Alien³

Released in October 1993 for the Super Nintendo by LJN, and developed by Probe Software, action platformer, Alien³, is a very loosely based adaptation of the film of the same name.

After stumbling across a Retro Gamer article on its development, I suddenly decided I had to own Alien³ for the Super Nintendo. The graphics, the early 90's, so much nostalgia welled up within me, I immediately visited EBay and picked up a complete copy. The game arrived a few days later, I looked through the manual, felt a quick dopamine quick, then put the game in my SNES drawer.
Flash forward four years, and my 90's movie podcast co-host tells me he wants to cover Alien³. We'd just done Demolition Man, and I'd played through the Sega CD game in honor of that, so I figured it was finally time for my copy of Alien³ to get its due. Does it measure up to the nostalgia that article awakened in me?

Remember, it's Alien³, NOT Alien 3!

Alien³ is an incredibly divisive flick, and I have to say, I am only now coming around to it objectively. After the all-out terror of the first film, and then the action film insanity of the second, a morose meditation on the nature of being, featuring only one alien and no guns wasn't exactly what I...or just about anyone wanted in a third installment of the once storied franchise. I understand and appreciate the film now, even with its flaws, but back then I thought it was an abomination. It certainly doesn't feature a plot that would easily adapt into a video game. 

Believe it or not

The game's developers must have thought the same, as instead of one alien, Alien³ for the SNES features endless wave after wave of aliens, and instead of no guns, a massive pulse rifle, flamethrower, and grenade launcher. All that's really left of the film is the setting, a massive foundry that doubles as a detention center, on a far distant planet at the edge of space. Alien³ for SNES actually replicates this setting for the game pretty faithfully, even down to the film's soft-orange bathed dull and dingy color palette. 

It's so bland, I love it!

Probe actually does some fine, subtle work with this palette, producing a multitude of shades of grey and tan. The backgrounds are well drawn, and protagonist, Ripley, receives a faithful design, shaved head and all. Her animations are particularly great, as she runs, jumps, and hangs from an overhead bar with one hand while shooting with another. The aliens also look great, with crawling and jumping face huggers, egg sacs, and middle-size and large recreations of the film's quadrupedal alien all making an appearance. Enemies aren't quite as well-animated as Ripley, but they've definitely got 16-bit creepiness down, as they chase, spit at, and attack you. The weapon animations are also very cool, particularly the flamethrower, which at times even causes a glow to the lighting in the game's darker areas. There are even some atmospheric effects, like rain, which look great. Alien³ is a pretty handsome game.

 Yes! I can almost taste the acrid fog!

It sounds pretty good too. The music is all out action bombast, and while not much stands out, it does get the blood pumping. Weapon sound effects are on point.
Since Alien³ is not a steroidal action flick, the developers, as I said, took some liberties. Some BIG liberties. Instead of pondering her existence, and the fact that she's likely about to die ignominiously on a nearly abandoned prison planet, this game Ripley is getting so very many things done and running the show all the time. 

Good thing Ripley is here, otherwise who's gonna unfracture these pipes?

Alien³ features mission-based gameplay, with six stages featuring from six to eight missions. Ripley must find each stage's computer terminal (sometimes there are more than one), where she can pick and complete missions in any order the player chooses. Missions generally consist of heading to one of each stage's numerous large rooms to complete a task like wielding some busted pipes, or cleaning out an alien egg sac infestation. 

Welding pipes just like a BOSS.

Sometimes missions require Ripley to visit multiple rooms. Meanwhile, vast hordes of respawning aliens constant rush toward her, meaning you'll have to constantly stay on guard, and almost constantly be firing your weapons. Unfortunately, shooting too much means you'll eventually run out of ammo, and Ripley doesn't have any standard low-grade weapon that doesn't. You can pick up more ammo throughout stages, especially in each stage's armory, but enemies respawn far more quickly and frequently than ammo does. You can totally run out of ammo and find yourself defenseless in the face of these non-stop alien waves. It's enough to almost make you wish Probe had followed the plot of the film a little more closely.

