Alien Resurrection

"A game fit for the licence?"

If one thing can be said about the Alien series, it has the raw potential and the attributes to be developed into an excellent game, but so far after a number of attempts in the arcade and on consoles, nobody has truly captured the essence of the movies and made into a great game.

Alien: Resurrection was a very disappointing end to the Alien series; far inferior to the underrated Alien 3. But what it did have was a fair amount of action and it seemed the game tie in was only a matter of when the press release was announced, and sure enough, Argonaut of Croc fame played ball and Alien: Resurrection the game was released with high expectations in the autumn of the year 2000.

Veterans of Alien Trilogy by Fox Interactive will no doubt be pleased that Alien: Resurrection has remained a first person shooter. Another element of that game – the beeping motion tracker – has also made it into the final cut giving Ripley and co a tremble as the constant beep beep beeps get closer indicating an imminent Xenomorph confrontation.

You get to play as four players from the movie, Ripley, Android Call, One of the mercenaries and soldier Di Stephano – these are the characters played by Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Gary Dourdan and Raymond Cruz in the film – as they look to escape the USS Ouriga, a huge spaceship where the aliens extracted from Ripley have gotten loose and ran amok. These characters are different in their styles, for instance Ripley's first mission is about escaping from captivity whilst the two male characters are far more interested in exterminating the alien threat and it's certainly good to get a bit of variety in the way the game can be played and also in the different characters.

Resurrection is not exactly an out and out blast em up. Ammo can be very scarce at times and there are only a few weapons available from the bog standard unlimited ammo pistol to the flamethrower which becomes an indispensable weapon. I can't help but feel that the game is a little limited due to the lack of more firepower and the way the game is played. It's frankly a little off the pace in terms of the speed of the game, certainly compared to the excellent Quake II.

But if there is one thing that is constant about Resurrection it is the atmospheric nature of the game and its environments. Argonaut has captured the gloomy and industrial esque interiors of the spaceship from the movie wonderfully and has also incorporated some of the cinematic experiences from the movie – the swimming aliens sequence for instance. Graphically, this is one of the best looking first person shooters on the PSX, with some superb flame and lighting effects and backdrops. One of the most interesting of the games features are the face hugger attacks; you actually have to get rid of the thing using one of the portable medical units before you suffer a rather nasty case of indigestion.

Ressurection does have a terrific haunting atmosphere and makes excellent use of a rather shoddy movie license, and does the alien series credit, but I am of the feeling that it is far too lackluster in its combat, speed and gameplay – some of the finer elements of a first person shooter - when it is compared to some of the better first person shooters on the PSX.. Despite its flaws, it is a game that is well worth a look, not least for fans of the film.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/22/06