Alien for 2600

[2Dskillz]

I have been interested in this lately, and with the new Aliens game on its way next year perhaps now is time to play the first. I get the gist that it is a PAC-MAN clone, but is there anything unique or special about it. Sound, Control, Quirks? Just curious if hunting this game is worth the trouble. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[Sniderman]

Main game - Pacman with a flame thrower. Yes, you can actually shoot/kill aliens in the maze.

Bonus game - A kind of Freeway clone, as I recall...

EDIT: Here you go...the instruction manual should explain the gameplay...

Alien manual at AA (http://www.atariage.com/manual_html_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=984)

[PingvinBlueJeans]

I get the gist that it is a PAC-MAN clone, but is there anything unique or special about it. Sound, Control, Quirks?
Well, there is a bonus screen when you clear a maze, which mixes things up a bit.


Just curious if hunting this game is worth the trouble.
It's one of the better movie-based Atari 2600 titles. It's definitely worth playing, and finding a cheap loose copy is not difficult.

[2Dskillz]

Awesome, thanks for the quick responses. My 2600 has been lonely as of late, maybe this is what will make me hook it back up.

[Kid Ice]

Very good game. Best of the VCS Pac Man clones if you ask me (not counting Ms. and Jr. Pac)

[MachineGex]

I need to add this game to my collection. I was just reading about this game the other day. I got the book "ABC to the VCS" as a xmas present. I have been going thru the book and marking games that look interesting. This was one of the first games that caught my eye. Funny someone else made a topic about it.

[8bitgamer]

I'm a fan of the game.

Classic Home Video Games Vol. 1 sums it up thusly:

Although it’s one of the best movie-based games ever released for the Atari 2600, Alien hardly evokes Ridley Scott’s 1979 film. It is actually a dot-eating Pac-Man clone, with players guiding a flamethrower-wielding Ripley around the maze as she clears her ship of eggs, collects prizes, and avoids three silly looking alien creatures. Between levels there’s a Freeway-like bonus round with players running up the playfield, weaving in and out of five lanes of alien traffic in order to reach the ship at the top of the screen. Alien is derivative, but highly playable. Perhaps the disastrous E.T. The Extra Terrestrial should have taken a similar, maze-based approach.

[rbudrick]

As a kid, I played this game a lot. Beats the shit out of Pac Man, that's for sure. The in between levels were great. After playing this a while, you may discover you suddenly have a "knack" for it. I sucked at it forever, but I Picked it up one day and I found myself cruising through the mazes and whipping ass. Somehow, I had the patterns down and didn't really know how. I ended up playing it for about two hours straight, I think, on one turn.

-Rob

[Steve W]

I never got the flamethrower to kill the aliens. The only way to stop them is to eat the power pill thing. A Pac-Man clone with flamethrowers would be the ultimate game in the genre if it worked the way my imagination tells me it should. :-D