Review by: Pete Hines
Published: January 14, 1997

Alien Trilogy is a 3D action shooter from Acclaim and is the same type of game as Duke Nukem, Quake, and Doom. It is, of course, based on the original Alien movies and features those dreaded creatures. Your goal in this demo is to clear a landing area by eliminating all of the aliens (plus other enemies) and removing the barrels that you’ll find in several locations. There are three difficulty levels to choose from: Acid Reign, Raging Terror, Xenomania (more on these in the criteria).

You’ll start with only a 9mm pistol and a limited amount of ammo but you can get more on the way. During your mission you can find extra ammo for your 9mm, a shotgun, extra shotgun cartridges, a medipack (increase your health), an auto mapper, and other accessories (you’ll find batteries but there’s no shoulder lantern to be found, hmmm). The auto mapper allows you to see where you’ve been so far, in case you get turned around or lost. You can change weapons, use the auto mapper, or see what accessories you’ve got by hitting the key. Your game screen shows what weapon your using and how many rounds are left, shows a radar screen that indicates the location of an enemies in the immediate vicinity, and gives your health level.

The full version has a number of different enemies to face, including both humans (who have weapons) and aliens (who maim via other means). It also has a number of more powerful weapons and some extra accessory items. The full version will also include a multi-player option and music. Only two alien types are included in this demo (no humans), as well as some spider looking things called face-huggers. Unfortunately, the game grid in the demo isn’t very large and, with a little practice, you can completely clear the level in five minutes.

This game supports most of the control types including keyboard, Gravis pad and grip, joystick, Spacetec 360, and VFX1 headgear. There isn’t much documentation with this demo, but the readme file does give you info on controls and troubleshooting and Acclaim’s home page has a little more information on the full version. Those familiar with the aforementioned games will recognize the controls. You have directional controls (left, right, forward, back), strafe (or dodge) left and right, an action button, and weapons controls (plus a few other things). Now that you’ve got a feel for how the game is set up, let’s see how it rated…