Aliens is an arcade run'n'gun video game created by Konami and released in 1990. It is based on the second installment of the Alien franchise.The game pretty much follows the plot of the second movie closely, Ripley joins a bunch of Space Marines as Scientific Advisor and they all come across a colony in ruins infested to the brim with Xenomorphs. It's up to her and Hicks to take up arms and kick some Alien ass while keeping Newt, the sole survivor of the alien outbreak, safe. Virtually, the whole thing is quite similar to Contra (made by the same company and considered a spiritual adaptation for Alien games before Konami got the license to make this title.)
With a gameplay similar to that of the TMNT game, albeit with shoot em'up elements. Ripley must travel through each level while gunning down aliens, collecting power-ups that help her improve her weapons, regain health with scattered food, and defeating a boss at the end of each level. There are also a couple of bonus stages where she must reach Newt with the help of a Wayland-Yutani vehicle in a first-person view while killing all xenomorphs in her path. These levels are absent from the Japanese version (with good reason.)
While the game is pretty faithful to its source movie, it is also notable for adding several kinds of bizarre and unique xenomorph breeds (some even bordering on downright Surreal Horror) that were absent from the film as well as chestburster-controlled zombies called Infectoids. Some of these (namely the Infectoids and the Chrysalis boss) would eventually find their way in Capcom's Alien vs Predator arcade.
Tropes:
- Action Mom: Ripley, par the course, goes on to save her adoptive daughter Newt from a Xeno-infested hive just like her movie counterpart.
- Adaptational Badass:
- Ripley herself. While she was already a badass to begin with, this game has her fighting an entire army of Xenomorphs, including several powerful bosses. It's also possible to fight and kill the Alien Queen on foot instead of using the iconic power lifter from the movie. Ripley also has a much larger arsenal at her disposal and uses it like a seasoned soldier.
- The second player character, who is heavily implied (but never outright confirmed) to be Hicks also qualifies; in the movie, Hicks is wounded by a Xenomorph and has to remain on the shuttle while Ripley ventures alone into the facility to rescue Newt. Here, if there is a second player, he will follow Ripley on her mission and will even fight the Alien Queen by her side.
- Newt in the rescue mission can run on her own after waking up in the alien nest and doesn't need to be carried by Ripley unlike her movie counterpart.
- Adaptation Distillation: Several kind of bizarre xenomorph breeds show up as enemies and bosses (winged bat aliens, horned aliens, spider thingies which contain chestbursters, cobra-like aliens, the Chrysalis and a couple of electricity-based xenomorphs, to name a few).
- Adaptation Dye-Job: As seen on the front cover above, Ripley's hair is inexplicably colored blonde in the game. Probably done to avoid paying Sigourney Weaver for the use of her likeness.
- All Webbed Up: At one point, you come across a bunch of poor folks who got captured by the Xenos. You can't free them, and all you can do is watch them die painfully as chestbursters erupt from them to attack you.
- Big Bad: The Xenomorph Queen
- Composite Character: Ripley seems to be carrying the M56 Smart Gun exclusively used by Vasquez. The second player character, never identified as anyone in particular, similarly wields Drake's Smart Gun (and greatly resembles him) but is probably meant to be Hicks.
- Dual Boss: The electric Xenomorphs.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Enemies resembling Runner Xenomorphs appear, even though this kind of alien made its official debut in Alien3. The armored, mutant xenomorph called Chrysalis and the Infectoid zombies appeared here for the first time before they showed up again in Capcom's AvP beat'em'up.
- Flunky Boss: Certain bosses, such as the tentacled alien and the Queen in the first phase are often joined by weaker Xenomorphs which aid them.
- Recurring Boss: You face two huge egg-shaped aliens, one as a miniboss in stage three and the other in the penultimate level, just before the definite final battle against the Queen. The Queen herself as well, as you first fight her when she is still attached to her egg sack and later when she invades your ship.
- Shock and Awe: Ripley comes across a pair of Xenomorphs that can somehow control electricity.
- Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Gloriously averted. The Flamethrower has slightly less range than other weapons, but between the speed at which it fires, the amount of damage it does per shot, and the fact that it hits everything in a line instead of stopping at the first enemy it comes into contact with, it's widely considered to be the best weapon in the game.
