Alien³ (Genesis) Playthrough

A playthrough of Acclaim's 1992 licensed-based shooter for the Sega Genesis, Alien 3.
Played through on the normal difficulty setting.
Releasing just five months after the film's theatrical debut, Probe's Alien 3 for the Sega Genesis was the first of a glut of games to be loosely based on Ripley's adventures on the prison planet of Fiorina 161.
The movie featured just a single alien, so the Alien 3 games tended to lean into the action-trappings of Aliens. The game takes place entirely within the confines of the prison complex, and each of the fifteen stages is a maze of tunnels and ladders that Ripley must explore in order to rescue the prisoners.
These areas are teeming with xenomorphs that strike with little warning and hit hard, but Ripley's battery-powered motion tracker can help to anticipate ambushes, and she also carries some formidable fire power. She can freely switch between grenades, a grenade launcher, a pulse rifle, and a flamethrower, and though they all require ammo to use, refill items are scattered everywhere throughout the areas.
Every few stages, Ripley will have to face off against a boss - the queen from Aliens - before she can move on to the next area of the prison, and the game ends once she defeats the pair of queens that lie in wait in the steel foundry.
Alien 3 is surprisingly competent for a licensed game of its ilk. Its unique blending of the Euro-style collect-a-thon platformer with the run-and-gun shooter works out fairly well. The areas are large and filled with caches of items buried in out-of-the-way nooks, and the gun play feels good.
The only real downer is the time limit. It's nowhere near the hindrance it was in the NES version ( • Alien³ (NES) Playthrou... ), but it can still be frustrating when you run out of time as you're trying to explore a new area. You do learn the layouts with repeated plays, though, and once you're familiar with the locations of the prisoners and exits, the game becomes pretty easy to breeze through.
Alien 3 looks great for a 1992 Genesis title. Each area has its own distinct look and feel, and the heavy use of parallax scrolling effects and fun environmental flourishes (I especially liked the gore-spilling oxen hanging from the pipes!) keep the game's visuals interesting throughout. The large, detailed sprites move smoothly and closely resemble their movie counterparts, and they mesh well with the backdrops.
The soundtrack is a bit less cut-and-dry. Matt Furniss's soundtrack is fantastic - I'd even argue that the music is better than Jeroen Tel's top-notch work for the NES version - but it often feels completely out of place. Every song is a toe tapper, but the rock and techno tracks don't evoke the ambient horror vibe you'd expect from a game based on an Alien movie.
The sound effects are on-point, though. Ripley's grunts, the alien screeches, the pew-pew of the pulse rifle, and the satisfyingly heavy thwonk of the grenade launcher are all immediately recognizable and suit the game perfectly.
The movie might not have lived up to expectations, but Alien 3 for the Genesis is a fun and stylish action game that would've made for an ideal weekend rental.
(It's probably also the best Sega Genesis game to star a bald woman battling suggestively-shaped enemies slathered in KY Jelly... y'know, if that's your thing.)
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!

[@NintendoComplete]

That cholera outbreak seems to be a bit worse than everyone initially thought, huh?

[@ThatOneRedEchidna]

I remember this game being scary af when I was a kid.

[@patorjk]

Wow, that music takes me back. I remember playing this game a lot, but I was pretty terrible at it. I don't think I got more than half way through. I was thinking about it the other day and decided to look it up on youtube to see if anyone had played through it. Thank you for posting this.

[@yusakug]

A better game based on a David Fincher movie than that Fight Club game we got.

[@OLDE_SHYTE]

It did let us break Fred Durst’s arm or leg so it’s not all bad.

[@youmemeyou]

@@OLDE_SHYTE sukundeyoooo!!! 😭😭😭

[@youmemeyou]

@@OLDE_SHYTE naantheyooooo!!! 😭😭😭

[@kramalerav]

I’ll always remember this as the first game I ever checked out as rental from a video store.

[@simonmejia6896]

Ah yea. You gotta love a game that has a dark, creepy and claustrophobic atmosphere, then mix it with a hard rock and dancing soundtrack. Level 2's theme is a prime example of it. But for real, stage 2's music owns big time, without a question the best tune in the game ever.

