Legendary Wings - And Legendary box art

 

Legendary Wings 
Developer: Capcom 
Release Date: July 1988 
System: NES

 

Something that I think is lost in modern gaming is how absurd a game's box art can look It's like with any questionable graphic design choice is made, we need to acknowledge that the choice was made, approved and sent to print. What the conditions were for that choice are unknown, perhaps there was a time crunch, budgetary constraints, or perhaps someone had a vision they refused to shift from forcing a poor artist's hand. Traditionally, the box art is there to capture your attention either through character star power, like with Super Mario World, or Sonic 2. It might go for a more minimalistic approach to inspire intrigue and promise, like the cover to the Legend of Zelda. Or it could just trying to summarise the game in a single image, usually by cramming in game elements. Legendary Wings opts for the latter, and as absurd as the man with wings in a tight, almost lycra, holding a rifle, flying away from a large mechanical, yet stone-like, head is absolutely on-point, true to form exactly what the game features.

 

 

 

It's glorious and belongs on a mural I want to put together and weirdly compelling box art, along with Valis III for the Turbografx-16. It is from this box art that I felt compelled to check this game out, even more so when I notice that the Developer is Capcom of all people. This surely makes this guy a prime candidate to be included in any one of those fighting collab games that Capcom likes to produce. And, would you believe me if I said there are Legendary Wings references in games like Namco x Capcom, Project X Zone 2 and even Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes? The original arcade version of Legendary Wings contained two playable characters, Kevin Walker and Michelle Heart. For the NES port, it seems like Michelle got the chop, but she had the last laugh as she is a support character in Marvel vs Capcom. Kevin doesn't even get a look in.

 

 

   

This is the benefit of doing research, it stops me from making comments like that and then wearing egg on my face!

 

 

 

My personal experience with SHMUPs is that they tend to put all their story in the manual, with an over-elaborated explanation for the game's events, whilst the game itself does the bare minimum to further or explain the narrative they have established This is not true of all SHMUPs, but I doubt most people play them for the engrossing storyline. True to fashion, Legendary Wings is set in the far distant future, where a super computer called Dark, which had helped humanity advance has rebelled. The God of War, Ares, gifts wings to two warriors to put a stop to Dark and save humanity. I suppose the story is supposed to be more invocative of Icarus, and the wings he and his father made. Though in the story the wings fail, mostly due to lcarus' arrogance and flying to close to the sun. I am sure there is a Classics or perhaps an English Lit major who could have a field day getting into the weeds of some of the symbolism going on in the set up for this SHMUP. I should note that the Japanese title for this game is Ares no Tsubasa, or Wings of Ares. So I shouldn't be too surprised that Ares pops up, seemingly, unannounced, in the western release of this game.

 

 

 

The game is split into two distinct sections per level, with each stage opening with a vertical scrolling section, seeing our protagonist flying over various landscapes, being harassed by a variety of airborne enemies and ground-based obstacles. You have twc weapons, your gun and bombs, the gun can destroy airborne enemies, whilst the bombs can be used to destroy things on the ground. Both weapons can be powered up, by picking up P icons that are dropped by certain enemies. Whilst the gun goes through Jifferent iterations of firing patterns, the bombs just get increased firing range and speed. If you are in a powered up state, taking damage will drop your power by a step. and getting hit at power level one will killyou. About halfway through the vertical stages you will encounter a large head in the ground, reminiscent of what is on tþe box art, that shoots tornados at you. Getting hit by one of these tornados takes you to a " Danger* zone, a horizontally scrolling sub-area that features a mini-boss. During the horizontal sections, you don't have bombs, just your gun. If you survive this area, which isn't the toughest thing in the world if you have a couple of power-ups, you continue. on your way During the second half of the stage, by bombing a certain structure and touching the tornado it releases, you can find a "Lucky" area, which is filled with items that give points, power-ups and also continues. Continuing further, eventually you will reach the end of vertical section, as you approach a temple that is guarded by statues that shoot fireballs at you and eventually face a Dragon mini-boss. Upon defeating the Dragon you enter the temple and continue as a horizontal shooter until you reach the end of stage boss, who is only vulnerable during a certain attack window. Defeat the stage boss rinse and repeat for 5 stages and beat the game!

 

 

 

But, here is the rub with Legendary Wings. The format for each stage is exactly the same. Sure, the first part of the vertical section is different, with new enemies and obstacles, the horizontal section towards the stage boss is different with new enemies...But, the "Danger" zones, the lucky rooms, the temple approach, Dragon mini-boss and even end of stage bosses are all identical, with only a small increase in difficulty for the end of stage bosses and the "Danger" zones having a different arrangements of enemies before the mini-boss. It all feels, almost placeholdery, like there was some idea that each stage would have a different mini-boss, or the end of stage bosses would be visually different..But they're not. It makes for a bland, slightly, repetitive experience, which is a little disappointing because the game itself isn't terrible. Though, I will acknowledge that the final boss does have an additional, unique phase.

 

 

 

 

 

Legendary Wings is not a hard SHMUP either, there are some areas where things might get a little dicey, and there are some annoying glitches that can frustrate the player Picking up items or taking damage removes your collision for a second or so, meaning you can accidentally clip into walls and be crushed by the scrolling screen. But I would say with a modicum of perseverance this is a game that can be beaten with only a couple of minor hiccups along the way. I would hesitate to call the game a bad game, it is mostly reasonably competent and enjoyable, but am certainly not going to be rushing back to this one anytime soon.

 

SHMUPtember 2026

 

During the month of September, I had the most inspired idea, why not do a themed gaming month? It's not like I don't already do this with October with Spooptober, and November with Nintember That would mean that a straight quarter of the year would be preoccupied with a certain subset of games. I suppose, the benefit of Nintember is that I play Nintendo developed games, which come in a variety of genres. Anyway, what was the plan for September? Well, it was to play Shoot-Em-Ups, or SHMUPs for short. It's one of those on paper good ideas, until I remember that SHMUPs are not a bread-and- butter gaming genre for me. Perhaps if this was Platformarch (Hey, that's an idea) or some other genre of games this task would not be as daunting as it was. Regardless, I decided to look around the vicinity of the beast, finding weird or interesting SHMUPs to play for a month. I am still testing the waters and whilst I could have played infamous games, like Ikaruga Gradius III or DoDonPachi I did still want to have my nerves, sanity and my Steam Deck intact for at least couple more years

