This past week saw the release of the critically panned Aliens: Colonial Marines. The low rankings this game received have led many to believe that it’s next to impossible to make a good Alien game. However, if one looks to the past, there was a near perfect Alien game for Super Nintendo which was based upon the third film in the franchise. Playing as heroine Ellen Ripley, you make your way through the halls of a prison planet completing various objectives in a nonlinear format. Rather than producing a straightforward adaptation of Alien 3, LJN instead presents a nonlinear platforming game in which Ripley can use a different variety of weapons to defeat the Xenomorphs. The graphics are dark and dreary, perfectly suited for the horror franchise, and the soundtrack does a good job of making the already creepy atmosphere even more tense. This is one of those carts you’ll have to do some searching for, but if you’re a fan of the franchise, or if you like Metroid style sci-fi exploration, you’ll want to check out this classic.

In space, no one can hear you scream. Before Pitch Black, Dead Space, and any other space horror, there was Alien. The horrifying Xenomorphs scared moviegoers shitless throughout 3 films (and a forgettable 4th along with the two Alien vs Predator movies), hundreds of comic books, and several video games. Alien Trilogy, an FPS from the 32 bit era, bought players up close and personal to the xenomorphs like never before. While it clearly pales by today’s standards, Alien Trilogy matched the dark mood of the films like no other video game before it, and few games have afterward. Playing as series heroine Ripley, you shoot your way through a storyline loosely based on all 3 films in the franchise as you shoot various Aliens throughout an abandoned space colony. It’s you, along against the aliens in the colony’s dark hallways. While the graphics show their age, and the level design tends to be a bit confusing, Alien Trilogy stands as one of the best FPS games of the 32-bit era. There is little chance of it being available in any form, so this is a disc you’ll have to hunt down.