“In space no one can hear you scream.”

 

So goes the tagline for Alien, one of the greatest (not to mention scariest) science fiction movies ever made. Released in 1979 by 20th Century Fox, Alien was directed by the great auteur Ridley Scott (from a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon), who would achieve further fame in the ensuing years with such fantastic films as Blade Runner (1982), Thelma & Louise (1991), and Gladiator (2000). While certain science fiction purists of the day belittled Alien for its many monster movie moments, the film did earn its fair share of praise, including: an Oscar for Best Visual Effects; a Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation; and Saturn Awards for Best Director, Best Science Fiction Film, and Best Supporting Actress (Veronica Cartwright).

 

Crew members from Nostromo discover remains aboard mysterious crashed space ship.

The story, which was influenced in part by the sci-fi B-movie classics It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) and Planet of the Vampires (1965), centers around the space freighter Nostromo that, reacting to an apparent distress signal, lands on a dark, dreary, windswept planet, and the resulting chaos that ensues. Said chaos comes in the form of horrifying, acid-dripping, H.R. Geiger-designed monsters that go through several stages of increasingly scary metamorphosis, including an incubation period inside the human body. Needless to say, things don’t turn out too well for most of the Nostromo crew members (the chest-bursting business is particularly gruesome).

 

Cast members of Alien, 20th Century Fox, 1979

Thanks to its shockeroo thrills, gothic imagery, and iconic monsters (despite the singular title, there’re numerous aliens in the film), Alien is as much a horror picture as it is a sci-fi feature. The film oozes with creepy atmospherics from the beginning—the awakening of the Nostromo crew—until the end: Ripley returning to sleep after her nightmarish, but all-to-real alien encounter. Watching Alien today one realizes that it hasn’t dated a minute, from the dark, greasy, industrial design of the ship to the gorgeous visual effects to the quality acting of the ensemble cast, which includes Sigourney Weaver (Ripley), Tom Skerritt (Dallas), Veronica Cartwright (Lambert), Harry Dean Stanton (Brett), John Hurt (Kane), Ian Holm (Ash), and Yaphet Kotto (Parker).

 

Atari 2600 Alien Video Game Box

Now, the Atari 2600 version of Alien is another matter entirely. The game reduces the unqualified brilliance of the film to a simple maze game, one that shares much in common with Pac-Man (with some Freeway thrown in for good measure). With that bitter pill swallowed (so to speak), the discerning gamer is faced with two points of consideration: Is Alien a good Pac-Man clone, and is it worth playing. The answer, I’m glad to say, is a resounding “yes” on both fronts.

 

The protagonist players control in the game is a humanoid that is never referred to by any name other than “you” or “human.” Players must guide the stick figure-like being as he scurries around a top-down maze (though the player and the enemies look as though they are turned on their side), avoiding a trio of Aliens and gobbling dots (ahem, crushing Alien eggs) lining the pathways. The maze, which contains a pair of Pac-Man-esque side exits (called hyperwarp passages here), is supposed to represent the hallways in the hull of the Nostromo, but it is largely unadorned and utilitarian in nature.

 

 

Atari 2600 Alien Level Screenshot   Atari 2600 Alien Bonus Screenshot

The Aliens roam around the maze in similar fashion to the ghosts in Pac-Man, but they enter from the bottom of the screen instead of the middle. To turn the tables on the Aliens, players can capture one of three pulsars (which parallel the power pellets in Pac-Man), temporarily turning the Aliens blue and making them vulnerable to attack. Players are also equipped with a weak, largely ineffectual flame thrower, which can be sprayed on an Alien to make it turn away or become immobilized for a short period of time. The coolest thing about the flame thrower is that spraying it as you run over a pulsar leaves that pulsar in place for later usage.

In addition to eggs, Aliens, and pulsars, each maze contains a pair of prizes that grant extra points. After clearing a maze of Alien eggs, the player enters a brief, but oftentimes difficult bonus round, in which the human runs straight up the screen (to a prize at the top), trying to avoid getting run over by six “traffic lanes” of Aliens moving horizontally. This section obviously mimics Activision’s Freeway, but is less versatile and, like the main game itself, lacks two-player action.

