The PlayStation had a bigger library of games. The PlayStation had the better looking games. No one else I knew had a Saturn - everyone else had a PlayStation. While I eventually did end up buying both a PlayStation and a Nintendo 64 in addition to my Saturn, once again I had chosen to back the wrong side in the console war.
One genre of game that the Saturn was sorely lacking in was the first person shooter genre. You could play Doom, Quake, Dark Forces, Turok, Duke Nukem, and a countless number of similar titles for the other consoles. The Saturn didn't have a whole lot to offer. One game that the Saturn did offer was Alien Trilogy, a first person shooter based off of the popular movie series. Never mind that the PlayStation was also going to carry the game. Never mind that the PlayStation version was probably going to look and handle better. I loved the Alien movies and the second I saw the previews for this title, I thought it looked amazing.
Due to how quickly I would usually beat each game I played, I tended to rent games rather than buy them. I probably would have just ended up renting Alien Trilogy, but the Blockbuster by my house didn't carry this title for the Saturn for some reason. I had been wanting to own a first person shooter for quite some time, so I did the logical thing and decided to go out and buy the game.
While purchasing a Saturn instead of a PlayStation or Nintendo 64 may have been a poor choice, purchasing this game was not. Right off the bat, I knew that Alien Trilogy was going to be something special. The 20th Century Fox logo came up, complete with music and sound effects. And it was followed by - oh my god - an animated cutscene. Remember, this was 1996 and I owned a Sega Saturn. I hadn't seen or experienced anything like this before. While I had played around with a handful of other games like Panzer Dragoon, Solar Eclipse, Virtua Fighter, and Bug!, I felt that my official welcome to the next generation of gaming came at the hands of Alien Trilogy.
The actual game started up, and right off the bat I was immersed.
Game play was pretty standard fair. It's a first person shooter, so this means that you see what the character you are playing as sees. The only part of your character you see is your hands, and the gun that your hands are holding. Playing as Ellen Ripley from the movies, you go through each level, blasting aliens, completing mission objectives (which mainly consist of destroying boxes, killing aliens, blowing up eggs, or finding ID tags to identify missing colonists) and trying not to get wrecked by these bitch ass aliens.
The graphics may not look like much by today's standards. The levels are very dark and uniform in their aesthetic design. Alien movement is choppy, their character models very pixelated when you get up close and personal with them. But again - remember that this was 1996 and I hadn't played anything more advanced than a Sega Saturn. I thought it looked fantastic.
While the graphics may not be impressive by today's standards, there is no denying that the atmosphere of the game still holds up. The music is terrific. It's a little bit a techno, a little bit horror movie. The sound effects are terrific. The beep of your radar, the explosions, the alien grunts, the shouts of "kill me" coming from imprisoned colonists. But most impressive is the sound of weapon fire. In particular, the sounds your pulse rifle makes. The effect is lifted straight from the movies, and really adds a level of authenticity to the game that puts it over the top.
The levels are very dark and can tend to look the same to the untrained eye. But I really like the level design here. The levels are large, and the missions really help keep things interesting for the players. This isn't just about grabbing a yellow key, a blue key, and a red key and making it to the end of the level. You have missions to complete, and if you don't complete this missions before heading to the level exit - the game makes you play the level over again.
Each level is loaded with secrets, and I was impressed at how interactive things were in the game. You don't just flick switches here. You can shoot glass and have it shatter and fall to the floor. Blow open lockers looking for special items. Go up and down stairs and elevators. You can even run around in water. Again - nothing revolutionary by today's standards, but for this game's day and age where most shooters just had you running around flat stages looking for keys - this was a big deal.
As I mentioned earlier, the aliens' movements tend to be a little jerky, plus they appear to be quite pixelated when you get up close to them. But at least there is a variety of aliens in the game to make things a little interesting. You have face huggers, who are weak but fast who scurry along the floor. When they attack you, they jump up on your face and block your entire field of vision, causing severe damage at the same time. You have your typical black alien model. These tend to be the most populous creatures in the game. Big ugly orange aliens, dog model aliens, and of course - what kind of game would this be where you didn't fight a queen (or two or three) along the way? Not only are the aliens dangerous while living, they are dangerous while dead too. Remember, these aliens bleed acid, so if you step over an alien corpse after you kill it, you incur 1 or 2 hit points of damage to your character. It is a fun little touch.
For good measure, and in an attempt to stay true to the source material - the game also throws many non alien enemies in your direction. Expect to battle more than your fair share of androids, insane security guards, and corrupt Weyland employees along the way. I like that you fight humans in addition to alien characters - I think it adds some variety to the game play and keeps things fresher than they would be if you just battled the same several models of aliens the whole way through.
There are three major sections in the game: the colony, the prison, and the crashed alien ship. Each section is about 10 stages long, and concludes with a battle against an alien queen. The story is pretty secondary to the action going on. Even when I find myself trying to pay attention to it, it seems like kind of a mess that is only very loosely based on the action of the movies that the game is named after.
This isn't a long game, nor is it particularly difficult. In fact I did not die once, or even come close to dying until the last 4 or 5 stages in the game. I think it took me a total of 3 or 4 nights to beat, and that is playing no more than a couple hours a night. I don't remember this game being so short as a kid. Maybe that's because back then it was new to me and I didn't know what to do or where to go. But playing it as an adult - the game is cake.
The game doesn't have too many what I would consider "real" flaws. I mentioned the length and difficulty of the game. I mentioned the dark stages and pixelated characters. But these are minor gripes, really. I guess my main complaint would be the targeting system. I found it very, very difficult to hit aliens at times. Especially those black ones. This would result in a lot of wasted shots, and later in the game I found myself hurting for ammo at times. I never did fully run out of ammo, so again this seems like a minor gripe on my part. The controls feel a little stiff as well. Its hard to play this game using an old d-pad controller, but as far as I know analog sticks came along after the Saturn first came out, so I can forgive it for that.
What it all boils down to is that I really like the game. I have played more than my fair share of first person shooters in my day, but there is something refreshing to me about this game's simplicity. I like it more than games that are more advanced than it (Turok, Halo, Duke Nukem) and I like it more than games that are less advanced than it (Doom, Wolfenstein, etc). It is like the perfect balance between old and new school first person shooters.
Not only is it a fun game with a fun theme based off of a fun series, but it also carries a lot of sentimental weight for me. It was the first FPS I ever owned, and to this day it still stands as one of my favorites.
Overall: B+
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