From: marc@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Marc Goldman)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video
Subject: [Genesis] Alien 3 review.
Date: 6 Oct 92 17:41:12 GMT
Organization: Department of Computing at Lancaster University, UK.

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

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