 

Atari 2600 Alien game cartridge

Alien is a fast, fun, and challenging game with tight four-way control and solid, serviceable graphics. In terms of audio, Alien’s “siren song” sound effects mimic Pac-Man pretty well. True, the Aliens look silly (the Video Game Critic rightly compares them to “chattering teeth”), but as movie games and Pac-Man clones for the Atari 2600 go, you could certainly do a whole lot worse than Alien. Fans of such maze classics as Jr. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Jawbreaker, and Mouse Trap should at least give it a try.

 

Prior to playing Alien, you should know your options. There are four difficulty levels, selectable by pulling the Game Select lever on the 2600 console:

Level 1: player begins game with three lives, Aliens move at normal speed.

Level 2: player begins game with two lives, Aliens move fairly fast.

Level 3: player begins game with three lives, Aliens move very fast.

Level 4: player begins game with six lives, Aliens move slowly.

Difficulty switches on the console affect gameplay as well:

Left Difficulty Switch A: Aliens move randomly around the maze pathways.

Left Difficulty Switch B: Aliens move in fixed patterns around the maze

                                        pathways.

Right Difficulty Switch A: Capturing a pulsar has no effect on the Aliens.

Right Difficulty Switch B: Capturing a pulsar lets players turn the tables on

                                           the Aliens.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. Keita Iida of Atari Gaming Headquarters (www.atarihq.com/), unable to overlook the game’s lack of originality, gives Alien a lowly 50% rating (five out of 10, to be more precise). Tom Zjaba of Tomorrow’s Heroes (www.tomheroes.com/) grades the game a C+, calling the Aliens stupid and easy to fool (which tells me that Mr. Zjaba should have played the decidedly difficult—no matter your prowess—game option three).

 

Alien game programmer Doug Neubauer

Even the game’s programmer, Doug “Star Raiders” Neubauer, who designed Alien under the pseudonym of Dallas North, appears to have little to no appreciation for his creation. In an interview published on the Halcyon Days website (accessible via www.dadgum.com), Neubauer, had this to say about his time with Fox Video Games: “I did three games for them under a pen name. One was "M*A*S*H," and I forget the name of the other two. Fox was more interested in quantity rather than quality, so they wanted their games cranked out in a hurry. The games weren't all that good as I remember.”

 

           

1982 20th Century Fox Game Catalog   1983 20th Century Fox Game Catalog

 

Fox Video Games, a division of 20th Century Fox, released Alien to little acclaim in 1982. The game was advertised in the company’s 1983 catalogue (83-FOX-6004), altering the film’s famous tagline to: “In your living room, everyone can hear you scream.” In addition, the game was listed under “Coming Attractions” in the 1982 catalogue. (Interestingly, the list also included five games that were never produced: 9 to 5 , Six Pack, Entity, Tough Enough , and The Day the Earth Stood Still).

 

 

Atari 2600 Mutant Space Urchins            Atari 2600 Loco-Robo

 

Recently (relatively speaking), Alien has been the subject of a pair of homebrew hacks. Accessible via AtariAge (www.atariage.com/), these include: Attack of the Mutant Space Urchins (2002), which is fairly self explanatory, and Loco-Robo (2003), in which the Alien sprites have been changed to robots.

In the years since its release, Alien for the Atari 2600, unlike the film on which it is very loosely based, has been largely vilified by purveyors of popular culture. It is almost always written off as a mediocre (or worse) Pac-Man clone, but it deserves a spot in any maze fan’s library of classic home videogames.

In fact, if the disastrous, industry-crushing, needlessly convoluted E.T. The Extra Terrestrial had taken the same simple route (imagine E.T. walking swiftly around a maze, dodging hostiles while giddily gobbling up Reese’s Pieces), the infamous Great Videogame Crash of 1983/84 may have turned out differently. That may be overstating things a bit, but that’s my take on Alien, and I’m sticking to it.

Buy Alien game program cartridge from Atari2600.com Here

 

Copyright 2010 Atari2600.com, with content by Brett Weiss, http://brettweisswords.blogspot.com/

 

Explore Video Game History

Atari 2600

Released in October 1977, the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), which is now better known as the Atari 2600 (hence the atari2600.com website), hit store shelves. It was packaged with two joysticks, two rotary paddle controllers, an AC adapter, a TV/game switch, and a Combat cartridge. Eight other games hit the shelves at the same time as the 2600: Air-Sea Battle, Basic Math, Blackjack, Indy 500, Star Ship, Street Racer, Surround, and Video Olympics.

