It’s a widely accepted fact that the Atari Jaguar was one of the worst video game consoles of all time. I’ll start this review by saying I’m not arguing against that. The Jaguar was released at the height of the ‘bit wars’ where none of us knew what bits were, but that more were better. This console boasted a hefty sixty four bits. The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis only had sixteen. Unfortunately Jaguar wasn’t able to secure big or long lasting support for their platform. Third parties were mostly unknown names, and shoveled their low effort titles onto the system. Not everything was horrible however. Alien Vs. Predator was probably the best game released for the Atari Jaguar, and has still never been ported anywhere else. With Halloween on the horizon there’s no better time to take a look at this forgotten classic. Let’s take a look.
Alien Vs. Predator is a video game loosely based on the film of the same name. It takes place in the distant future and borrows heavily from both the Aliens and Predator franchise. The scenario here is as follows. Xenomorphs have overtaken a human ship, and during this process they send out a distress signal. Unfortunately for them the only shuttle in range of this belongs to the predator. Always wanting to prove themselves to be the strongest this extra terrestrial heads over to collect the skull of the alien queen to decimate both human and monster alike. It’s pretty basic and we don’t have a lot of exposition, but it works. It’s a first person shooter released in 1994 after all, but the fact that you have not one but three different scenarios to choose from is rather special for this era.
Alien Vs. Predator is a first person shooter no matter which character you choose to play as. Let’s start with the marines. This scenario is the most traditional by genre standards. You wander corridors collecting weapons, unlocking doors and elevators, and moving forward. Both Xenomorphs and the Predator will attack. The former is by far the most common in this scenario. What’s more is you’ll find that they sneak up on you very often which is downright startling at times. There are several weapons available at your disposal including a shotgun, pulse rifle, flamethrower etc. These have limited ammunition so you’ll need good accuracy because the opponents come at you with reckless abandon. In the marine scenario your goal is simply to escape from the ship and self destruct the ship to destroy the creatures aboard. This mode feels like a traditional first person shooter with few frills.
The other scenarios offer some new ideas (at the time) for the genre. Let’s next cover the Xenomorphs. These aliens lack projectile attacks. You have to get up close and personal to dispatch your foes in this scenario. What’s really interesting is that you have three separate weapons and each has their strengths all assigned to a face button. You can slash with your claws which is fast but weak. There’s also a venomous tail attack which is slower, but helps with making cocoons. Finally there’s the extending jaw which is the most powerful but has the lowest range, is slow, but very powerful. As the alien you can cocoon marine characters which has a few benefits. Should you lose all your health a new xenomorph will hatch from them and you’ll instead take control of this character. It’s a great play on the mechanics of the film series.
Finally there’s the predator. This guy has the most diverse abilities of the bunch. For one thing when this is the only scenario in which you have both melee and projectile attacks. He’s generally very powerful and this is good because both marines and Xenomorphs are common foes. The best part of it all is that the predator can turn invisible. This is a short lived effect but one that allows you to sneak up on enemies. It’s a really neat effect that pays perfect homage to the films on which this game is based. Unlike the alien you can also use elevators, and to that effect it’s more similar to the marine scenario. The goal here is to defeat the alien queen and it’s the only boss encounter you’ll find here. Dynamic elements (such as the aforementioned ability to turn invisible) make this the most enjoyable scenario to play.
No matter the scenario you choose there will be a lot of wandering through corridors and trying to figure out how to progress. Alien Vs. Predator’s major fault is that areas look too similar to one another. Often times I had to wander around aimlessly and only knew I was making progress because I encountered new foes. The graphics are too similar in each area which is a clear limitation of the format, but more could have been done on this front. The layout is different depending on the scenario you choose, but everything looks near identical. What’s interesting is the fact that the alien character cannot use elevators. Instead they have access to the ventilation shafts (a great nod to the film series). This makes traversing the environments feel very different in this scenario. I absolutely loved this and it shows the developers studied the source material.
I don’t say this about a lot of Atari Jaguar games, but the controls in Alien Vs. Predator are really on point. The different scenarios all have an excellent and very useful HUD which shows your ammunition or simply what attacks are available to you. They’re labeled with the button presses as well which is surprisingly useful. What’s more is the fact that the game came with overlays for the number pad. These uses change between the scenarios, but placing this mere piece of cardboard over the controller helps tremendously despite this. The inputs you won’t need in the heat of battle are assigned to the main face buttons which allows for easy use. I have no problem with the controls here. Honestly the number pad always seemed like a terrible idea to me. I’m happy to report that Alien Vs. Predator alone completely justifies it.
Alien Vs. Predator is the best looking, and running, game on the Atari Jaguar. Honestly it outperforms a lot of early first person shooters on the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn in this respect. The 3D environments look absolutely amazing for the era in which this was released. They’re clearly at a higher resolution than in both Doom and Wolfenstein. Details repeat, but they are very easy to make out. What’s more is the fact that the game has both smooth scrolling and scaling. This is a common issue in a lot of early 3D titles, but Alien Vs. Predator sets the standard. Honestly the graphics, and how useful the HUD is are unmatched for the year in which this game was released. The audio is also surprisingly good. There’s not a lot of music to accompany the action but the ambient sounds and effects are almost CD quality.
