Top ET Destroyer

Ok, so its not ET that we all know and love but this game involves you blowing away many beings from another planet.

In 1980, a film generation was born. With the advent of the first Alien film, an entirely new genre of Sci Fi had evolved.

Basically this film contained a few helpless space travellers being attacked by an invincible Alien being. This creature had acid for blood and lived a 2 cycle life. It started off as a "face hugger". This laid an egg in the "host's" throat. The Face Hugger then fell off and died. Few hours later, the 2nd stage of its life starts as the egg hatches and bursts out of the host's stomach.
Nice!
(sorry if you are having your breakfast.)

2 more films followed on from this plot, each with a new twist on the tale. One was an Action packed shoot-em-up and the other, a dark, arty type film.
(a 4th film now exists but is not incorporated into the game)

So while these films grew in popularity, so did the computer games market. Hence the birth of the accompanying game to the 1st 3 films. Aptly named Alien Trilogy, it has now been around for about 6 years but still great to play.

Gamestyle.
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This is played as a 1st person shooter. This means your view is as the character's eyes. You can see your weapons appear in front of you.
Your visual display shows your weapons and your health and that is about it.
It was possibly one of the first to explore this style of gaming with DOOM and UNREAL TOURNAMENT following on and making such good jobs of it.

Plot.
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It is basically a "Blast everything you see" game. The idea is to work through the levels one at a time and survive. The story follows a very basic version of the films with the creatures that appear following the timescale of the films.
You have to complete tasks along the way such as rescuing potential victims but it is mostly based on destroying everything.
Every few levels, you get the chance to restock your supplies on a bonus level. This contains all of the health and weapons you could want. Take good advantage of this as it is one of the best times to do this in safety.

Graphics.
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For such an old game, they are very good. I think they have great resolution and colouring for a game of this age. The images are sharp and the motion is fluid. No jerking or missed frames.
Played on a big TV you start to notice that they are not as sharp but this can be forgiven.

Characters.
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You play Ripley. She is the main character from the whole series of films as she always comes back from the dead or somehow evades death.

However, you have to compete against some pretty nasty characters.

Face Huggers.
These are crab like scurrying creatures that run along the floor and jump at you. 2 or 3 pops with a hand gun will kill them. If they get on your face they remove a few chunks of health. Fight them at long range and get them before they jump.

Adult Aliens.
These stand upright and run around after you. Use other weapons to fight these as they take a bit more killing. They run at you and slash you so always make sure you have somewhere to fall back to.

Dog Aliens.
Born from a dog host rather than a human, they crouch rather than stand and are nor too hard to kill. Again, dont use the handgun as they will take longre than a face hugger.

Eggs.
These open and let out the face huggers so kill them quickly. When you first see them, blast them.

Queen.
Very had to kill as she is a formidable character. Launching grenades into her stomach is normally he best but keep moving.

Sound.
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This sells it for me. Superb. The sound effects have been taken from the film and put directly into the game. This adds to some great realism. The noise that the Aliend detector makes is straight out of the 2nd film. GREAT!

Options/lastability.
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Quite limited. OK, you can choose to play at different levels of difficulty but that is it. I played it and finished it on Medium level and it got boring towards the end. I did not want to play it anymore hence its lack of durability after completion.

Price.
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You can find it in the bargain bin nowadays for between 5 and 10 pounds.