The second cartridge-based console (after the Fairchild Channel F), the 2600 dominated the industry in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, crushing such competitors as the Odyssey2, the Intellivision, and the Bally Astrocade, and helping make obsolete such dedicated systems as the original Odyssey and Atari Video Pong. The system was originally designed to play simplistic racing games, Pong variations, basic educational titles, and the like, but that would soon change as programmers and marketers for the company got more savvy.

One of the primary reasons for the success of the 2600 was the release of the Space Invaders (1980) cartridge, which was a phenomenal reimagining of Taito’s 1979 arcade smash. Space Invaders put the 2600 on the map and was followed by such popular arcade conversions as Missile Command, Asteroids, and Centipede. Most of these titles were blocky and less detailed visually than their arcade counterparts, but they usually captured the spirit of their respective coin-op cousins, making them very popular with consumers.

During its heyday, numerous peripherals were released for the 2600, including keyboard controllers for such games as Basic Programming and A Game of Concentration, a touch pad for Star Raiders, a trackball for such games as Missile Command and Centipede, a Kid’s Controller for Sesame Street games, a joypad for Mogul Maniac, the Starpath Supercharger for cassette-based games, a driving controller for Indy 500, and lots of different third-party joysticks.

Prior to the release of the Nintendo NES in 1985, the Atari 2600 was the most recognized and most commercially successful videogame console, ultimately moving around 30 million systems. Today, the 2600 maintains a rapid following, as evidenced by the plethora of homebrews being produced by fans and programmers. Collectors love the system for its large library (more than 400 titles), its rarities, its label variations, and more. Gamers love it for its fast, fun, arcade-like games, and for such groundbreaking titles as Adventure and Pitfall!

 

Atari 5200

The Atari 5200 SuperSystem was released in the fall of 1982 as a follow-up the Atari 2600, which was starting to show its age, and to compete with the Intellivision, which had more power and better graphical capabilities than the 2600. Unfortunately for Atari, the highly popular ColecoVision hit store shelves several months before the 5200 (which, in terms of processing power), was basically an Atari home computer sans the keyboard), taking away much of its market and starting the second console war (the 2600 vs. the Intellivision was the first).

The 5200 was a large, black system that came with a power supply and two fragile, non-centering controllers that were met with much derision. The 5200 itself is a great system, but the loose analog controllers made playing such games as Pac-Man and Frogger unnecessarily difficult. Games with broader ranges of movement, however, worked fine with the controllers. One good thing about the controllers is the pause button. Even better, there were three third-party controllers released for the 5200: the Wico Command Control, the GIM Electronics Fire Command, and the Coin Controls Competition Pro. Unfortunately, all three are tough to find today. Other peripherals include a trackball and a hard-to-find Atari 2600 adaptor.

Like the ColecoVision, the Atari 5200 was a victim of the Great Videogame Crash of 1983/84, and Atari quit producing the unit in 1984. Prior to its demise, numerous graphically and aurally superior (when compared to the 2600 offerings) arcade ports, including Missile Command, Kangaroo, Pac-Man, Pengo, Dig Dug, and Defender. Two titles in particular stand out: Robotron: 2084 and Space Dungeon, both of which came with dual controller holders for arcade-like control.

The Atari 5200 maintains a loyal fan base to this day, but most gamers still complain about those analog controllers.

 

Atari 7800

The Atari 7800 ProSystem was released in 1986, which was about a year or so too late, since it had to compete with the vastly superior Nintendo NES. The NES trumped the Atari system with its plethora of longer, mission-based games, including such popular (not to mention groundbreaking) titles as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. The 7800 was home to fine translations of such arcade classics as Joust, Asteroids, Centipede, and Ms. Pac-Man, but most consumers were clamoring for the more modern, more sophisticated NES offerings.

