Alien (Atari 2600)

''Alien'' is a 1982 maze video game for the Atari 2600 published by Fox Video Games. The game has the player control a human moving through the hallways of a space ship avoiding the adult alien and destroying the small alien eggs.

Along with ''Mega Force'' and ''M*A*S*H'', ''Alien'' was among the tie-in video games made for 20th Century Fox's video game division programmed by Doug Neubauer. Reviews from ''The Video Game Update'' and video game critic Brett Weiss found the game to be derivative of other games like ''Pac-Man''.

Gameplay

Alien 1982 atari 2600.gif, Maze level
Alien atari 2600 level 2.gif, Bonus round

The goal of ''Alien'' is to move your human character through the hallways of the space ship and crush all the alien eggs which have been placed there by interacting with them. The goal is crush all the eggs, and collect items for points. If an alien interacts with the player, they lose a life. The game ends when the player runs out of lives.

The player must avoid or destroy any adult aliens who also move through the halls. The aliens can be halted briefly in their path by hitting them with a flame thrower, which can only be used once per life. Scattered through the maze are pulsars. When the player interacts with them, the aliens turn blue and become vulnerable to the touch of the human character. ''Alien'' uses the difficulty switches on the Atari 2600 console which adjusts the game difficulty. This includes whether the pulsars make the aliens turn blue or not, and changing the movement of the aliens from random to a fixed pattern.

Once all the Alien eggs are destroyed, the player enters a bonus round where they have eight seconds to move to the top of the screen and grab the prize shown there. The player does not lose a life if hit in this round.

Background and development

Tony Cohen of ''Video Games Player'' magazine said that in 1981, there were nearly no video games release that were based on films. He said that following the financial success of video games based on films like Parker Brothers' '' Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back'' (1982) and General Consumer Electronics's ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' (1982), there was a rush for video game companies to "snatch up the rights to every hit movie ever made." 20th Century Fox formed Fox Video Games Inc. in April 1982 to produce video games for the Atari Video Computer System (later known as the Atari 2600). Fox Video Games released eight video games between 1982 and 1983 for the system which were film tie-ins. The first film tie-in planned by Fox Video Games, was a video game version of ''Megaforce'' (1982). The development and distribution of the game left it to only be re-scheduled for release in 1983.

Frank O'Connel of Fox Video Game described Atari 2600 hardware as being "restrictive" leading to the company to initially rely on the programmers to also act as the game designer. He said that about 80% of all the software Fox Video Games develop was based on licensed properties, and about half of its products being made outside being made outside the company. Doug Neubauer worked as an independent contractor making film tie-in games for 20th Century Fox's new game division making games such as ''Mega Force'', ''M*A*S*H'' and ''Alien''. Neubauer had hoped that making several video game adaptations would lead to making a film license like ''Star Wars'', finding that "just because a company makes a movie doesn't mean they have the rights to make a video of the movie, Case in point, ''Star Wars''. They didn't have the rights to it."

Release

''Alien'' was released for the Atari 2600 in November 1982. Cohen described that that it was part of a second wave of film-tie in video games. The first including U.S. Games's '' Towering Inferno'' (1982), Tigervision's ''King Kong'' (1982) and Atari's ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982) and ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (1982) and a second wave including Fox Video Games' ''Fantastic Voyage'' and ''Alien''.

By January 1983, Fox Video Games had released three video games based on films including ''Mega Force'', ''Fantastic Voyage'' and ''Alien''. Along with a novelization and the 1984 '' Alien'' video game, Fox Video Game's release was one of the first follow-ups from 20th Century Fox that directly borrow plot elements from the film '' Alien'' (1979) in the ''Alien'' franchise.

Reception

From contemporary reviews, ''The Video Game Update'' did not recommend the game, stating it was a "one more rehash of the eat-the-dot maze" finding the graphics to be "only fair and game play is just too much like other games already available to create much interest." Writing for ''Arcade Express'' in 1983, Tracie Forman found the graphics to be cute the game mechanics lacked originality to garner much excitement.

From retrospective reviews, Brett Weiss in his book ''Classic Home Video Games 1972-1984'' referred to the game as a ''Pac-Man'' clone, stating that it was "one of the best movie-based games ever released on the Atari 2600" and that it was derivative of ''Pac-Man'' (1980) and ''Freeway'' (1981), but still "highly playable." Reviewing the game for the AllGame, Weiss added that the other drawback was the cartoonish depiction of the aliens, but that "given the graphical limitations of the system, this weakness is understandable." Dan Whitehead in ''Retro Gamer'' magazine complimented that ''Alien'' was at least "semi-faithful to the film" and generally fun to play, but that the games graphics were a poor representation of the film, describing the titular aliens as resembling venus flytraps. In his overview in video games based on ''Alien'', Graeme Mason of ''Retro Gamer'' wrote that the game "there is a sincere element of panic and fear as the player is talked through the blue maze" concluding that the game was "commendable, if bland".

See also

* List of Atari 2600 games
* List of video games based on films

References

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1980s horror video games
1982 video games
Alien (franchise) games
Atari 2600 games
Atari 2600-only games
Fox Video Games games
Pac-Man clones
Single-player video games
Video games developed in the United States