Aliens Online
Description official descriptions
Aliens Online was a massively multiplayer first person shooter released on the GameStorm subscription service. Players could choose to wield a pulse rifle as a member of the Colonial Marines, or stick to the shadows as one of H. R. Giger's iconic Aliens. Gameplay pit the two species against each other in a standard team deathmatch with limited respawns. Players could fight in one of five initial maps, with multiple games running simultaneously and selected from an in-game chat area and browser.
Maps ranged from a loose reproduction of the colony from Aliens, to a derelict spacecraft with an Alien hive in the lower levels. Every map had cramped air ducts or sewer pipes that the Aliens could speedily, and usually securely, make use of - with hatches that allowed the player to drop onto unsuspecting marines and rend them with claw and tail attacks.
Marines carried a selection of long-range firepower based on the weapons in the film. A lone marine only had access to a pulse rifle, pistol, shotgun, and motion tracker (deployed like a weapon, and not part of the HUD). Up to four marines could also band together in a fireteam, unlocking heavy weapons like the flamethrower and the auto-tracking SmartGun. Members of a fireteam could also open minature "helmet cam" windows for each of their teammates, and see a feed of what that player was seeing.
Kills and victories resulted in experience points, which were permanently tracked by character. XP milestones granted stat-increasing ranks to marines, making veteran soldiers tougher and deadlier. A similar system also existed on the Alien side, with XP points granting the ability for one player per open game to play as the Queen - a bigger and tougher Alien requiring teamwork to take down.
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Credits (Windows version)
23 People
| Executive Producer/Designer | |
| Lead Programmer, Production Manager | |
| Producer | |
| Lead Graphic Artist | |
| Storyboards, Graphic Artist | |
| Arena Designer, Associate Producer | |
| Graphic Artist | |
| Programmers | |
| Executive Producers | |
| Art Director | |
| Associate Art Director | |
| Graphic Artists | |
| Lead Sound and Music Designer | |
| Sound and Music Designer | |
| Sound and Music Designer and Programmer | |
| Lead Product Tester | |
| Executive Director Product Development |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 78% (based on 5 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.3 out of 5 (based on 3 ratings with 0 reviews)
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Discussion
| Subject | By | Date |
|---|---|---|
| "15 new Windows screenshots" | Dae (7182) | Dec 8, 2009 |
Trivia
Development
Aliens Online was originally released with only one game type - "Eradication." Players simply fought until the marines exhausted their supply of respawns (called "billets"), or every Alien on the map was wiped out (To recreate the sense of a proper infestation of Aliens, there were over a hundred computer-controlled drones wandering around each level. Alien players would jump to a new body when killed, while Marines could whittle down the Aliens' "lives" by killing the relatively-defenseless computer drones).
Later patches introduced more game types. A "capture the flag" mode required Marines to fight down to the Alien hive, remove a set number of eggs, and drag them back to the drop zone. A variant on this required Marines to lug explosive barrels from their drop zone to different areas on the map. A third mode disabled Marine respawns, and required them to reach an evac point inside the level before being wiped out by the Aliens.
Engine
Aliens Online used a modified version of Mythic Entertainment's engine for Rolemaster: Magestorm.
Facehugger
Original plans were for a new Alien player to begin as a lowly facehugger - killed by a single shot, and sporting only an embarrassingly weak tail whip as an attack. After a few kills, they would move up to the standard Drone, and then on to the Queen. This was never implemented, presumably because killing a player with a facehugger was so notoriously difficult that it would have driven off new players.
Instead, Drone became the default starting point on a player's evolution. However, facehuggers were still selectable as a playable character (with its own set of respawns aside from the main Alien pool). Veteran players would sometimes use them as a joke. Actually killing someone with the huggie was considered a badge of honor (or for the unlucky Marine, a badge of shame).
Shutdown
Online gameplay for Aliens Online was shut down on May 29, 2000.
Awards
- Interactive Achievement Awards (Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences)
- 1998 – Online Game of the Year – Nominated
Information also contributed by BurningStickMan
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Alien Legend - Aliens Online (Computer)
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Wolfang.
Additional contributors: Jeanne, Havoc Crow, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger.
Game added March 8, 2000. Last modified August 30, 2023.