The 7800 should have hit store shelves in 1984, but former Commodore executive Jack Trammiel (who had purchased the videogame and computer divisions from Atari in 1984) sat on the system for a couple of years. Legend has it that he preferred computers and that he was skeptical about videogame systems until he saw the success of the NES. Also hurting matters was the fact that the 7800, which didn’t get much marketing push to begin with, got lost in the Atari lineup, which included the aging 2600 and the newly released Atari XE (which was compatible with Atari home computers).

Comparisons to the NES and marketing concerns aside, the 7800 is a solid system. Its sound capabilities are pretty sad (essentially the same as the 2600), but it can display lots of moving images at once with little or no flickering, and the arcade ports are nice improvements over the 2600 and 5200 versions. Perhaps more importantly, the system is backwards compatible with the 2600, giving it a large library of games. On a less positive note, the controllers, though more durable and more accurate than the 5200 joysticks, are stiff and have side buttons that can be tiring on the hands.

Atari stopped production on the 7800 system in 1991.

ColecoVision

Originally dubbed “The Arcade Quality Video Game System,” the ColecoVision was released by toy manufacturer Coleco in August of 1982, changing gamers’ expectations of what a home video game system could be. The pack-in game with the console, Donkey Kong, was the perfect showcase for the ColecoVision’s formative processing power (the system offered 48K of RAM and was powered by an 8-bit Z-80A microprocessor), exhibiting rich sounds and colorful, detailed, arcade-like graphics that such previous systems as the Atari 2600 and Intellivision could only dream of (though its closest competitor, the Atari 5200, boasted similar quality).

Other arcade classics (and semi-classics) released for the ColecoVision during its lifespan include Zaxxon, Lady Bug, Mouse Trap, Pepper II, Mr. Do!, Time Pilot, and Cosmic Avenger, among others. Coleco released a number of these titles for the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision, but those versions paled in comparison to the more faithfully adapted ColecoVision versions. The system was also home to several interesting computer titles, such as Jumpman Jr. and B.C.’s Quest for Tires, as well as a handful of original titles, including Tarzan and Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel’s Castle.

In addition to being known for state-of-the-art graphics and sounds, the ColecoVision was famous for its peripherals, including a steering wheel with pedal (Expansion Module #1) for such driving games as Turbo and Dukes of Hazzard, an adaptor (Expansion Module #2) allowing gamers to play Atari 2600 titles on their ColecoVision, a Roller Controller trackball for such games as Centipede and Slither, and four-button, gun-grip Super Action Controllers for such games as Front Line and Super Action Baseball.

Coleco stopped production on the ColecoVision in 1984, a victim of the Great Video Game Crash. Also hurting the system was the commercial failure of the Adam, which was a bug-ridden peripheral that could turn the ColecoVision into a computer. Regardless, the ColecoVision remains one of the most beloved systems of the classic era, thanks in large part to its stellar arcade ports.

 

Intellivision

Mattel Electronics released the Intellivision (short for “intelligent television”) in December of 1979, ultimately starting what would be the first console war. The relatively sophisticated system was designed to compete with the Atari 2600, and Mattel produced commercials showing how their system’s graphics were superior to those of the 2600. The Intellivision became a popular and even beloved next-gen system, but it couldn’t dethrone the 2600 as the console of choice for most gamers.

Some of the more well received offerings for the Intellivision were its sports titles, which including professional league licensing, detailed graphics, and complex gameplay. These include Major League Baseball, NFL Football, and NBA Basketball, among others. The system also had some impressive space games, such as Astrosmash, Star Strike, and Space Spartans, the latter of which used the Intellivoice speech module to nice effect (other Intellivoice titles include B-17 Bomber, Bomb Squad, Tron Solar Sailer, and World Series Major League Baseball).

In 1982, Mattel released the Intellivision II, which was a smaller, sleeker system (which plays the same games, though Coleco titles won’t work on it) with more efficient and cheaper circuitry. More importantly, its controllers were detachable and replaceable, unlike the hard-wired controllers of the original system (both the Intellivision and Intellivision II had keypad-supplemented control discs instead of joysticks). 1982 also saw the release of a formidable competing system, the next-gen, super powerful (for its time) ColecoVision, which made it tough for Mattel to brag on their system’s superior graphics in comparison to other systems.

