To celebrate the upcoming release of Aliens vs. Predator, on the Sega America Blog, there is a snazzy little look back at the history of both the Aliens franchise and how it intersects with the Predator franchise. It details, in a summarized manner, the movies, games and comic books, some of which you may have forgotten.
For me, seeing the Alien vs. Predator beat-em-up by Capcom was a blast from the past. I played the hell out of that on the SNES. Ever since I was a kid, I have had a deep fascination with the Alien and it’s sequels. Something about it is just so visceral and scary. The Predator movies are good, too, but nowhere near as awesome to me, personally.
Have you guys played any of these games? Do you prefer Aliens or Predator? What’s your favorite movie of the bunch? GO!
Source: Sega Blog
I still have my copy of AvP for PC. I always played as the Predator or Humans. Alien was so hard to control, and figure out when you’re upside down / along the walls and running 200 Miles per hour. Then again I was 12 or 13, I should probably install it again and see how it holds up.
The coolest thing was the “Survival” mode playing as Human, and aliens would just come in swarms. It was like prehistoric Hoardmode or something.
I loved the old Arcade game. I would play it every chance I had even though I couldn’t make it much past the 2nd or 3rd level usually. AvP on PC was awesome. Loved discing aliens in half and tail-whipping heads off humans and predators. Sadly not too many good memories of playing as human though.
Nice read, but my heart is always with the Predator. I saw Alien first, but for some reason the Predator’s appearance, aura, and “love for the hunt” just gets me. I look forward to playing him in the game (Preordered)
That said, I can’t wait to play the marine and make Zoey proud and spam “GAME OVER MAN” =D
Just so you know, I think Aliens is the greatest action movie of all time.
[quote comment=”10079″]Just so you know, I think Aliens is the greatest action movie of all time.[/quote]
Opinion of proceeding sequels?
Forget greatest action movie, Aliens is my favorite movie of all time. Pretty much every sci-fi action movie/video game since then owes a lot to Aliens. It’s remarkable that Bungie didn’t have to pay Cameron royalties for the use of the space marines in Halo.
[quote comment=”10082″][quote comment=”10079″]Just so you know, I think Aliens is the greatest action movie of all time.[/quote]
Opinion of proceeding sequels?[/quote]
Alien 3 makes me want to punch a nun and Alien Resurrection, while flawed, is at least entertaining.
This blog was interesting; made me think of a lot of the old Aliens material I consumed years ago. Surprised he didn’t mention the outstanding C-64 version of Aliens (though he did reference a version of Alien that I was not familiar with).
I wholeheartedly agree that anyone who likes the series MUST read the three initial Dark Horse Comics series. Aliens Book 1 & 2 along with Aliens: Earth War (I believe it’s retitled Female War in some collections) will always be the REAL Aliens canon for me rather than Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.
Most of the subsequent Dark Horse offerings were pretty sub-par. Genocide wasn’t a bad series and Hive (I think this was the one with the android alien) had its moments. They really struggled once they took Hicks, Newt and Ripley out of the equation (Hicks and Newt really are the heart and soul of the Dark Horse Aliens universe). Some of the one-off graphic novels were interesting, especially the one with the female priest who gets stranded on a planet and thinks the alien is the devil. Can’t remember the title, but it was quite memorable.
The original AVP comic is similarly fantastic and would have been a great basis for a movie (a pity they didn’t go that direction). If you try to go back to catch up, though, you should probably avoid any and all subsequent AVP comics as none of them approached the quality of the original series (although the surreal and borderline nonsensical ten part AVP series penned by Chris Clairmont, who wrote X-Men throughout the 80s, is worth a look if only because it’s like watching a slow motion trainwreck).
Zayven, I got that Claremont one from the library down the street and just glancing through it is enough to let me know how much of a trainwreck it is.
It’s nice to have someone confirm it for me,lol.
Deadliest of the Species was the title, if I remember correctly. It was weird, almost as if Claremont wanted to incorporate every strange idea he’d never been allowed to use at Marvel. I think the main character was a sex android built to be somebody’s trophy wife; please don’t ask me to remember where the story went from there because I don’t recall it making any sense.
The funny thing was that it began as a twelve part series and after about issue 6 or 7, it got trimmed to ten parts. I guess even the editors of Dark Horse had had enough. When you test the editorial patience of the people who published the Tank Girl series…well, that’s just a really bad sign.
Oh, does anybody remember the Aliens arcade game? It was like Final Fight with guns. Player one was Ripley and player two was a faceless marine. It was even interspersed with mini-levels where you rode on the back of the apc and shot aliens coming at you. I plunked an ungodly amount of quarters into that thing when I was a kid.
Just looked up some comic info:
Aliens Books 1 (1989) & 2 (1990) were retitled Outbreak and Nightmare Asylum, respectively, some time after the release of Alien 3. In these reprintings, the names of the characters are changed (Newt to Billie and Hicks to Wilkes) to avoid conflict with the “official” canon of the films.
This is insane. Having read the original versions of these books, these characters wouldn’t make any sense if they aren’t Newt and Hicks. I feel sorry for anyone who has only been exposed to these reprints. It’s a pity Dark Horse had more concern for internal consistency than the scriptwriters of Alien 3 (all ten of them, or however many people ended up working on it).
By the way, my memory of the Claremont AVP going from 12 issues to 10 was incorrect. There were indeed 12 issues according to several sources I checked. And the series with the priest stranded on the planet is Aliens: Sacrifice. Great one shot story if you can find it.
Obviously, I’m very passionate about the Aliens series.
[quote comment=”10092″][quote comment=”10082″][quote comment=”10079″]Just so you know, I think Aliens is the greatest action movie of all time.[/quote]
Opinion of proceeding sequels?[/quote]
Alien 3 makes me want to punch a nun and Alien Resurrection, while flawed, is at least entertaining.[/quote]
Less bald ripley and less brit accents might’ve done it a little good =P
And resurrection was okay…cept’ that part where the guy licks the window with the alien behind it. Let’s admit it, that was just…odd.
Alien 3 is just poorly written, plain and simple. Most of the dialogue in that movie is awful. I can’t blame the director too much because he was thrown into an impossible situation, but Alien 3 is simply a disaster from beginning to end. But having said that, it does have a few good moments. The extended edition that came out on dvd a few years ago is a little better than the theatrical version.
I’ve never quite known how to feel about Alien Resurrection. It isn’t scary, the action scenes are average at best, and the humorous overtones feel forced and unnatural. But it is sort of a fun movie. I think the studio just went with a writer and a director that, while both are very good, weren’t the right fit for an Alien movie.
As for the licking the window scene, that was one of the moments I actually liked in Resurrection. If you go back to the first movie, there’s definitely an undercurrent of sexuality surrounding the alien so it’s not like the scene came out of nowhere.
zayven is right, the whole concept of the alien is about rape. the facehugger basically violates people in order to spawn, both mena and women. Part of the reason it is so scary.
Aliens: Colonial Marines was the series that started out as a 12 parter but was shortened to 10 after issue 7.
I know nobody else could care less, but this has been bugging me since I realized that Deadliest of the Species did, in fact, go to 12 issues.