Alien: Resurrection (video game)

Alien: Resurrection is a first-person shooter video game based on the 1997 film of the same name. The game was developed by Argonaut Games and published by Fox Interactive exclusively for the PlayStation.

Plot
Following the same basic plot of the movie, the game takes place years after the events of Alien 3 and follows a cloned Lt. Ellen Ripley awaking aboard the USM Auriga and trying to escape from the xenomorph-infested research spaceship USM Auriga along with a crew of mercenaries. When the Xenomorphs bred from Queen that was extracted from her cloned body escape containment and begin running rampant aboard the Auriga, Ripley must unite with a group of rag-tag mercenaries to escape the vessel.

Gameplay
The game is a first person shooter (FPS) with survival horror elements. It consists of ten levels, the first nine taking place in the Xenomorph-infested USM Auriga, with the last aboard the mercenary ship Betty.

The player uses four different characters from the movie. Ripley is the main playable character for a majority of the game's levels, while Call, DiStephano, and Christie each get their own level as well. Each character has their own special equipment. Some players have different weapons. The selection includes a laser rifle, double barrel shotgun, grenade launcher, Shock rifle, flamer-thrower and a rocket launcher.

The player must complete different tasks to progress across the game. These include killing clones and ejecting overheating escape pods.

In addition to traditional drone aliens, the player also faces marines and the infamous face-huggers (if the player is implanted with an alien, they must track down a device to remove it, or the creature will hatch and the game ends), later fighting boss creatures such as the alien queen and the newborn.

Development
The game originally started as a third person survival horror game similar to the original Resident Evil game. The game was to be released by Fox Interactive and Argonaut Games for the Sony PlayStation (it was also rumored for the Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, and Microsoft Windows as well) close to the film's release in late 1997. However this was scrapped due to it would had took a long development, and Argonaut Games restarted development from scratch as a first person shooter for the PlayStation and PC.

After a series of delays the game was finally released exclusively for the Sony PlayStation in 2000 (October 10 in the USA and December 1 in Europe), three years after the film ran its course in theaters. Versions of the game for PC and Dreamcast were planned, but scrapped due to low sales and poor reception of the PlayStation game.

Reception
Whereas the film received very mixed reviews upon release, the video game received a notably better response, but with still "mixed" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Critics praised the game's atmosphere and frequently scary gameplay. However, criticism was directed at the graphics, as well as the harsh difficulty level. Steven Garrett, formerly of GameSpot, also criticised the control scheme, describing the game as "almost unplayably difficult to control and unreasonably hard to enjoy".