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.
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