Before we go any further, I just want to explain what Shoot-Em-Ups are, mostly for the uninitiated. I imagine most people who click through to read my journey probably have a much better understanding of SHMUPs than I do, so feel free to skip past this entry and head straight to the games because I will probably stun you with my overwhelming ignorance of the genre. The term Shoot-Em-Up is an umbrella term that encompasses many different gameplay styles where you navigate a character through a barrage of enemies and obstacles to eventually challenge an end-of-stage boss, rinse and repeat a number of times, increase the difficulty as stages progress until the end of the game. I would say that is, mechanically, the core of the genre. Flavour is typically added via the means of power-ups to your main weapon, alternative weapon pick-ups, screen clearing "bombs", manoeuvrability upgrades, etc. In my head, SHMUPs commonly come with a kind of brutal difficulty, where small mistakes can lead to untimely deaths, causing you to lose power-ups and be in an incredibly vulnerable state trying to rebuild your arsenal or you could just give up and let the game over come because the writing is on the wall. SHMUPs tend to be reasonably short, I would say the average SHMUP is no longer than 30 minutes from start to finish, this is mostly because of the intensity of action in these games and the level of focus required would be exhausting if the game went on for longer than an hour. Also, I say from start to finish, this assumes a reasonably clean run of the game, which could take hours to hit that level of game mastery. Most of that time will be spent memorising enemy formations, attack patterns and strategies for bosses. Due to the general flow and structure of these games, a common challenge is to beat the game without using a continue. This is called a 1CC or 1-Continue-Clear, this concept whilst at times just a personal goal/challenge for some, has been incorporated into some games as a requirement for players to get the game's true ending. For SHMUPtember I focussed primarily on the horizontal and vertical scrolling SHMUPs, but there are types of games that some might classify as part of the wider umbrella, such as the run-and-gun, multi-directional shooter, or the rail shooter. The latter I would personally put in a separate genre, but does still have the hallmarks I would associate with a SHMUP.

My initial hesitance to doing this themed month comes from a small degree of history with SHMUPs. Growing up, I admittedly didn't play many SHMUPs and depending on how we categorise them, I owned at best, three? Perhaps four? At a push. As a slight a tangent, do we class Star Fox as a SHMUP? That is Nintendo's Star Fox, not the Star Fox that came out for the Atari which allegedly prompted the European name for Star Fox be changed to Star Wing. If we discount Star Fox, the only SHMUP I can remember owning was an Americar import game, Space Megaforce, which is the western release of Super Aleste. I have a lot of love and nostalgia for Space Megaforce and it remains one of my favourite SHMUPs to this day, even after playing a whole bunch more recently. I had beaten the game a couple of times, but never pushed myself past the normal difficulty level, mostly because Aleste's more advanced difficulties add some interesting quirks. Another game that I have memories of, but never owned, was Biohazard Battle on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis. The western box art for that lives rent free in my head as pretty peak box art. 

 

 

As console generations advanced, I feel that the SHMUP genre became more niche, and my personal preferences shifted. Why would I buy lkaruga on the Game Cube when Rogue Leader was right there? So, we can jump forward about six or seven years when I entered my Weeb phase. I am rather upfront and derogatory when it comes to talking about this, it was a part of my life where I watched Anime and read Manga as a weird counter-culture protest, masking it behind a "curiosity" of my own personal heritage. For context, my grandmother on my mother's side was Japanese, making me a quarter Japanese, which is an excuse and very tenuous at best link to a culture and society I was becoming increasingly interested in. Anyway, during this time I became very interested in Doujinsoft, and Doujinshi by association. Keeping it as simple as possible, Doujinsoft are essentially Japanese indie games, but that feels like a conversation for another day. It was in this interest that I stumbled across something that would shape my understanding of the SHMUP genre going forward, and I would say it has been a net positive, but there is a lot of negatives that comes with it. Touhou.

 

 

Now, I have a lot of love and respect for the Touhou franchise, mostly because of the music and the creations that have come about because of it. But, I would be remiss to ignore the damage this had done to my perception of the SHMUP genre. Touhou resides in the Bullet Hell sub-genre of SHMUPs, a style of game that is characterised by enemies (Mostly bosses and sub-bosses) having visually amazing and complicated looking bullet patterns, the hell portion of it being how much of the screen real estate is dominated by bullets and the ask of the player is to navigate these patterns, attacking is somewhat secondary. I am not ashamed to say that skill issues are the barrier for me here, my approach to gaming has typically been more reactionary than pre-planned, or if there is anything planned, it is a short sequence or step in the wider picture. Historically, whilst I have always had some degree of stubbornness when it comes to playing games, I was also reasonably quick to move on, I didn't want to put in the time to become competent enough at the games I was playing to achieve the seemingly impossible. But, it was due to this period with Touhou where I figured that SHMUPs weren't for me. In hindsight it seems ridiculous to brush off a genre of games because I struggled with a fringe example, my only reasoning would be more about not enjoying the gameplay loop and the inherit frustrations of learning the game, instead of reacting good enough. I suppose the other thing with Touhou, I was able to "beat" some of the games, by chucking enough lives and continues at a situation, but this prevented me from getting any of the good endings for the games I played in the series, as the games demand a 1-Continue-Clear to get a good ending. So, mentally, I could see the goal in the distance, but the gap between my current position and that goal felt too vast. Not without significant time and mental investment.

 

 

This brings us closer to the modern day, I suppose, I can't think of any other notable stops on this prelude, besides the time I spent playing Space Impact on my Dad's Nokia 3310. As with everything I talk about here, we are now in the RetroAchievements era anc I was revisiting old games, beating and logging things from my childhood, including a certain Space Megaforce. At this moment, around 2024, I wasn't Mastery hungry, just beating the game was enough for me at the time. That was a badge of honour. The site itself organises games in numerous ways, with genre hubs, developer/publisher hubs and of specific interest here; series hubs. This was when I learnt that Space Megaforce was Super Aleste, and that there were several games in the series. In my mind, I said to myself, if I can beat Space Megaforce, then Aleste, GG Aleste, MUSHA and Power Strike should be within my ability, right? And, if you have followed me on Fedi for a while, you may be aware that I speak of the Aleste series in obnoxiously positive tones, especially the GG Aleste games. At some point, I will talk about these games in more detail, I have enough words and thoughts to fill a chapter of a book. Despite having an overall decent time with Aleste, I was still treading cautiously around the SHMUPs, before now I only picked up Arrow Flash and Abadox: The Deadly Inner War. Both, I should add, decent games. Initially, my September plan was to revisit games I had beaten but not mastered. I have become a little obsessed over my ratios. Initially, I started with the Aleste games, as they were enjoyable and after remembering they had infinite continues, the challenge became more about blind stubbornness over skill, that was something I knew I could rise to. But even though the stress of certain segments in certain games were peaking my blood pressure and causing me to make noises unheard of within the presence of my Wife. I came out of the experience.. Kinda wanting more. Because a run of a game could be within the scope of twenty to thirty minutes, this fit with my availability far better than chipping away at a JRPG or a Collect-a-thon. It was a weird moment of clarity. Suddenly the appeal made sense, the short-term memory was firing on a handful of cylinders, and I was feeling more competent. It was at that moment I figured, because the naming convention made sense, that I would strive to play a bunch of SHMUPs over the month of September, and dub it SHMUPtember, and you better believe I felt smug about the name.

