Pulling over for a while and taking a tea break, as tiredness kills, we park up Chase H.Q. and turn to our next offering in the Your Sinclair Top 100 this next game – at No.#21 – is a classic sci-fi/horror movie tie-in. We now have in our cassette players the Ellen Ripley-bothering Alien – from Mind Games – and although people in space can’t hear you scream I bet they can hear a ZX Spectrum loading!
Alien was created back in 1984 and it was programmed by Concept Software Ltd, who were in this case John Heaps and Paul Clansey. John Heaps you’ll recall was responsible for the Ocean Software classic The Great Escape which sits at No.#23 in the Your Sinclair Top 100.
This version of Alien – on the ZX Spectrum – is a strategy game which changes on each load; the Alien emerges from a different crew member and you are unaware which of you fellow Nostromo occupants is the Android (it may not be Ash). You need to carefully plot your way around the ship decided on how you wish to handle this situation, do you want to make a break for the escape pod with Jones, perhaps you want to tackle the Xenomorph with brute force or set sneaky trap ejecting it from the airlock; the choices are yours to make.
Alien on its release was described by Your Sinclair as a, “tension-filled strategy game” and I can see this being the case back in 1984, the problem is replaying this in 2016 the tension really isn’t there anymore. This isn’t a slur on the skills of John or Paul (neither Ringo nor George), unfortunately like a lot of horror films from the 80’s most are chuckled at by today’s youth as…well they’re not really scary anymore. Here in Alien now my viewing and gaming habits have expanded so much, the “tension” that was once within this cassette has unfortunately been replaced with boredom; I just can’t see anything exciting. Granted some of the graphics are still impressive, for example when we do get to glimpse the Xenomorph it looks rather impressive, but that’s few and far between.
It is obvious that Alien was clearly both a powerful & scary game, however time has come along and rather brutally neutered it.
Originally published August 7, 2016. Updated October 26, 2022.
