(Update: Holy crap–a massive shout-out to our readers who have been sharing this article via Flipboard. You guys have made this the most-read installment of this column by a huge margin! Thank you from all of us at RGM!)

If the last two weeks of reading this column have left you feeling like the licensed gaming gods are a capricious lot with no regard for humanity, sanity, or financial stability–good. You’re starting to get the picture. But every so often things work out and balance is restored for a few precious hours. That balance can come from the most unlikely places as we saw a few weeks ago, and this week’s column is no exception. Yes, the Atari Jaguar was for all intents and purposes a joke. Yes, their ads proved Atari had difficulty understanding science  (multiple 32-bit processors do not equal one 64-bit system, no matter how often you order gamers to “do the math”). Say what you will about Atari’s marketing skills or the majority of their software, but there were two games non-Jaguar owners would kill to play on their own consoles. The first is Tempest 2000, Atari’s phenomenal update to the arcade original. The second is Alien vs. Predator, which made every gamer who saw it in action burst into tears of joy. And then tears of rage, because unless you were that one rich kid who got everything he wanted, you knew you were never playing this outside of the demo kiosk at Kay-Bee Toys.

No matter who wins, we lose.

Comic lore has it Dark Horse artist and editor Chris Warner threw out this three-word idea during a brainstorming round-table in the late 1980s. The result is a phenomenal mini-series in Dark Horse Presents, collected and expanded in a trade paperback later, and remains one of the single greatest crossover events in comic history. Because nothing this awesome could ever be left the hell alone, we also wound up with two awful films, and a slew of video games which run the gamut from “likely to cause nightmares” to “Quit smoking all my blue cheese, Carl!” in terms of effectiveness.

*SNICKT*

I’m not in any way claiming Alien vs. Predator is the best FPS ever made. By today’s standards, it’s woefully inadequate. Its flaws are instantly obvious to anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of first-person shooter history: repetitive textures, 2D sprites, and some marine voice acting which makes Resident Evil sound like Shakespeare. But in 1994 there were two types of people to experience AvP: players whom this game terrified, and big fat liars. If that thought doesn’t make you drool, take it up with Gearbox, because you’re suffering from “nobody has apologized for Aliens: Colonial Marines yet” syndrome.

Shotguns: Handy for close encounters since 1986.

Developer Rebellion made their North American debut with this title. Prior to this, their only contribution to the industry was a European-only simulation for the Amiga called Eye of the Storm. How’d they earn the right to develop a first-person shooter for a console with no previous experience with either one? I’ve no idea. But they did it so well they were given the chance to do it for the PC five years later with Aliens vs. Predator, again in 2007 for the PSP-only Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem based on the film, and again in 2010 with Aliens vs. Predator for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. If there’s one thing Rebellion has proven time and time again, it’s that they know how to make a video game involving  acidic-blooded xenomorphs, colonial marines, and dreadlocked big game hunters  even when hamstrung by the Jaguar’s “more buttons than fingers, bee-yotch!” controller.

Worst. Kiss. Ever!

Alien vs. Predator departs from traditional FPS fare by offering multiple ways to experience the nightmare. Upon powering up, you’re presented with a choice of three characters: the first is the marine, Private Lance Lewis (named for level designer and writer Lance J. Lewis who apparently never heard of the term ‘Mary Sue’), who’s completed his prison sentence for striking a superior officer and is returning to active duty. Unfortunately Lance leaves the brig the same day a group of Aliens takes over the base, and some Predators arrive to hunt the whole area to extinction. He’s got to scoop up some weapons, set the base’s self-destruct mechanism, and haul ass to the escape pod while feeding lead to every non-human standing in his path.

“Gimme three, bro!”

The Predator scenario involves a young warrior out to secure his place in the clan by claiming the ultimate trophy: an Alien Queen. But said Queen isn’t going to sit there and let any old ugly motherfu-, uh, badass warrior forcibly separate her xenocranium from her xenospine without one big old knock-down, drag-out xenofight. You have to earn that head by slaying everything she throws at you honorably–fighting while cloaked deducts points from your score, and you earn better weapons by getting higher scores. There’s also a battalion of marines who’d like a word with your invisi-camoed ass about using their base for a big game safari. Can’t make an omelet without ripping out a few spines though, right?

“Get away from me, you bitch!”

Then there are the Aliens. In this scenario,  you’re a warrior tasked with rescuing your Queen and defending the hive against Marine and Predator incursion. And since a hive is only as good as the number of Aliens it spawns, your primary role is to cocoon the Marines trying to stop your redecoration project. Each victim gets you an extra life–a good thing because Aliens, while ferociously nimble, fold when exposed to heavy weapons like cheap furniture exposed to heavy a-holes.

Duct maintenance is a death sentence on this station.

With three ways to play, sound effects from the films (seriously, that motion tracker still creeps us out twenty years later), and enough action crammed into one cart to make every SNES and Genesis owner rage-crap his pants, Alien vs. Predator deserves every accolade we can give it. By today’s standards it’s laughably primitive, and your controller hand will cramp worse than the first time you discovered porn on the internet, but damn if Atari didn’t offer a compelling reason to buy a Jaguar in 1994. More’s the pity they couldn’t have offered a few dozen on top of that.

Shoot all you want. We’ll make more.

As always, enjoy the retro ad goodie:

Michael Crisman

In 1979, Michael Crisman was mauled by a radioactive Gorgar pinball machine. After the wounds healed, doctors discovered his DNA had been re-coded. No longer fully human, Michael requires regular infusions of video games in order to continue living among you. If you see him, he can see you. Make no sudden moves, but instead bribe him with old issues of computer and video game magazines or a mint-in-box copy of Dragon Warrior IV.


If he made you laugh, drop a tip in his jar at http://paypal.me/modernzorker


(If he didn't make you laugh, donate to cure his compulsion to bang keyboards by sending an absurdly huge amount of money to his tip jar instead. That'll show him!)