 

 

So, if you're just here for the games and some expanded views on them, welcome back and for those of you who now regret the last few sections, I'm terribly sorry. It will happen again on a different topic. So, let's actually talk about the games I did play during SHMUPtember 2026:

 

•     Legendary Wings                          NES 

•     Aero Fighters/Sonic Wings            SNES 

•     Robotech: The Macross Saga      GBA 

•     InsectorX                                       NES 

•     InsectorX                                       Megadrive/Genesis 

•     Coryoon: Child of Dragon            PC Engine 

•     Alpha Mission                               NES 

•     Curse                                              Megadrive/Genesis 

•     Final Soldier                                  PC Engine 

•     U.N Squadron/Area 88                 SNES 

•     Trouble Shooter                            Megadrive/Cenesis 

•     Burning Angels                             PC Engine 

•     Aleste 2                                        MSX 

•     Aleste Gaiden                              MSX 

•     GG Aleste 3                                 Game Gear

 

You might think that, looking at the game list, I randomly chucked darts at a board and just went with the flow, and you'd be partially right in that assumption but there was also some degree of calculation. Some of it was just looking at the box art and feeling obligated to play it, this was the case for both Legendary Wings and Curse. Others, it was just a matter of looking at some screen shots or the RetroAchievements mastery badge. But, one core thing, I also looked at any comments or completion rates on these games. Not everything I played was in the realms of "everyone has beaten this" territory, as of writing this Burning Angels only have six other players who have mastered it. So there was still games that would have and did challenge me

Right, without any further delay, I think I should start talking about some games. I will go through them in the order I have laid out above.

 

RetroAchievements - What are they, why do I keep talking about them?

 

So, something I should probably do, because in some sense it would be healthy of me to explain myself, more to myself than anyone else. Introspective insight is good for you, allows you to reflect on your thoughts, actions, etc. With this in mind, I figured it would be good to get into the weeds over why I engage with RetroAchievements. For those who follow me on the Fediverse, it has been a core part of what I talk about and share online. Perhaps to people’s chagrin. Typically this is done within the context of, doing what a follower suggested I call, Ishambard Presents. The idea of presents was to just give a short post (1,000 character) mini unload of things I have finished playing, something of a precursor to a full-on Nest post, but that hasn't quite happened as planned... Though I am thinking about posting about the on-going journey and not just the destination. Jury is still out on that one. So, to elaborate, let’s start with what RetroAchievements are because as much as I talk about it, I appreciate that not everyone is going to have knowledge about it. Truth be told, I only discovered it about two years ago (May 2024) when I was kitting out my Steam Deck with emulators.

The below snippet is taken from RetroAchievements Manifesto:

The achievements are made by and for the community through teams of volunteer developers. These achievements, similar to the achievements you find in modern games on the Playstation, Xbox, and PC platforms like Steam, range from simple game progression such as beating the first boss of a game, unearthing the secrets of the game like finding an unlockable character or bonus, to custom made challenges such as speed-running stages, beating a stage or boss under certain conditions/limitations. But, these achievements are being made for the older generations of console, for games that were made before the notion of loggable achievements. Games like Super Mario Bros. Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokemon, etc, are slowly having achievements developed and released to a community of gamers who have come to enjoy retro gaming combined with the rush of obtaining achievements and get recognition for it. Consoles that are included in the community aren’t just from the big three (Nintendo, Sony, Sega), but include older systems like the Atari 2600 and Amstrad CPC, to more obtuse things (For me anyway) such as the PC-FX and TurboGrafx. This year (2026) there was a large community drive to roll-out achievements for the Nintendo Wii, and achievements aren’t just being made for major releases, obscure, obtuse, games are also slowly getting added to the massive library of games that have had achievements made for them.

I don’t fully understand how all this works, it is absolute black magic, involving having emulators connect to the RetroAchievements servers and tracking progress of achievements live. This does mean to engage with this, you do need to have your device connected online, which means achieving on the go, for me at least, has required me to use my phone as a mobile hotspot. Theoretically, I could just use my phone to play the games, but I have never found phone gaming to be particularly intuitive, even with a Bluetooth controller. So, typically, it is something I do at home. There are also two different modes of unlocking achievements, called Hardcore and Softcore. Hardcore is theoretically akin to playing the game on official hardware, so certain features such as save states, cheats, slow down, are inaccessible during that play session, even in-game cheats are disabled as well, to maintain the intent of the challenge. Fast forward is a feature that is allowed, the reasons are most likely detailed in their FAQ, but outside of using it to reduce grind times in RPGs, fast forward isn’t typically a feature that bestows advantages to typical gameplay. There is also Softcore, which allows the modern-day conveniences of Emulators. Personally, I have been playing everything I do on Hardcore, sometimes against my better judgement, but I will be candid, it is a bit of an ego thing. I personally don’t judge people who play Softcore over Hardcore, it is more a standard I hold myself to. Enjoy games how you want to enjoy them, that’s the most important thing.

There are two completion metrics tied to most games, there is Beaten, which requires you to acquire all “Progression” achievements. These would be the mandatory, bare minimums you need to do to beat the game. So, for example, in a game like Streets of Rage, you would be expected to play and complete all stages to be granted “Beaten” status on the game. And it is in this “Beaten” status that I started to engage with RetroAchievements. There is also the Completed/Mastered metric, this requires you to acquire all the achievements for that game, on Softcore or Hardcore respectively. The added benefit of reaching this status is that you can display all the badges of games you have Completed or Mastered on your profile.

Being a gamer since I was a child, I had the luxury of playing and experiencing a lot of games. There is a number of these games that I never finished. The idea that there existed a website that tracked and logged games that I had beaten appealed to me, it provided evidence that I had accomplished these things. We live in a very performative age, those who engage with social media provide people a window into their lives, and people understood that they could decorate that window however they wanted, presenting the most attractive, most appealing, or most interesting person of themselves with scant evidence. Not everyone does this all the time, but I will admit I am guilty of playing into this game myself. Now, we can argue that me talking about the games I have mastered on RetroAchievements is still playing into that performative social media, and I acknowledge that, in part, some of the reason why I post about it is to show off, to prove that I have done it. I think, part of this comes from when I was younger, and I remember playing GTA San Andreas. Through tenacity and effort, I fully completed the driving, boating and flying schools, obtaining their respective rewards. A friend of mine didn’t believe me, it was a common joke that I was bad at driving and flying in GTA, so clearly, I must have cheated to do that. Admittedly this correlation was only something I made as I was writing this section.

Let’s back it up a bit however, as I feel this could be a ramble and I am not looking to get into today. At a base level, there was something very enjoyable about being able to go through games I had never finished as a kid, finally get the upper hand on them and that accomplishment be logged. Alien 3 for SNES, Driver for PS1, Gremlins 2 for NES, RoboCop vs Terminator for the Sega Genesis. All of these were games I had unfinished business with. Sure, there are sites like HowLongToBeat or apps like FUZE which allow you log, track and rate games you have played. Perhaps my hang-up there was that it was very much marking my own homework, so to speak. I beat the game because I said so, trust me. It’s in part why I had started recording on YouTube, to provide tangible evidence that I had played and completed various games. The other part, which was more important was to be able to share the gaming experience with other people, sharing games I found or ones I enjoyed with a potential audience. I suppose, what is nice, is when I talk about these games whether it be on the Fediverse or when I finally get around to dumping words into the Nest, I am able to do it from an educated and experienced perspective. My feelings and thoughts carry a little more authenticity, perhaps.

So, what had started as a means to go back and deal with the unfinished business of my past developed into something a bit more. Learning that the SNES game Space Megaforce was actually part of a wider series called Aleste encouraged me to check those out. Delighted by the experience, especially with GG Aleste 3. It made me engage with such as things that sometimes made it onto “Weird Game” listicles, such as Dog of Bay or GERMS. In fact, what has become a bit of a past time for me now is to go through the list of games and actively looking for potential hidden gems across the gaming generations. Finding games that catch my eye for one reason or another and playing it to completion so I feel confident in talking about it. There is a phenomenal wealth of games out there, and I would say the majority of them don’t get talked about enough.