[@dwightdixon8508]

One of my favorite Genesis games of all time. I’m not one for in game timers but that aside the harsh sound effects and music really add to the games intense action and dark atmosphere. In fact I come back to playing this game more often than the Super Nintendo version which I also enjoy.

[@harrysanders818]

IDK, I love it too! But, in terms of being "Alien-uesque", this feels more like a japenese'd 2d run and gun than the SNES version to me (Not that there is anything bad about that, I e.g. love Contra, but just to mention it as this a franchise game after all). And as amazing as the OST is indeed, the SNES OST was far more true to the movie vibes and really felt consistently dark and gritty vs. flashy arcade'y as this one. The same I feel for color and lighting choices and overall esthetics. The CGL seems also more diverse to me in SNES version, but I do love the simplified, consistent one used here, where its all about running against time and rescuing/memorizing certain points in space. However, one could say that the SNES version was kinda ahead of its time with its choosable mission system, and rescuing hostages was just a subset of a much more rich diverse mission palette.

[@galvinstanley3235]

This game was great,but harder then hell.

[@LPetal86]

I adore the music to this game so much, and love that no matter which version you bought back in the day, you got a great soundtrack. And the memories of if you failed to rescue the hostages on the stage... horrific, LOL.

[@2packrm781]

Ooohh man, I love listening to the Aliens explode as they do their screaming in anguish.... I don't know why, but it's soooo satisfyingly intoxicating & it pleases the ears for me😄😊

[@pixelgoat7317]

The giant kitchen level's music is a banger!

[@shanghai_doll]

That fourth area theme is beautiful, 'nuff said.

[@donaldsmith8648]

Love watching you play all the old school games keeps me from buying them 😛

[@knuclear200x]

>he thinks you still have to "buy" old school games in this day and age 🤣

[@donaldsmith8648]

@@knuclear200x oh I know you can get them for free but I like to buy and collect video games with their boxes so that I can line them around my man cave

[@knuclear200x]

@@donaldsmith8648 sweet

[@daymare-bm1tq]

i play this very long time ago when i was kid. I love this game, i just download it's rom on the net and play it again with an emulator. I'm amazed this game only have 512kb of memory size! Compared to todays aliens game like alien isolation or aliens fireteam with more than 45 gigabyte of memory. What a technology goes so fast and far distance.

[@YukaTakeuchiFan]

I like how basically every adaptation of Alien 3 is like "On one hand, yes, there were no weapons on Fiorina "Fury"-161 and there was exactly one Alien. On the other hand, ask me if I care, ~flips middle finger~, because we're doing this shit "Aliens"-style", and arms you to the teeth against the Alien hordes.

[@knuclear200x]

My first horror game. I mean I was afraid of Doom and Wolfenstein already, but those weren't really horrors

[@agauerm]

I loved this game when I was younger, played the heck out of it. Aliens is one of my favorite movies so playing this game was like I was in that world. Prefer this over the SNES version which I thought was pretty slow and boring.

[@SamuelBlack84]

Those were the days

[@TheDutchGhost]

The intro track of this game is one of my favorites, the slow build up before it starts. As for the game itself. I really liked it at the time but I always disliked the time limit as even on easy you really don't have much room to make a mistake. It always made me wonder why on screen shots I saw time limits of ten minutes or even more. The radar is also sadly next to useless as it really runs out of power very fast. And unfortunately the game gets very repetitive very quickly after a while. Then about a year later I played the SNES game and I felt it was so much superior. The looks, the gameplay, the really cool intro. Of course that game also suffers from getting repetitive once you have gone through the first two levels. I also found it rather disappointing that there was no boss fight with the Alien Queen. I think it must have been planned but apparently the designers did not have time to implement it.

[@agauerm]

I actually find the SNES version pretty bad compared to this one.

