Aliens (Square)
| Aliens | |
|---|---|
| Box art | |
| Developer(s) | Square Co. |
| Publisher(s) | Square Co. |
| Platform(s) | MSX computers |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Platform |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Aliens (エイリアン2, Eirian 2) is a video game that was manufactured for MSX computers in 1987. The game is directly based off of the popular 1986 film of the same name. Aliens was developed and published by Square, and is the game company's first and only platformer. The game was only released in Japan.
The game features a single-player mode where the player takes on the role of Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley, the heroine of the Alien films, in her desperate attempt to escape the fictional moon LV-426 (also known as Acheron), which is infested with a colony of Xenomorphs, lethal alien creatures designed to kill.
Gameplay
Aliens is a traditional sidescrolling platformer, where the game's character jumps from platform to platform while combating foes and collecting power-ups, or objects that that benefit or add extra abilities to the game character. In Aliens, the player guides space-voyager Ellen Ripley through moon Acheron. Ripley must battle through various stages and fight the hostile indigenous life-forms there, among them the notorious Facehuggers and fearsome Xenomorphs. To fight the monsters, Ripley has many weapons at her disposal, ranging from the standard shotgun to submachine guns and flamethrowers. Upon death, Ripley loses all allocated items and power-ups.
A status bar running along the top of the playing screen displays the player's number of lives, or continues remaining; the player's incremental life bar, where health is indicated by pink bars and damage indicated by blue; a radar, which detects all enemies; the player's current weapon; and the player's current secondary weapon.
Basic controls
Using a computer keyboard or game controller, the player can command Ripley's basic actions, which consist of walking, jumping, firing her weapon, firing her secondary weapon, and crouching. Crouching allows Ripley to dodge enemy attacks and pick up items. When pressing forward or backward in conjunction with crouching, Ripley can roll to the right or the left, a useful maneuver for avoiding enemy attacks and navigating small tunnels.
To enter a door, Ripley has to stand in front of it for a few seconds.
Enemies
In Aliens, Ripley faces only two types of enemies: Xenomorphs and Facehuggers. However, these enemies vary in type and appearance.
- Facehuggers sometimes hatch from eggs to attack Ripley. Other times, Facehuggers lie in wait to ambush Ripley, and still yet others aggressively charge her. Facehugger eggs can only be destroyed after they've hatched and the Facehugger leaves it. Like Xenomorphs, the blood of Facehuggers is highly acidic; when destroyed, the creature explodes in a shower of potent acid. Facehugger eggs generally leave power-up items behind.
- Chestbursters, the Xenomorph's embryonic form, are snake-like in appearance and extremely fast. Like Facehuggers, they either opt to lie in ambush or charge Ripley on sight. In the later stages, Chestbursters are seen violently bursting out of the chests of captive humans hanging from the walls.
- Xenomorphs are standard adult Xenomorphs. Generally they charge Ripley on sight; some crawl along ceilings and drop down to ambush Ripley, while others pounce at Ripley on all fours. Some Xenomorphs also lie in wait in water, and leap at Ripley when she approaches.
- Queen Xenomorphs are significantly larger than Xenomorph drones, and differ in appearance. Queen Xenomorphs appear at the end of every level, and charge Ripley while shooting their extendable, piston-like tongue at Ripley. The Queen also has a limited jumping ability. Upon death, the Queen explodes in a massive shower of acid. The Queen Xenomorphs in all five stages are essentially the same, except that each progressively has more life.
Weapons
Many of the weapons in Aliens are taken straight from the film. Each time Ripley picks up a gun power-up, it acts as an upgrade, starting with the Twin Pulse and ending with the Wave Laser. If she runs out of ammo with any gun, the gun is automatically downgraded to the default shotgun:
- Shotgun - As Ripley's default weapon, the shotgun fires one bullet at a time and isn't very powerful. With the shotgun, Ripley is allowed an unlimited number of rounds.
- Twin Pulse - The Twin Pulse rifle acts as a standard light machine gun, and is loaded with a 100-round magazine.
- Smart Gun - the Smart Gun fires two bullets at a time that travel in a unique double helix motion. What it lacks in power it makes up for in its wide range of fire. Stocked with 200 rounds.
- Serbo Gun - The Serbo Gun is a fully automatic weapon with a rapid rate of fire to compensate for its relatively weak firepower.
- Fire Gun - The Fire Gun is a standard flamethrower, and is seen in many Alien films. Designed to be a close-range weapon, the Fire Gun is powerful and extremely effective against Xenomorphs.
- Wave Laser - The Wave Laser is a plasma-based gun that fires a laser in a flat parabolic motion. It is extremely powerful, but has a relatively slow rate of fire.
Ripley also has bombs at her disposal as a secondary weapon:
- M40 Bomb - A standard hand grenade.
- Smart Bomb - A "pineapple" fragmentation hand grenade. Upon contact with the ground or an enemy, the powerful Smart Bomb shoots a gout of flame into the air.
Power-ups
- The winged shoe increases Ripley's jumping distance.
- The cross restores Ripley's life bar.
- The "B" item scores the player 20,000 points.
- With the invincibility item, Ripley glows red. While invincible, Ripley can kill enemies by running into them.
- The question mark represents a random item.
Story
Although none of the film's storyline is revealed in the game, the game's ending shows Ripley reuniting with the kidnapped girl Newt. In the end, the android Bishop remote-pilots a ship to Acheron's surface to evacuate the wounded Hicks, Newt, and Ripley. Presumably to leave room for the possibility of a film sequel, the epilogue poses the rhetorical question "Acheron menace ended.....or is it?"
Musical score
Aliens' soundtrack was composed by Nobuo Uematsu,[1] and is Uematsu's ninth work of video game music composition. The game's soundtrack consists of eight tracks: each of the five stages has its individual theme, and there are themes for Xenomorph Queen battles, the ending, and game over.
References
- ^ Terraguy (2006). "SquareSound - Nobuo Uematsu - Composer Information". www.squaresound.com. Retrieved 2006-06-10.
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