Another element of my, quite frankly addiction, to all of this is holding myself to some degree of accountability. I am notorious for buying games in bundles, installing them and playing them for a few hours, enjoying them and... Just... Never picking them up again. I mean, my Let’s Plays were also part of that frame of mind. Start a game and see it through to completion, you owe it to your audience to do so. Easier to do with Retro Games, but I want to talk about my pivot to Retro Games in a different Nest ramble. We’re talking achievements at the moment. Through the site and the achievement tracking, I can physically quantify how many things I have unfinished, and getting even the progression achievements is a good enough carrot on a stick to keep me motivated and focused.

There is perhaps more to dig into, more to divulge on the subject, and I hope this has given anyone who has read this a little more insight into myself as a person. As I said in the opening paragraph, this was more of an exercise to explain to myself, justify my own thoughts and actions. I acknowledge the negative aspects and what people may interpret based on what I share online, a part of it is that self-validating ego trip. I am impressed with what I have done, some achievements that have been made are downright diabolical, and I want others to be impressed by me. Seeing that number of mastered games slowly increase, hitting site milestones. I enjoy that external validation.

I think though, I want to end this on something a little more positive, RetroAchievements has given me an avenue to explore games I would never have known existed, it has also provided new ways to experience or challenge myself on games that I know very well and love. They have allowed me to finally have the motivation to go back to games from my childhood and conquer, what felt were like, insurmountable tasks. It has provided me a degree of focus and has helped me finish things that I have started. My games library across all the platforms I own almost gives me option paralysis, in a similar way that you can go onto Netflix and spent hours scrolling before finally settling on something familiar… Okay that’s more of a self-control issue, I can’t attribute RetroAchievements fully for that, but it does set end-goals for the games I play. Sometimes, admittedly, that end goal is significantly longer than it needs to be for said game, that’s a poor life choice on my part. And ultimately, the thing that gives me the most joy in all this, is that I can take these experiences, turn around and say to you, “There is value in you checking this out”, it doesn’t need to be for the same reasons or under the same conditions that I am doing it. And with any luck, I can get some discourse around it. Discourse around memories of playing it from your youth, or perhaps you picked it up after I showcased it. As I mentioned there is a wealth of games out there, that I think need to be talked about more, so much vision and potential that could inspire someone. RetroAchievements has given me a means to explore this and bring it up from the depths for more people to potentially enjoy. This doesn’t mean I won’t talk, occasionally, about a well-known game as this is about generating discourse about games in general.

I think, looking back at what I have written, provides some context but I do think it scratches the surface of the entire thing. A deep-dive on the subject is not something I can currently articulate on, but I think, in time, and if I make more exploratory posts we can explore the depths a little more. As I said, this was more about helping me understand myself, figuring out what motivates and drives me. And from that, maybe I can actually understand what I want from this entire experience.

Aliens: Infestation (DS)

We’re in the pipe, five by five.

Aliens: Infestation sounds like the name of a mid-at-best fanfic set in the Aliens universe. The subtitle itself is just lazy and a bit cliché, kind of like having the subtitle Resurrection, Requiem, Rebirth, Armageddon, Apocalypse… The list goes on, though plenty of Rs in there. That opening line hurts me a little bit, deep down, because I had an idea of writing an Aliens fanfic, with the subtitle Infestation back when I was about 18 or 19, the best I could come up with at the time was an opening draft which I quite liked. It opened with a colony’s log, stating that things were not going well. Emergency lockdown procedures had been activated, communications array is damaged, and fires had broken out in numerous sectors. The number of colonists sitting in the low 20s, before dropping by a couple of digits. It all gives the feelings of the aftermath of a disaster and it being an Aliens fanfic, you better believe it was a Xenomorph related disaster. We then jump back two weeks, and that was where the draft ended. I just couldn’t figure out at the time how I was going to go from A to B. That’s strictly speaking not true, the route was going to be Weyland Yutani doing something stupid, as they are prone to do and using the colony as a test bed of sorts, maybe via the means of a controlled incident. I wasn’t terribly original. This being said, I can’t be 100% sure what the original plan was, in fact, I had buried this memory deep underneath my “excellent working memory” of games. I should note that my memory is pretty shocking at the best of times, but I can probably tell you all the secrets in Episode 1 of Ultimate Doom. So, make of that what you will.

Sadly, there isn’t too much of a digression this time before we get into the game in question. There is only so many times I can talk about my previous traumas that have been inflicted on me by the Aliens franchise and how I am weirdly drawn to these titles because I enjoy the adrenaline rush of being scared out of my mind. What I will say about Aliens: Infestation is that it was the last physical DS game I bought brand new. Released in September 2011, approximately 6 months after the release of the 3DS in the UK. I can’t remember how I came about this game, I must have caught wind of a 2D action platformer for Aliens, which seemingly came out the blue, following the flop that was Aliens: Colonial Marines. Perhaps when I was younger my finger was significantly more on the pulse of upcoming games. Nowadays I am so firmly under a rock, but this is quite a cosy rock of nostalgia and discovery. Aliens: Infestation came out at a time when the expectations for a new Aliens game were absolutely rock bottom, you need to understand that Infestation came out 3 years before Alien Isolation did.

Developed by WayForward, a company who with a rather mixed history of releases. Probably what catapulted them to particular repute was Shantae, which I must admit I don’t have much of a history with. Other than that, they had a tranche of licensed video games based off cartoon properties, including Justice League, Spongebob, Shrek and even American Dragon: Jake Long (I had honestly forgotten that was a thing, but seeing that name brings back some oddly vivid images). It should be noted that WayForward have done some absolutely amazing games, past and present. Besides Shantae, games like Bloodstained and River City Girls immediately come to mind. Perhaps at the time of release, the news of it being developed by WayForward wasn’t the most exciting news, but I can imagine bringing it up now would definitely get some people looking back with renewed interest. Based off some of WayForward’s catalogue, it shouldn’t be too surprising that their approach to Aliens was to make a MetroidVania of sorts. I say of sorts, because on reflection I would say that this game hits the bare minimum requirements of being a MetroidVania, but I would probably file this more under an action/platformer with hints of MetroidVania.  

Part of the reason why I am hesitant to call this game a MetroidVania is more around the structure of the game, being divided into 5 missions, with missions 1, 3, and 5 taking place on the game’s main map, the Sulaco. Oh yes, that Sulaco, the one from Aliens. If you are having flashbacks to Aliens: Colonial Marines, I hear you but trust me on this one. Every time you return to the Sulaco you can explore a little deeper, but there is something about this game flow that doesn’t quite feel true to the MetroidVania styling. Mission 2 takes place on LV-426, as if the atmospheric processor exploding and leaving a vapor cloud the size of Nebraska wasn’t going to leave part of that planet being a barren wasteland. Okay, that is unfair, I don’t believe the LV-426 section of the game was set at Hadley’s Hope, but at an unspecified military outpost. It is, however, within driving distance of a crashed ship, presumably the one from Alien. I can’t imagine Hadley’s Hope was too far away from that site either. Also, I don’t know how big Nebraska is, but I imagine it is one of the bigger states. Not Texas big, obviously. Mission 4 takes place on Phobos, the Mars moon. Man, if it isn’t demonic invasion, it is Weyland Utani and Xenomorphs, give Phobos a break!

