Alien Trilogy

Description

Alien Trilogy combines characters, creatures, weapons, and locations from Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 within an alternative story built around combat. The player controls Ellen Ripley, reimagined as an armed combatant sent with Colonial Marines to investigate the loss of contact with the colony on LV-426. After the Marines are killed, Ripley fights through the infested colony, a prison complex inspired by Fiorina 161, and the crashed derelict spacecraft from the original film. Text briefings and occasional computer-generated sequences connect these settings, while three Alien Queens serve as major bosses. Each film’s arc is approximately ten missions for a total campaign of 30 levels.

The combat follows the conventions established by Doom, with the player navigating enclosed corridors and larger chambers while firing at enemies represented by animated sprites within three-dimensional environments. Mission briefings establish objectives such as eliminating a specified proportion of enemies, locating important items, rescuing or identifying colonists, and operating switches. Ammunition and health can become scarce unless the player thoroughly explores each map, with destructible or concealed walls hiding supplies and additional areas. The game reproduces the films’ atmosphere with Xenomorph cries and the disturbing voices of cocooned colonists, while the motion tracker’s recurring signals warns of movement without always revealing its direction. Dark corridors, short viewing distances, biomechanical environments, restrained lighting, and sudden attacks create a constant tension.

The Saturn port retains the content the PlayStation version but performance is uneven, likely due to utilising only a fraction of the Saturn power due to the architectural complexity developers faced. The game is at times mechanically simple with Boses and bullet sponge enemies. Contemporary reception was nevertheless favourable with quite positive reviews particularly given the atmosphere, recognisable arsenal, substantial campaign, and use of objectives and secrets. Despite deviating from the movies it provides a cohesive adaptation of the trilogy’s locations and iconography. The Saturn version may be less technically polished, but its unsettling design and extensive campaign make it one of the console’s more notable licensed first-person shooters.