Alien 3

"15 whole minutes of fun"

Well, my first negative review. Let's see how all this adds up. Alien 3 is yet another movie-to-game conversion. You are Ripley, and your mission is to save hostages and kill aliens. Sounds decent at first, but this game just doesn't execute well at all.

Graphics: 5
The Genesis has seen much better than this. The aliens look pretty cool, but everything else is just either average or just plain bad. I've seen better looking NES titles frankly.

Sound: 5
The music is great but the sound effects are pure crap which lowers it to a 5. The only reason I kept the volume up was to listen to the music. The sounds of the aliens and my character dying just sounded completely horrid. Maybe that's the point of a horror game, but I just can't go with it. It could have sounded and looked a lot better if they had just waited and worked on it more.

Gameplay: 4
Yuck. Alien 3 is fun about the first 10 or so minutes you play it. After that, it completely dries out and you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again, just getting more challenging along the way. The controls didn't respond too well either. I found myself dying several times due to a crouching alien that suddenly leaps at me. Normally, that's no problem, but the control is sluggish and doesn't respond well. The levels are repetitive, making you save people in the time you are given. Yes, in every level. I realize that even some good platformers are repetitive, but this is just awful repetitive. If you want a kick out of Aliens, just watch the movies. Although, there were SOME good points to Alien 3's gameplay. There were lots of different weapons to use, which made things a little better and the levels were pretty big. Too bad they were so repetitive. Well...that's about it.

Value: 3
Really bad replay value. You might play it again after getting a Game Over (emphasis on ''might''), but there's a really good chance you'll never play again after you finish it. (Or if you finish it, due to frustrating control)

Overall: 4.0 (Mediocre)
If you really are anxious to play this game, then I suggest you try it out, and if you like it, great! So do the other reviewers that reviewed this game. As they say, it's my opinion...I could be wrong. But I'll stick with my opinion for now and say that you should stay away after you've played for about 15 minutes.

Pros:
-Lots of weapons to use
-Decent sized levels

Cons:
-Should you really start out with that much weapons?
-Very repetitive
-Overall dull gameplay; gets old fast
-Frustrating control at times
-Cartridge is too small for a doorstop and it's an embarassment to the door

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/31/01, Updated 12/31/01