So, let’s backtrack a little bit, back to Mission 1 and get the plot in motion. The USCM aboard the USS Sephora, find the USS Sulaco adrift in space, a life form is detected on the ship and they send over some marines to find and recover that life form. Yes, the astute of you may think, this is awfully similar to Colonial Marines! Something I remember catching on my playthroughs of this game, but don’t worry, as far as I can tell, Corporal Hicks is still dead. Upon boarding the Sulaco, you are introduced to your playable characters, yes this game has playable characters! We have Cameron, I presume named after Aliens Director, James Cameron, a gruff and tough but seemingly fair leader. Whistler, a private and clearly incredibly green around the gills. There is Johnston, who is the games equivalent of Vazques, and Paulson who… Umm… I don’t actually know anything about him. The game has an initial sequence where these characters interact, but after that, all dialogue is between the character you are playing as and Patrick Steele, you’re acting commander in chief. Still, what I will say, that opening bit of dialogue between those four characters was better characterisation than we got throughout the whole of Colonial Marines. These four characters, effectively, act as extra lives and the game features a perma-death system where if a character falls in combat they are either dead or having been taken to a hive location where they can be rescued. Though, I can’t say for certain if they are a ticking time bomb after you rescue them, as I never really explored that, opting to play the game as death-less as possible. Should a marine fall in combat, you can find other marines around the various maps who will join up with you if you have a team of less than 4 marines. Any marine found will be added to the marine dossier in the game’s Extras menu, which gives you a detailed profile on each character. Depending on who you are playing as, I imagine there is a bit of variation in the dialogue, so theoretically, there is a potential for replayability here.

So, we spend the first few minutes of the game, exploring a deserted Sulaco, trying to locate a datacentre to download the ship’s schematics. The opening of the game does a great job of building the tension as you are alone, but don’t feel it. There is also a jump scare moment as a dramatic string plays and a cat falls from the ceiling. This happens a few times over the course of the game, which seems unnecessary after the first instance. You’ll crawl through some vents and encounter some Xenomorph hive space, and eventually a dead body of someone from a third-party paramilitary contractor, shortly afterwards you will encounter some automatons, and blast your through them with your trusty pulse rifle. This Pulse Rifle holds 95 bullets in its magazine. Weird choice, the digital display goes up to 99, and that has been a staple of Alien games for the longest time. You also have grenades in your underbarrel launcher, which makes me absurdly happy, it’s the details I like and giving the Pulse Rifle some justice is always nice. Eventually, as you explore, you’ll get yourself a motion tracker, which… Why didn’t we have this to begin with? I mean, we’re doing a search and rescue mission, you’d think that going in equipped with a motion sensor would be a given? Budget cuts, I swear. After we get the motion tracker, we are given a location on the map to investigate, and this is where we encounter our first Xenomorph, a rather nasty looking warrior harassing some woman. This encounter is a bit like a mini-boss, this Xenomorph is a lot tougher than any standard enemy you will be encountering from now on. But after it is defeated, the gloves come off and Xenomorphs will start ambushing you in rooms that were previously empty. This is where your motion tracker is vital, on your map, it will highlight enemies in rooms, even if they are waiting in ambush. It’s less of a motion tracker and more like a lifeform finder.

 

 

It isn’t too long before we encounter our first boss fight, and the first time you do this encounter you will probably get absolutely wrecked. As you fall deeper into hive space, we encounter, what appears to be a Queen. The Queen will chase you around, attacking you with claws, bites and a tail attack, you have to shoot her in the crown portion of her head to do damage (It flashes green when damaged). The easiest way to do this is to stand on one of the low platforms in the room and be near the edge of it and blast away at her, with any luck you can stun lock her and drop her after a couple of clips. This is a common thing you will encounter with the bosses in this game, they are surprisingly tanky. After the Queen is defeated, you’ll find the woman again and then you’ll move from the Sulaco to a mission on LV-426. As mentioned previously, it is a bit of a weird element of the game flow, most MetroidVanias take place on contiguous maps, Aliens: Infestation doesn’t, and in my opinion it somewhat hampers the experience a little bit. The sections on LV-426 and Phobos being disconnected means that when you are in those areas you can explore everything there is to offer in those locations, and it also means that exploring the Sulaco isn’t worth doing too much until you reach the chapter 5. That’s not entirely true, but the majority of goodies to find on the Sulaco are locked behind late game items.

Whilst we are on LV-426, we will find a new weapon, the Shotgun, which is okay, I guess. Never been a huge fan of shotguns in Alien games, close encounters with Xenomorphs are not a good time, what with the teeth, claws and not forgetting the acid blood. With a little bit of exploration you will also find weapon upgrade kits, each weapon in the game can be boosted to +3, though I wouldn’t be able to tell you what that actually means in terms of damage output. From here, I don’t want to get into too much of the nitty gritty of the story and game flow because we have kind of covered everything within the first mission and going into the second mission. Something that is a little disappointing with Aliens: Infestation is beyond the weapon upgrade kits, and the odd additional Marine, there is little reason to go off the beaten path or explore all that thoroughly. There are no additional hidden extras to find, which I think is a bit of a missed opportunity, even the Smartgun, the BFG of the Aliens universe isn’t hidden and there is little reason to not use that weapon once it becomes available.

The game itself isn’t terribly long, which can be seen as a good thing. Unlike a game like Metroid, where you obtain abilities that make the exploration a bit more interesting, opening up alternative routes and also secret ones, every item in Aliens: Infestation is just a different flavour of key, meaning that the gameplay itself doesn’t actually change, fighting enemies doesn’t really change too much and neither do the exploration options. Sure, your usual upgrade avenues like a double jump are probably not applicable in this setting. So, with that in mind, I am somewhat torn. I really enjoyed playing the game, but the way it is, would I want it to be any longer than it actually is? Perhaps if the entire game was set on LV-426 or Phobos, and you go between sprawling maps, a bit like how Portrait of Ruin or Order of Ecclesia did its world, discovering different Weyland Utani research bases that have different breeds of Xenomorphs. I think the game played a little too safe with the enemies, Aliens as a franchise has a lot of potential with variants on the Xenomorph. The game does introduce a new Xenomorph variant, which I believe is based off a gorilla, but beyond that you spend most of your time fighting Drones and Warriors. It’s a bit of a shame, but it is what it is.

