Alien Trilogy

The Good
In Alien Trilogy, you must complete a series of tasks, which are outlined to you doing your mission briefing. These tasks include restoring power to certain areas and collecting identity tags from dead scientists. The missions lay across ten or more levels. Oh, and you have to destroy several xenomorphs along the way. These include incubating eggs, face-huggers, crawlers, and dog aliens. Out of these enemies, the face-huggers are hell to kill since they run very fast and you have to follow them while you are shooting in an attempt to kill them.

The weapons include pistols, machine gun, flame throwers, pulse rifles, and smart bombs. You can only use a certain weapon to kill an xenomorph quickly without wasting any time. You can also pick up seismic charges, which are very useful as no matter what xenomorph you encounter, it will be blown to pieces in one shot.

Completing each mission takes roughly 30 minutes to complete, but it is worth while to explore each of the areas fully, and this will take you through alien nests, prisons, derelict spaceships, communication rooms, labs, and more. Each of these locales have advanced technology and other gadgets. During your travels, you can obtain various power-ups. The best one I was able to get is the auto mapper. If you get this, then you will be able to pick out any secret areas that can increase your kill count, as most of these areas can contain hordes of xenomorphs. If you don't do enough in your mission before you reach the exit doors, you have to restart the missions. But if you complete 100% of the mission, you'll be able to enter an area where you can stock up on ammunition.

As I said earlier, most of the missions require you to restore power to certain areas. This requires you to find a panel and activate it. Doing so will operate a lift or power-up a door. Some panels will require you to collect one or two batteries and use it on the panel. Again, it is necessary to search every nook and cranny, and possible use the seismic charges to blow up crates and other things.

Alien Trilogy is a first-person shooter, and I like FPSes, since I like to explore areas more than just finding somebody to shoot. As you would expect, there are bosses at the end of each of the three areas in the game. You defeat the Alien Queen not once, but thrice. Cut-scenes of Ripley getting inside of a vehicle is shown right after one of the Alien Queens gets defeated.

Now let's talk about the interface, which is well designed. Rather than having the main indicators (health and ammo) listed as percentages, the indicators are represented with green lines that gradually increase or decrease. The health indicator is slightly different as it goes in a somewhat wavy pattern, and it is interesting just to see it move downward or upward if you lose or earn health. These indicators sit inside a black area that is well suited to the game. Other information is displayed right below the health indicator and not scattered all over the place. They are in one area only.

The weapons themselves look good, and they function correctly as you would expect. The locales, as well as the xenomorphs who inhabit it, look like they can do a lot of damage to you, especially if the same group of them is ganging up on you. The sound effects are the exact sounds from the Alien movies. For example, the motion tracker exactly sounds like the one in Aliens, with the faint sound meaning that there is an alien nearby. That faint sound gets louder as the alien is close to you.

The music consists of CD-Audio tracks, and some of the tracks sound futuristic. There are heaps of tracks to listen to as you play the game, and the track that I enjoyed most was the adrenaline-pumping track that portrays the battle of the Alien Queen.

The Bad
Some of the backgrounds are a bit blocky, and the Alien Queen doesn't look exactly like the one in the movies. The cut-scenes are also short.

The Bottom Line
Alien Trilogy is a first-person shooter where you have to destroy xenomorphs that get in your way using a series of weapons, and complete missions in the process. The game has you exploring interesting locales, and there are a ton of secret areas in each area, which can be revealed if you have the auto mapper. The sound effects are the same sound effects that you hear from the Alien movies. The graphics, as well as the interface, are well designed but can be crap at all times. This game is worth playing, especially if you like Alien-licensed games and FPSes.