Alien 3

"More Fun Than Cuddling With a Facehugger..."

The Alien movie franchise is beloved by many for dark disturbing events. The movies have even spawned a successful line of comics. But unfortunately there have been no stand out games to compliment the franchise. This is of course the typical end for nearly move based games. And unfortunately Alien 3 flows suit.

Alien 3 looks and sounds pretty good, but it's not amazing or anything like that. For the most part alien 3 takes the route of being status quo to be a passable avenue to make money off the franchise. The story is pretty much non-existent. Alien 3 the movie is about a bunch of prisoners fighting one alien in a desolate prison colony. Alien 3 has Ripely exclusively battling many aliens and saving many civillian, which has absolutely nothing to do the movie.

Basically Alien 3 is a traditional 2D scrolling shooter. This is a tried and true formula that is either addictive or tedious. Unfortunately this game features very sluggish controls which push it indefintely towards the later. The especially problematic part is crouching. Like most enemies of this type of the the aliens will attempt to do leap attacks. Normally this an easy reflexive action of simply ducking. But for some reason Ripely takes forever to duck, which will add up to needlessly lost lives and health.

The basic formula of the game is shoot then duck. Side scroll through a maze of ladders while shooting to find a hostage. Then you guessed it, save the civillian! Rinse, wash, and repeat from here on in. As you can guess this quickly gets tiring quickly. The only hint of depth or variety is the different guns. But even that can't completely save this game. The worst part is navigating the multitude of platforms with the sluggish controls.

In the end Alien 3 is just another dissapointing movie tie in. Which doesn't even really to try "tie in" very well. As a fan of the movies I can not recommend this game. Let alone to someone who doesn't even like franchise. So unless you have a desperate fixing for 2D side scrolling action I would not waste your money, especially if your a fan.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/26/06