I may sound overwhelmingly negative towards Aliens: Infestation, which I would admit is a bit unfair to it. I think in hindsight it is easy to point out the flaws and shortcomings of the game, and in doing so I am, sadly, glossing over the successes. Perhaps it is because I have been viewing this game through the lens of more traditional MetroidVanias, which sets expectations of gameplay, and I would highly encourage anyone else who picks this up to not go on with those kinds of pre-conceived notions. Aliens: Infestation is best interpreted as a straight up action game, to a certain extent I would argue it is quite similar to the SNES Alien 3. Each level is a mini-maze of a map with multiple missions on it, though SNES Alien 3 is a little more open in the order you approach the missions. The perma-death system and recruitable marines are an innovative approach to the archaic lives system, and the fact they can add a bit of variety to the dialogue in the game is a nice bonus. I think it is also important to say that Aliens: Infestation is fun to play, which is a factor that does supersede a lot of my criticisms. No game is without its flaws, and I have always been of the opinion that if you have to get incredibly minor and inconsequential with the flaws, it just shows how much you really enjoy the game. You find faults because you care. Sometimes, I admit, I care a little too much, and whenever Alien games are concerned, that is definitely the case. 

Coca-Cola Kid (GameGear)

 

Coke fuelled adventure to rescue your teacher!

 

Before we had Pepsi Man, we had Coca-Cola Kid. Well, I say we did, Coca-Cola Kid was apparently a Japanese mascot for Coca-Cola. I say apparently because I have done a couple of cursory searches and not coming up with as much as I was hoping, just more information and reviews about the game. So perhaps, if he was indeed a mascot, it was an incredibly short-lived thing or just existed for the purpose of advertising via the means of a Game Gear game. But, who is the Coca-Cola Kid? You may find yourself asking, well, it isn’t a reference to the 1985 Australian romantic comedy The Coca-Cola Kid.

Based on “The Americas, Baby” and “The Electrical Experience” by Frank Moorhouse, this Coca-Cola Kid is a marketing executive who is trying to understand why a small Australian town is resisting the urge to consume coke. It turns out they all drink a locally brewed soft drink made by an old man. During the course of the movie, our Coca-Cola Kid, learns the errors of his ways and the part he plays in BIG COLA, and I assume he falls in love with the old man, and gives up his high paying job to live a quaint and quiet life… Hang on, I’ve been watching way too many Hallmark movies with the wife. Though that synopsis sounds exactly like one of the many dozens of films we have watched together. Regardless, I feel I should probably watch this movie at some point, just because it all sounds incredibly silly, and based on that plot, is it supposed to be an advertisement for Coca-Cola or is it a warning about beverage giants? I also must question the Wikipedia entry on this film, as it mentions “Humorous subplots involving the office manager’s violent ex-husband”, hold the god damn phone for one moment. Humourous and violent partners really don’t belong in the same sentence. It was the 1980s… A different time. A time before Pepsi Man.

 

Let’s fast forward a decade, it is 1994, only five years away now, and we see the release of the Japanese exclusive Sassou Shounen Eiyuuden Coca-Cola Kid. Now, my Japanese is rusty and translating Japanese can be an absolute pain in the butt, admittedly the only word I knew for certain was Shounen being boy. Sassou can be translated as dashing, or gallant, that first meaning will be important down the line. Eiyuuden seems like a truncation of Eiyuudensetsu, for heroic tale. So for a translation of the full title, we could go with “Tale of the young dashing hero”, which was the Google Translate approved version, I’m more partial to something like “Dashing Boy’s Hero Tale”, though I suppose there is no possessive particle being Shounen and Eiyuuden, so that probably wouldn’t work. “Heroic Tale of the Gallant Boy?” I’m getting way too caught up on a comfy translation of what is possibly seen as a subtitle to the game. What can I say, I find language fun!

Anyway, moving past the title, let’s talk about Coca-Cola kid himself, named Koki (Or Cokey in the fan translation). Not sure why they didn’t go with Koka, possibly as that would sound too similar to the product itself and because Koki sounds cuter, more child-like. I promise the language hat is coming off now. Also, going forward we will refer to the character as Cokey to fit with the fan translation. When we see Cokey on the title screen of the game, he flies in on a skateboard, circling a Coca-Cola logo, it was the 90s, of course he is into skateboarding! He appears to be wearing a large white overshirt with a yellow t-shirt underneath, white shoes and a yellow cap, which he wears backwards. This character design really is some kind of condensed concept of what a cool kid would look like in the 90s according to nearly every media source going. I imagine he drops some absolute sick slang and sees himself as pretty rad.

 

Certified bad-assery aside, we actually have a cutscene before we hit the title screen, which sets the plot in motion for the game. It’s an ordinary day at school, Ms Sakurako, which for some reason I really struggled to read during my Let’s Play of this game, is approached by Mr Iwayama whom I assume is another teacher. However, he throws off his disguise, gets a mohawk and knocks out Ms Sakurako with, what I assume is a gas bomb of sorts. Mr Iwayama proceeds to kidnap Ms Sakurako for reasons, honestly, I have no idea why any of this is happening because at no point are we provided a motive for this. Typically there is more detail in the instruction manual, older games love to have significantly more in-depth story there, for obvious reasons, old games older action games were light on story to use game space for… Well… Action. Anyway, Cokey overhears Ms Sakurako’s scream and embarks on his adventure to rescue her, because this is clearly not a matter for the police, but for a child with a clear coke addiction. Coca-Cola addiction that is, obviously. Is this happening during school, or has school ended for the day? The questions are mounting.

Following that opening, and the title screen we jump straight into the game, Cokey rides onto the screen as the game tells us we are in the Downtown stages and we’re good to go. The game plays like a pretty straightforward platformer, we are trying to get from the left to the right, jumping with one button and attacking with another. In the Downtown area we have kickboxers and robotic birds as our adversaries. Trying to deliver jump kicks to the birds seems to be quite wonky, the game’s hitboxes are a little whimsical at times. So, something I thought as I was playing through the first few stages, the game allows you to pick up lots of momentum and has ramps and different routes through the level. It all feels very much like a Sonic game, and much to my surprise when I looked into this I learnt the game was developed by a company called Aspect. Aspect have a handful of games in their library, two of them are Sonic 2 and Sonic Chaos for Game Gear. I feel this helps contextualise some of the design choices in this game, and this goes beyond the momentum mechanics and alternative routes. The game structure is the same as Gamr Gear Sonic, with 3 stages per world, the 3^rd stage being a dedicated boss stage. There is one more thing that convinces me that this game is essentially a Sonic game.

Cokey has a dash attack.

I did say the word “dashing” in the translated title would make sense and come into play! By holding down on the D-Pad, and pressing the jump button, Cokey will power-up like some kind of Dragonball Z character and releasing down will send him shoulder barging his way forward at high speed, hitting enemies, destructible items, and going down slopes keeps the dash active allowing you to move across the stage at quite high speeds. Jumping during a dash will you into a long jump, allowing you to clear large gaps and probably overshoot the platforms you want to land on. This is a common issue I have with games that have speed implemented into it, a lot of the time there is also precise platforming and the two things don’t mesh well, for obvious reasons. Alongside these moves, Cokey has an additional mobility move, and that is wall jumping. Wall jumps are done in the same way as New Super Mario Brothers, there is no timing involving, coming into contact with a wall will have Cokey slide down it slowly and you can jump off whenever you please. With the dash attacks, walls jumps and long jumps in hand, this game does open the opportunity for quite impressive speed runs as you fly across the screen.