Can you guys stop laying eggs FOR ONE DAMN MINUTE?!

You'll also wish they'd put a battery chip in the cartridge, so that you could save your game. While the missions are pretty fun, the only progression saving method Alien³ offers is a password for each of the game's stages, once you've beaten the previous one. Considering completing each stage takes well over an hour, it would have been nice to have the ability to save after each mission, considering missions can take anywhere from five to 20 minutes. This game is not friendly to a quick play and put down session. Add to that...Alien³  is hard! Even on the easy setting, it's likely that many times you'll have put an hour into a stage, only to fall in the lava on the fifth or sixth mission and have to start the whole thing over. 

I guess I shouldn't have saved this mission for last...

Thankfully, each stage contains a medic bay full of health that you can return to, but even those are packed with aliens. There is absolutely no respite from the oncoming xenomorphs. Well, actually, there is one...

I commented before about games from this period beginning to grow more progressive in concept, yet still failing to become modern in execution. Alien³  certainly pushes the envelope in concept, with its semi-non-linear, mission-based gameplay, but it is so painfully regressive in its lack of game saving and sparse password system, the progressive gameplay model almost becomes a detriment instead of an asset. In order to offset this late 80's/early 90's game problem, developers often included cheat codes to make their games more palatable. Alien³ is no different. Though I very rarely suggest this, I am going to have to go the same route as I did with Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues, and say, play Alien³ with the cheats codes on. 

Don't you want to experience this gnarly looking sunset?

Make yourself either invincible, or give yourself infinite ammo. Or...do both. Even Alien³'s "Easy" mode is brutal, and can kill you and negate your progress after a long session of gameplay. This is a game that doesn't even give you lives or continues. Die once, and it's game over. 

So...

Cheat. There's too much here to enjoy to get caught up in the game's archaic system of difficulty. The controls are mostly spot on, and make blasting away at aliens...a blast. Running, crouching, and...crouch running all feel great, as does Ripley's ability to aim and fire in many directions, even when she's hanging from a ladder. 

Somebody call 9-1-1/Shawty fire burning on the dance floor

Sometimes it's difficult to fire at something small that's diagonally down from you, and you can't stop and aim (aiming makes you run in the direction you're pointing), but otherwise, these controls are excellent. Ripley's jump, much to the developer's current chagrin (per that Retro Gamer article), is quite floaty, but at least it injects an element of grace into this brutal game, as it's easy to reroute your direction mid-air. 

Also, the missions are fun! While there's unfortunately no cheat code to make Alien³ more friendly to quickplays, the stages can certainly be beaten more quickly when you can fire your guns at will without worrying about running out of ammo.

Added Bonus: You won't have to look at this screen over and over again.

Really, enjoying this game is like enjoying the movie--at first glance, it's frustrating and overly difficult, but spend some time with and figure out a way into it, and it's actually pretty good.


Graphics: 8.0/10.0

Sound: 7.5/10.0

Gameplay: 6.8/10.0

Lasting Value: 6.5/10.0


Overall: 6.9/10.0

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Released on April 1, 1992 for the Super Nintendo by Nintendo, and developed by Nintendo EAD, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past returns the action-RPG series to a top-down view for Link's first and only 16-bit adventure.

I bought an SNES because I wanted to play Street Fighter II at my house. Kick stupid Guile in the face with Ryu from the comfort of my den? What could be better? In January of 1995, Blockbuster had a used copy of Super Street Fighter II for $5. That's like the same price as a rental! Add to that,  Wal-Mart was selling an SNES for $100! I'd just pooled my Christmas cash (some from returning gifts), and I had $120, enough to get both, pay the taxes, AND get this sweet book about how to draw boats that I saw at the art store.

There's a great diagram for a shrimp boat in here.