In 1983, Mattel released peripheral for the Intellivision called the Entertainment Computer System, which plugged into the cartridge outlet of the Intellivision II. It included a Music Synthesizer with a 49-key keyboard, a Melody Blaster game cartridge, and a System Changer allowing gamers to play the Atari 2600 on their Intellivision II. Unfortunately, the ECS is very tough to find today as it was produced in low quantities.

In 1984, INTV bought the rights to the Intellivision and kept the system going until 1991. The Atari 2600 had faster, more arcade-like games, and the ColecoVision stole its graphical thunder, but the Intellivision remains a highly popular system from the classic era of gaming.

 

Nintendo NES

Released in the U.S. in 1985 via test-marketing in New York City, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which would see wide release in 1986, hit stores when videogames were an all-but-dead industry (after suffering The Great Videogame Crash of 1983/1984). Retailers were skeptical of carrying a videogame system, so Nintendo packaged their console with a mechanical Robot Operating Buddy (R.O.B.) and a Zapper light gun (for Duck Hunt and other target shooting games), calling the NES an “entertainment system” and their cartridges “game paks.”

Based on the popular Japanese Famicom, the NES made it onto store shelves thanks in part to the aforementioned robot and gun, but the system really took off with the release of Super Mario Bros., which impressed gamers and mainstream consumers alike with its expansive worlds, secrets and surprises, and cartoon-like graphics. From there, the videogame industry was viable in theU.S. once again, and Nintendo replaced Atari as the company most Americans associated with videogames.

Through the course of its relatively long life (the last licensed game for the NES was Wario’s Woods in 1994), the NES was home to numerous popular and groundbreaking titles, including The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Super Mario Bros. 3 (which was showcased in the movie, Wizard). The gray, boxy system, which changed controllers forever with its cross-shaped pads (as opposed joysticks), was also home to tons of popular third-party titles, such as Baseball Stars, Contra Castlevania, Ikari Warriors, and Double Dribble.

 

One of the most popular, most influential game systems ever released, the NES remains a favorite among collectors, nostalgia enthusiasts, and hardcore gamers. One of the most desirable NES collectibles is the top-loader version of the console (1993), which plays the same games, but is more reliable (in terms of connectivity between the cartridge and the console) than the original “toaster” version of the NES. The NES, which killed its rival competitor, the Sega Master System, was followed by the Super NES, which debuted in 1991.

 

Odyssey2

Released by Magnavox in 1978, the Odyssey2 was a follow-up to the primitive Odyssey system (circa 1972). Unlike the more well-known Atari VCS (a.k.a. the Atari 2600), which was released the year before, the Odyssey2 came with a 49-button membrane keyboard that made the machine more like a real computer. The keyboard, which was used to good effect in such educational titles as Compute Intro!, also made the system more “respectable” in the minds of parents and other non-gamers.

The Odyssey2 had boxy, one-button controllers with a sturdy, eight-direction joystick that worked pretty well in controlling ships, characters, and other implements accurately. Unfortunately, most models of the O2 contained hard-wired joysticks, meaning you couldn’t simply plug in a new joystick when one went bad. Graphically, most O2 games had a simplistic look (stick figures are a common sight), but the system could generate up to 16 moving, flicker-free objects onscreen at once, helping give the visuals for most games a sharp, clear, streamlined look.

Ultimately, the Odyssey2 couldn’t compete with the massive success of the Atari 2600, which boasted a much larger library (third-party support for the O2 was limited to Imagic) and faster, more colorful games. In addition, the Atari 2600 benefited from numerous popular arcade-licensed games, such as Ms. Pac-Man, Missile Command, and Space Invaders. In the U.S., Turtles! was the only coin-op game ported to the Odyssey2.

Production on the Odyssey2 stopped in 1983, giving it a respectable six-year run. Unfortunately, only 49 games were released for the system, around half of which were programmed by a single man: Ed Averett. Some of the better O2 carts include: Turtles!, Power Lords, Killer Bees!, Attack of the Time Lord!, Pick Axe Pete!, S.I.D. the Spellbinder (which benefitted from The Voice speech module), and Quest for the Rings!, the latter of which was part of the ambitious Master Strategy Series and included a game board, tokens, and a keyboard overlay.


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