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The Perfect Aliens Game I am slowly inching my way down a dimly lit hallway with my fellow soldiers by my side. I try to check each and every crevasse that I approach to make sure that there is no threats awaiting me. Suddenly, a fellow marine lets out a disgusting scream behind me and I turn around quickly only to see him being pulled up into the ceiling by one of those creatures. We all quickly ready our weapons, check our ammo gauges, and prepare for war. This vision brings back so many memories that I had in my younger years about taking on the role of my favorite characters in a video game. Ever since I can remember, I have wished and hoped for a video game that let me take on the role of an actual member of the United States Colonial Marines as seen in the great film of all time: Aliens. Even on the oldest of gaming systems using the most primitive of graphics, I cherished any taste of fighting the alien beasts that I could get. As I grew older, more opportunities came but only partially satisfied me in one way or another. But when I heard that a new first-person shooter game was based on the Alien franchise was in development, I was thrilled. Then when I found out that this new game is going to be solely based off the Aliens film, I became ecstatic. But this new discovery also made me think back to all of those years of putting up with whatever games were available to satisfy my Aliens gaming addiction. When my parents first allowed my brother and I to watch the Aliens movie when we were kids, I wanted to be able to relive those frantic and action-packed scenes in the video game world. At the time the only thing I could play was the Alien 3 game on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Although I still consider this game a classic today, it really is not a very accurate representation of the Alien films or any good at recreating any form of intense battle. Yes there were aliens and yes you could shoot them, but that is just not what I was looking for. Unfortunately, this is what I would have to deal with for many years to come until I they created a newer, more updated game. Then when I was about eight years old, I was walking through the Babbages game store (remember them?) and I stumbled on what I thought could be the greatest game ever made. It was called Aliens vs. Predator. I remember staring at the box and the screenshots on the back of it in awe. It was a first person shooter that actually let you take on the role of a marine! I became very excited and somehow convinced my grandmother to buy the game for me. This game was to be played on my computer and I thought that wouldn't be a problem at all. I mean, my computer could run Doom and Duke Nukem without a problem, so I can play anything, right? Well, I found out the answer to that when I finally got home and installed the game. Aliens vs. Predator loaded into the menus without a problem. Then I quickly selected to play the marine campaign first (obviously) and I watched in amazement at the cut scene that played before me and got even more eager to start the game. But then the screen went black and crashed to my computers desktop! I could not believe what just happened. I did everything that my eight year old mind could think of to fix the problem, but nothing worked. I eventually gave up and took the game back to the store and was told that I needed something called a "3D accelerator card" (now known as a video card) inside of my computer in order to play this game. And that meant that I needed a new computer and I knew that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. I was crushed, and I had to resort to watching the trailer for the game on the special edition VHS copy of Aliens. How sad. During the next couple of years, I had to resort to playing some of the most agonizing games from the franchise. I tried out Alien Trilogy on my PS console, but it really did a bad job at recreating the films. The graphics were muddy and that was the case for pretty much every other aspect of that game. Then I tried out Alien: Resurrection, and just like the film it was very disappointing. So now I was stuck without anything to play until the day finally came when my parents decided to purchase a new computer. And I think that it is pretty clear as to which game I will be getting first to play on the new machine. After finally acquiring Aliens vs. Predator again, I could not wait to finally get a chance to play it. This time, it worked! I played through each and every campaign on that game three or four times at least. I was then introduced to the online gaming scene and was able to play people all over the world on my speedy 56k connection. I would play the game any chance that I could get. I really did not think that a game could get any better than that. But looking back now, I can clearly see some things that game lacked. I will admit that the game had great atmosphere and it really gave you sense that you were a part of the films. But what was really missing was any sort of teamplay or the squad combat that made the Aliens film so great. Playing through each and every level by yourself just does not seem right. But there were two games that were soon announced that just might deliver the full package that I was still looking for. The two video games that were announced were Aliens vs. Predator 2 and Aliens: Colonial Marines. The latter of the two became one of the most eagerly awaited games that I have ever known. I mean, this was the game that I had always wanted. A game where you would take on the role of a colonial marine and be a part of a squad of marines that would fight their way through environments that looked faithful to the film. I remember asking the employee working at my local game store about Aliens: Colonial Marines release date and I kept getting a different answer and a later date each time. Then, I learned that the game was cancelled and I thought that the last chance for the perfect Aliens game had been lost. Later on, when I finally snagged a copy of Aliens vs. Predator 2 and upgraded my computer enough to play it, I was actually very satisfied with it. I loved the graphics, the weapons, the enemies, the characters, the sounds, and the game in general. AvP2 was a great game that was true to the franchises in many different ways. Unfortunately (again), there was something missing. As a result of trying to give the game depth the developers gave the game a new story for the marines. Although the story was true to the franchise itself, it was not true to the Aliens film. The marines had orange armor, weird weapons, and even had you fighting against other humans. So again, another game got a lot of things right but a lot of things wrong as well. With Aliens: Colonial Marines canned and AvP2 failing to deliver the experience that I had hoped for, it seemed that dream of a true Aliens video game was lost and I pretty much gave up the hope all together. That was until I checked this very Web site that I am writing for now and I saw that my dreams were not dead yet and that a company was set to develop a new first person shooter based off the Alien franchise. Then even better news came. This said game was going to be based solely off the Aliens film! This announcement rekindled my desire and sparked great interest in any other information that I can find out about the game. And I could only hope that it will be the game that I've been waiting so long for. Advertisement Will this new Aliens game deliver? There are a lot of things that it will have to do in order to successfully do that. But there has been enough progress over the years to pick from in order to combine them into the perfect game. It would seem that recreating the experience of the Aliens film in a video game environment would be a no-brainer for a great game. But every developer to this date has failed to do that in some way. Sure, there have been some great games released but they were all missing something. If these new developers can pick up on these shortcomings from the past and put them all into one game then there is no doubt that this new game will be a masterpiece and finally satisfy my 19-year-old craving. By Tyler Grohoski Comments? Flames? Praise? Mail feedback!