So, besides the moves, you also get a few different pickups, two of which seem to fully disappear from levels by the 3^rd world, a lot happens in the 3^rd world, we’ll get to that after this. A lot of the time, you will find either coins, coke in two varieties disposable cup and glass bottle (Classy) and additional one-ups, and some areas can make you pretty flushed with these items. Along the straightforward route of stage 3-1 you can get 2 one-ups in a row, and these items respawn when you die, so, that’s an infinite one-up trick just waiting for you. You can also get large silver coins. Coins are used at the end of the world, and they can be used at a vending machine to either buy a continue, buy a health upgrade, or buy an elusive Coke disc, an item that provides Cokey with not only a projectile attack, but if he takes damage whilst he has a Coke disc, he doesn’t lose health but he does lose the disc. It’s… Not very good, truth be told, odds are when you enter a new world you will probably take damage early on and lose it and never get a chance to use the power-up. I was able to find a Coke disc in stage 1-1 in a hidden area, and perhaps there are more of them throughout the game’s 10 non-boss stages, but I never found them. The last power-up that needs to be talked about, just because it is just so bad. Remember that Cokey was is portrayed as a potential radical, rebellious sort, one that likes to skateboard? The skateboard appears as a power-up in the game in the first two worlds and makes you invincible, moves at a moderate speed and accelerates greatly as it hits slopes. Sounds great, but here is the rub, colliding with boxes, or other destructible terrain elements will cause you to lose the skateboard, and a number of times, these skateboards are placed pretty close to something that will cause you to immediately dismount it. It all feels like a functionally useless power-up, even more so when dashing and dash jumping is a much faster means to get through a level.

Despite being, essentially, an advertising game, Coca-Cola Kid becomes surprisingly light on the marketing. Sure, the first world, Downtown, has you flying by several stores with large Coke banners, but once we get to the Ruins, the third world any and all advertising is gone, it would have been cool to have the level have some run downs remnants of Coca-Cola billboards, maybe some broken vending machines, etc. But, no, heck the Ruins levels also barely have any health pick-ups from what I saw, and there is this one enemy who will be the bane of your existence in these stages. After that, Cokey heads to a Steel Mill, which really gives me Metropolis Zone vibes, before we arrive at our final destination, the Disco. This surely would have been a peak location to have Coca-Cola advertising, y’know, bring it all home, remind people who have been Coca-Cola starved for a whole two worlds to remind them who commissioned this game (I assume they did). There is something Coca-Cola signs in the Steel Mill and Disco, but I had to replay the stages and actually pay attention to the background to notice them. That probably says more about me!

So, after jumping, dashing, kicking, skateboarding and generally just bad-assing your way your through all the stages, beating the bad guys and rescuing your teacher, she thanks you with a massive hug. It must be quite a tight hug as Cokey expresses that he is struggling to breathe against the teacher’s chest, before falling to the floor, unconscious or dead, it is hard to tell how badly the boy was suffocated by his teacher’s bosom. Roll credits. Well, that was weird. Mostly just the ending. The overall game is quite enjoyable, though it does suffer from similar issues I have with Sonic games in general. Sonic games want to put an emphasis on speed, however, visibility of upcoming danger is very limited, the skateboard epitomises this perfectly, with some of them only a few meters away from something that will knock you off them. Sure, you may say that the speed element is more for people who know the stages well and it is a show of skill to blast through them. The game is short enough that is it isn’t the hardest thing to commit levels to my short-term memory to make it appear I am competent at speedrunning this game.

It is a shame that this was only released in Japan, though it was also a Game Gear game, I can't say for certain how well the Game Gear did internationally, perhaps it wouldn't have done that well. Overall, the game is quite fun, when you are not being harassed and bullied by certain enemies or failing at some of the games awkward platforming challenges. For a game that I feel only exists as a further extension of Coca-Cola’s on-going dominance of hearts, minds, screens and just anything they could try to slap their logo on, it is a fun little game to play through that doesn’t leave a bad taste in your mouth, unlike other advertising games.

I did a full Long Play on my channel, available here:

https://youtu.be/J9kF7Q5SG74

Alien Trilogy - PS1

I admire it’s purity… Unclouded by conscience or remorse…

So, all things considered, I decided that I wanted to give Alien Trilogy a play. Alien Trilogy is a first-person shooter seeing Ripley trying to liberate LV-426 from Weyland-Utani and an infestation of Xenomorphs. The game is divided into three acts, each act taking inspiration from one of the three movies, hence Trilogy being in the title. The first act is in the colony of LV-426 from Aliens, the second act takes place in a prison on the planet and features the “Dog” Alien from Alien 3, and the final act is on what is dubbed the “Bone ship” which refers to the crashed spaceship found in Alien. All acts take a lot of inspiration from the settings of their respective films, featuring locations that feel very relatable to the source material. 

 

At the start of each stage, you will be presented a text blurb detailing a little about the area you are entering and a vaguely defined mission, that vaguely defined mission is incredibly important, and we will get to that in a moment. Upon leaving the starting elevator “safe room”, you will be bombarded by the atmosphere that this game is presenting. Dark foreboding corridors, oppressive music and just an overwhelming sense of dread. Perhaps that is just me, because this is like something out of the reoccurring nightmares I have surrounding Xenomorphs. Despite working with USCM, Ripley enters the colony with just a pistol, a pistol that makes the Doom pistol feel like a decent side-arm. Sure, the pistol can deal with the face huggers in one or two shots and only if they are coming at you one at a time. Anything bigger than a face hugger and you’ll be wanting something a little beefier. Graciously, in this game, if a face hugger jumps on you, it will not kill you outright, a pixellated mess of a face hugger will occupy most of your screen and chip away 5 health from you each time they latch on. It should be noted that after they have done their business your vision will clear, and the face hugger will die.

Besides your pistol, you are also equipped with a motion tracker that is in the bottom right corner of your screen, and it provides a 360 degree sweep and functions as your most vital tool in staying alive, though it only picks up enemies that are moving, so any enemies who are waiting in ambush around corners won’t get picked up until they start moving towards you. Within the first mission, it isn’t long until you get your shotgun, yes please! I played enough Doom, I know how useful a shotgun could be, especially as most enemies in this game will be rushing towards you allowing you to greet them with a load of lead into their bodies. Your first encounter with a Warrior type xenomorph will probably induce far more panic than you were anticipating. Firstly, Warriors move fast and slightly erratically, so trying to hit them isn’t the easiest. Secondly, depending on difficulty, it might take anywhere between 3 to 5 blasts from your shotgun to drop a Warrior. That’s a ridiculous amount of firepower for what will be a relatively common enemy in this game. Finally, the amount of damage they can do, I believe, is about 10-15 points of damage, which early game is very painful. If your sense of dread isn’t peaking, you are made of tough stuff. Ammo in the game feels weirdly plentiful and rather scarce at the same time, admittedly, it took me a while to learn there are some small boxes and lockers I could destroy in the first few levels that had a tendency to drop more health and ammo, but I was also playing the game on Xenomania difficulty, which causes enemies to respawn, a bit like Doom’s Nightmare difficulty, but I will get into that a bit further down the line.

