Science Fiction film fans were all to familiar with Ellen Ripley and her nightmarish encounter with a sinister race of extraterrestrials in deep space from the Alien film franchise. And in 1990, gamers got a chance to walk in the footsteps of Ripley and (at least if they played the game in two-player mode) her faithful ally, Corporal Hicks as they took on these formidable creatures within the abandoned space colony on LV426 Acheron.  

A classic, side-scolling shooter game, Aliens pitter the heroes against a seemingly endless supply of slimy adversaries as they crawled through the claustrophobic confines of corridors, sewers, elevators, ventilation shafts and any other place that one wouldn’t want to bump into a homicidal, blood-thirsty race of formidable facehuggers and fearlessly sinister space warriors.  

Luckily Ripley and her cohort had the luxury of various high-powered weapons scattered around the area that included missles, bombs and flame-throwers. And it was in their best interest to find as many of these as possible because what Ripley didn’t possess was a “jump” button, which meant that when the Alien reared its ugly head, the only option was to fight it out head-to-head. Thankfully, the game developers saw fit to include a “crouch” button - which not only allowed the heroes to crawl their way through the various ventilation shafts, but also allowed them to protect themselves better against the ensuing attacks.

For players that successfully navigated their way to the final stages of the game, they were met with a group of mutant Alien bosses before settling down for two epic showdowns with an egg-laying Alien queen who seemed all but invincible. To assist in this final meeting, Ripley had access to the exo-skeletal equipment familiar from the film series, which she would certainly need to don if she had any hopes of emerging victorious from this rendezvous with momma Alien.

Aliens was released almost four years after the film with the same name debuted in theaters. This gap in time did nothing the lessen video gamers’ enthusiasm for the franchise and Aliens was a crowd-pleaser in arcades everywhere. It’s success would lead to a number of sequels in the gaming world, both in arcades and in the home market, including the battle of epic proportions that would surface a few years later when the Alien creatures were pitted against another celluloid adversary, the Predator.