I had an okay time with Super Street Fighter II. It's a good game. However, after a few days playing it, I felt strangely empty. My cousin, Adrian, came over one day, and seemed to notice I was getting tired of it.
"You should try the game that came with the Super Nintendo," he said. "That Zelda one."
"Zelda games are lame," I said, having never played a Zelda game in my life.
I had just turned 13 at the time, and was at the tail end of a period of personal funk--that time in life where I was tired of being treated like a kid, and only having access to things I'd felt I'd outgrown years before. My NES had started to grow extremely stale, but for some reason until then, upgrading to the SNES never occurred to me. Everything just felt old and boring, and to top it off, I was late blooming, still with my little kid voice and hairless armpits. Everything sucked! My grandfather died on Friday the 13th, January of 1995, and considering, out of 13 grandchildren, I was his only namesake, I just felt done. Life was a giant suck sandwich.

Just warp me to the Dark World already.

However, something about the SNES made me hopeful. Finally, something new...but my close-minded nature was stopping it from actually providing a new experience. I just wanted to play a game I'd already spent hours upon hours with in the arcade. Or did I? Obviously, SFII was already played out for me. After wrestling with Adrian's words for days (new stuff, amIrite, INFJ's?!), I finally pulled The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past out of the Super Nintendo box, ejected Super Street Fighter II from my SNES for what I assumed would be a short while, and put A Link to the Past in its place. The rest is history.

Game Over to my pre-Zelda life.

My little brother just happened to be in the room when the immersive opening screen and cinema of A Link to the Past started to roll, as by that point he'd forgiven me for drawing a (phenomenal) picture of his future shrimp boat getting attacked by a giant squid. Both of us sat transfixed through the title screen, the opening cinematic, and the incredible opening sequence, where young Link (or whatever you end up calling him--it's your choice when the game beings) is visited by the titular Princess Zelda in a dream. She asks for Link's help, before Link is suddenly awakened by his Uncle, who's headed off into a rainstorm to rescue the very Princess Zelda from Link's dream. At this point, you take control of Link, and run out of the house into the glorious weather effects of a 16-bit storm, find a path to the castle, and discover your uncle has been incapacitated. The old man gives you his sword and his mission, and your adventure begins.

Any 16-bit game that's lets you climb a high precipice and view the land below is great in  my book.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past immediately sucks the player in with its production values and atmosphere, but keeps them transfixed with its incredible gameplay. I immediately connected on a tactile level with the ease and way I could move Link around in the spaces of the game's overhead perspective. The controls felt more spot on than anything since the first Super Mario Bros. game I'd played years before. And now, as I play through this game again 25 years later, the controls still feel so spot on. The session for this review is the fourth time I've completely played through A Link to the Past. Every time has felt revelatory.

*Sigh* This view...

Link's movement is controlled with the D-Pad. There's a button assigned to his sword, one for using an item (whichever one the player has selected, i.e. the bow and arrow or lamp), one to perform a dash (once that move is acquired), and one to access the map. The start button brings up Link's vast inventory. The select button brings up save and quit options. It's a perfect scheme, perfectly executed. Good luck playing through this game, and then not expecting the buttons to map the same in whatever subsequent 1top-down action-RPG you play. They should all be like this.

Home sweet home...until this bird swoops me away.

Once Link rescues Zelda in the game's opening sequence, he's off to numerous dungeons to collect magical amulets, to help fight against the evil wizard who's kidnapping all of Hyrule's maidens--Hyrule of course being the fantastical, medieval styled land of mountains, forests, lakes, and rivers in which Link resides and traverses. Hyrule's dungeons, sprinkled liberally throughout the land, are a pinnacle of 2D game design. They're tough, yet their layouts are extremely logical, the work of game designers at the peak of their powers. All dungeons follow the same basic blueprint: fight through numerous, enemy-filled rooms, solve an extremely diverse assortment of puzzles, and collect keys to  pass through locked doors to progress.