So, now that the game thinks you are appropriately acclimatised, the LV-426 stages begin to ramp up in the number of enemies, especially the Warriors, occasionally dropping them on you in pairs or more, which makes for an immediately bad time at least until you get more firepower. Let’s take a step back and talk a little about the missions in the game because when you clear a stage, you will get a rating on how many kills you got, secrets found and mission completed, all expressed as a percentage, the objectively worst way to present game stats. During the loading screen, you will be given a mission for the stage, in the case of the first stage it is clearing out the explosive barrels, later missions include destroying Alien eggs, collecting ID tags from captive colonists, turning on lights or unlocking doors. To beat a stage, you need to accomplish a certain amount of the objective for that stage. Failing to do so will mean you will have to re-do the stage until you accomplish the threshold for each act. The threshold of mission completion increases between acts, with the first act only requiring 25% of the mission objective to be complete, up to a total of 45% in act 3. This adds a little more complexity to what could have been a linear experience and does encourage you to explore levels. Another incentive for clearing as much of a stage as possible, every now and again, you will do a bonus level where the aim is to restock your ammo and armour.

I should probably talk a little bit about health and armour in this game. You start with a base 100 health, located all over the place in the game, you can find dermpatches, that function a little bit like the health bonuses from Doom. They boost your health above 100 by 1 point for everyone you find. This can be nice, but like Doom’s health bonuses it isn’t a permanent boost. More importantly is how armour works in this game, armour functions like a secondary health bar. Your health won’t deplete until your armour is reduced to 0. That’s not strictly true. Face Huggers that latch onto you bypass armour. Armour comes in two flavours, acid vests, that give you 100 points of armour and bodysuits that give you 200 points of armour. A good strategy for this game is trying to ride your current armour until the next pickup, meaning your health will go mainly unscathed throughout your playthrough. Another bonus of the armour is that it removes knockback from taking damage, this can be useful when dealing with the corporate enemies who shoot at you and can potentially cause knockback to inconvenience you. Corporate enemies are a bit of a boon in this game, firstly, defeating them can drop ammo and grenades, secondly even though they have pulse rifles and smart guns, the amount of damage they do is minimal. It’s a weird point of imbalance that a soldier with a pulse rifle does 1 damage per shot, whilst a chest burster can bite you for about 5 or 6 damage.

Another important item in your arsenal are grenades! Well, grenades and seismic charges. Besides using grenades as a useful side arm, that can kill any enemy in the game with a direct hit, they are vital tools to beating this game. You can use them to destroy certain walls, and at times destroying these walls is vital to finishing a level. Destructible items and walls in the game sound like they could be a frustrating experience, causing you to throw explosives at random walls in the hopes of uncovering secrets. Thankfully, the game is generous enough to make it easy enough to find walls that can be destroyed. As you go through a level, you will be slowly filling out an auto map that can be viewed by pausing the game, you can also find an auto-mapper, which displays most of the map for a level. When you look at the map, blue pixels on it show things that can be destroyed, whether it be boxes, lockers, or walls. This makes finding secrets and mandatory items or hidden passages a lot less stressful.

So, eventually, you will get yourself a Pulse Rifle, this will be your workhorse weapon for this game, and it is at this point I should talk about a quirk in the game that will save you ammo. Every time you hit an enemy, they will go through a pain animation, this pain animation provides them with invincibility frames, so whilst it might be tempting to just go full auto on your Pulse Rifle and Smart Gun to deal with your enemies you will waste ammo during this process, tapping the fire button on these weapons fires a short burst or 3 shots. By peppering enemies with short, concentrated bursts, you will kill things reasonably quickly. Tapping the fire button is a very efficient way to use the flamethrower as well, as you can burn through flamer insanely fast, and only have a couple of kills to your rampage. Killing the queens at the end of each act also benefit from these short bursts of bullets. Queens are ridiculously easy to kill, between stun locking them with well-timed bursts of bullets and the fact they move slower than most enemies mean you can run circles around them. It is a little disappointing how easy all three Queen fights are.

So, now that I have stopped bouncing from point to point as they come to mind, let’s continue our adventure. We’ve killed our first Queen, and moving from “section 1 to section 2”, this is where things get… Weird. Section 2 is based off Alien 3, being set in a Prison that seem to be located not too far away from Hadley’s Hope. We are introduced to the “Dog” Strain alien here, named as such because in the movie, the face hugger got a poor doggo to act as host. I’m more used to calling these Xenomorphs “Runners”, but that was because I used to play Alien vs Predator Extinction on the classic Xbox. Anyway, immediately when you encounter your first batch of Dog strain aliens, you’ll notice how much slower and weaker they are compared to the Warriors. Due to this, the whole second act feels way more comfortable than the first. Sure, I am misleading you a little bit, the first Dog aliens you encounter are juvenile ones, adult ones come in a bit later, but by the time they turn up, you’re armed to the teeth, potentially with a Smart Gun and gunning them down isn’t too challenging. It’s a weird quirk I have noticed with the Alien games I have played in the last year. Alien 3 on Genesis had a strangely easy final stretch, with a ball-busting opening act. 

 

So, when I did my run of this game, I decided in my infinite wisdom I would do it on Xenomania difficulty. It terms of enemy number, I believe it is the same as the difficulty below, Raging Terror… Because naming things Easy, Normal and Hard doesn’t have any flavour. Xenomania does have enemies respawn, now unlike Doom’s Nightmare difficulty where respawning enemies are on a timer after they are killed, in Alien Trilogy enemies will respawn if you move a certain distance away from their dead body. So, levels that involve backtracking or getting lost can lead to you respawning dead warriors and burning through your ammo. So, the first act of this game was ridiculously challenging as there was one time I was down to just my pistol, and it takes way too many bullets to put a stop to a Warrior who is barrelling towards you. Respawning also impacts the corporate soldiers as well, theoretically meaning it is possible to farm ammo drops from them. It isn’t a guarantee that they will drop ammo, but typically I found that I was coming out with a net positive on ammo in most cases when I was forcing soldiers to respawn. Though I wouldn’t rely on this, as forcing them to respawn may cause more enemies to respawn than you want to, and late into the final act the amount of corporate soldiers is incredibly low. Though, something that can help with Xenomania is that for an enemy to respawn, the game requires a dead body, using a direct hit from a grenade or seismic charge will not leave a body, therefore you can stop certain enemies from respawning.

I should note that my run on this game was also done with RetroAchievements in mind. Hence the Xenomania difficulty, but another thing that is really strange in this game. You’ll probably notice this when you play the game on Raging Terror or Acid Reign (Normal and Easy respectively), that when you beat a stage you are not getting 100% kills. This is because, for whatever reason, the threshold to get 100% kills doesn’t seem possible on those difficulties and it relies on you playing the game on Xenomania to get full clears on each stage. It’s quite bizarre, and incredibly frustrating, as I had to do two full playthroughs of this game to ensure I picked up those achievements.

So, minor RetroAchievements digression aside, chances are you’d be playing this just to experience and playthrough the game, and I will say that this is possibly one of the best Alien based games ever made. It captures the essence of what would make for a good Alien shooter, there are a couple of levels that are infuriatingly dark and even though you can find night vision googles or a shoulder lamp to help you navigate these areas, they only last about 30 seconds or so. Keep in mind that the warrior Xenomorph is also black, thankfully we have the motion tracker to help keep you alive. This is the kind of game that could really benefit from a modern remaster, as one of the criticisms at the time was that the Xenos themselves didn’t look good despite using some exciting motion capture technology at the time.