[@joeyjo-joshabadu9636]

The intro track might be my favorite in the entire Genesis library

[@estebancebreros5432]

Ripley face plant @ <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="591">9:51</a> 😬😂

[@hopetagulos]

Eu tinha um cartucho deste e jogava com meu irmão.

[@TheDemoniusX]

Got more patience than I do...The timer pisses me off to no end. It's not a bad game..I just wish the timer wasn't a piece of hot garbage. I prefer the super NES version. even though it's a slow game, but doing the quests are kinda fun. make no mistake I still like the genesis version too....and as a kid I was kinda traumatized by that gory depiction of aliens coming out of the chests of the damned.

[@Dorian_Scott]

Not the _greatest_ Alien game. But I liked it as a kid. The soundtrack is probably my favorite thing about it. That Stage 2 theme rips (<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="552">9:12</a>).

[@TheDutchGhost]

2D alien game wise I think Aliens Infestation has replaced it as the best entry. The problem with that one is is that it is just too short. Oh and I found the ending a bit crap.

[@GokoBrago]

Aún recuerdo que se nos tensaba la piel con mi primo al jugarlo, yo me encargaba de disparar y avanzar y el me decía dónde había alien o si me pasaba por alto algo 😅

[@janis25210]

Sound: Dansing with Alien 3

[@yoyoyonasa]

Nice game.

[@trum853]

I don't remember the movie ending that way...

[@azezrtyuuiopqsdfghjk]

Those aliens has gunpowder ipv sulfur acid as blood.

[@yellowblanka6058]

I think the colonial marine pulse rifle fires rounds with micro explosives, not sure.

[@NintendoComplete]

@@yellowblanka6058 They explained it in Aliens when Ripley points out that shooting beneath a nuclear reactor's heat exchanger is a bad idea, or maybe it was when Hicks was showing her the gun? Anyway, it was something about caseless explosive-tipped armor-piercing rounds.

[@yellowblanka6058]

Not sure why they would use microexplosive ammo as standard when they're going up against creatures that have acidic blood - let's throw that shit everywhere, great idea!

[@NintendoComplete]

@@yellowblanka6058 Nobody really seemed to take Ripley too seriously, so they probably were just like yeah whatever.

[@Snyperwolf91]

@@yellowblanka6058 So far i know , the pulserifle is the equivalent of an assault rifle that fires bullets which are like mini-rockets . Thats why ripley shouldnt shoot around the reactor . The pulse-rifle ammo could create a chain-reaction in the reactor and explode the whole colony-base . The colonial marines were also only allowed to shoot small caliber weapons like hicks shotgun at the beginning.

[@somerandomvideos7694]

Nes soundtracks are the best

[@deonteprice8262]

Is it available now somewhere?

[@NintendoComplete]

I don't think so. If you don't have a Genesis, just grab an emulator and a rom.

[@julesgamergourmand]

I had finished it not hard but it had taken me months of training, it was horrible.

[@krystalthesquirrel4973]

Are you playing as a male or female character?

[@Your_OGNEV]

А че они взрываются та после автомата🙄

[@janis25210]

Это нано-пушка, которая стреляет нано-патронами

[@robwest5457]

Should we come up with a cool final boss? No just make them fight 2 of the same mundane bosses we have given them all game. The saga way.

[@braddenney3121]

I had this one but it’s soooo ugly on all fronts compared to the snes

[@TheDutchGhost]

I am not sure if I would call it ugly but the SNES game is more atmospheric.

[@solarflare9078]

Visually, the game looks great, especially for a low-memory Mega Drive game. The parallax on the outdoor segments in particular look excellent. The animation also looks respectable for a low-memory MD game as well

[@braddenney3121]

@@TheDutchGhost maybe ugly wasn’t the right word lol. I liked it. But the snes had such smooth graphics and music, sound etc.

[@braddenney3121]

@@solarflare9078 true. The sega one did have some cool effects as well

[@TheDutchGhost]

@@braddenney3121 I do agree that the SNES version had much nicer graphics and better recaptured the feel of the movies.

[@examiningdata7952]

I seen lots of garbage in my life ,,, but this 🙄