Hmm, I really want that treasure, but I also really don't want to fall into a bottomless pit.

Each dungeon also contains a helpful map and compass, and a master key or "big key," which must be obtained to progress through each respective dungeon's final rooms, in order to access each's boss lair. Each dungeon also contains a new item for Link's inventory (i.e. a hookshot or fire rod), many of which Link needs to progress further through that dungeon, and which often give access to previously inaccessible areas of Hyrule.

Yay! Now I can access this belligerent fish creature!

Yes, it's the timeless gaming concept Nintendo perfected on the Super Nintendo, with games like this and Super Metroid: explore at your leisure, note spots that feel like places you could get to if you had the right item; eventually collect that item through your adventures, then come back to that spot with your new item. For example: 1. The other side of that broken bridge has a beam I think I could shoot a hook shot into. 2. Woah, cool, this dungeon's treasure is a hookshot. 3. Yes, when I shot my new hookshot into that beam, I got over that previously uncrossable ravine. Now I've got an entirely new area to explore! While the term "Metroidvania" would be coined after Castlevania: Symphony of the Night began to incorporate this same type of gameplay into the Castlevania franchise, in truth, Zelda games had also been doing this right here in 1992 (of course the '86 original The Legend of Zelda did something similar, but with far less structure).

Must. Go. Everywhere.

The incredible sense of discovery lent by this style of gameplay is tough to beat. During your 20+ hour journey, you'll want to get into ever nook and hollow of a Link to the Past's world. You'll want to find every piece of heart, not just to extend your life meter, but because you'll simply want to find them. Just seeing what's beyond the next dungeon door is exciting. With double-digit dungeons, a full adventure awaits. And with double-digit dungeons come a huge variety of bosses, a veritable rogue's gallery of nasty beasts who are just as fun to fight as they are to simply experience. Feelings of invention and originality permeate every moment of A Link to the Past, even though it's been aped by numerous games, including Legend of Zelda ones, ever since.

Vega? I thought I was done with Street Fighter II!

Composer, Koji Kondo, is also at the top of his game here, producing some of his most memorable, atmospheric, transportive musical compositions, all appearing at the perfect times. The sound effects are also heavenly, with the sound your sword makes when it hits a boss particularly satisfying. The graphics, even going down to each dungeon's color schemes, are iconic and beautiful. The production value is off the charts--check the game's ending, which brings a satisfying and cathartic resolution to every character you've met in Hyrule's story. Oh, yes, of course, the characters--Hyrule is full of charming non-player characters, as well. Many of them have interesting stories that Link can make himself a part of, as he solves people's problems all over Hyrule. This game features so much goodness it's almost unbelievable.

This ending didn't have to tell me what happened to Flute Boy, but it is all the better for it!

If you want to nitpick, yes, when a lot is happening onscreen, like in many Super Nintendo games, A Link to the Past has some graphical slowdown. Does the slowdown affect gameplay? No. It's actually kind of charming. Everything about this game is.

Yes!!! This fight is so awesome.

Maybe I'm a little biased, though. A Link to the Past had a magical impact on my life. It lifted me out of my preteen funk--immediately after playing it, I experienced a seemingly endless wonderful wave of new things:more Super Nintendo games, a rediscovery of the original Star Wars trilogy, new friends, my dad bought us a Go Cart, we found a white kitten with mystical powers in our yard who become the best pet I've ever had, I painted my room blue, I got a TV in my room and a bigger bed and a sweet new aquarium, I grew a hair in one of my armpits. Just on and on and on and on awesomeness. Most importantly, though, from that moment in my life on, I opened myself to new experiences. Hey, variety is the spice of life, right? But I try not to forget any of the great old experiences I've had either. It helps that playing through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past now is just as invigorating as it was 25 years ago.


Graphics: 9.0/10.0

Sound: 10.0/10.0

Gameplay: 10.0/10.0

Lasting Value: 9.0/10.0


Overall: 10.0/10.0