The first in a series of excellent pinball games developed by famous Japanese company Compile, Alien Crush was released on the PC Engine in Japan in 1988, and the following year in North America.

The game has an alien/horror theme and features suitably weird and gruesome backgrounds and sprites.

Gameplay-wise: there is little to fault other than a tiny bit of sprite tearing. Alien Crush is fast and exciting, and gave the series a good grounding among gamers.

It is pinball on steroids, with hidden screens and what you might even call ‘Boss Battles’. Which is of course what simulating a pinball machine on a computer is all about… Doing things differently to a normal pinball table.

Following on in the ‘Crush Pinball series’ were Devil’s Crush (1990, also PC Engine), Jaki Crush (1992, for the SNES), and a later title that wasn’t developed by Compile: Alien Crush Returns (2008, for the Nintendo Wii).

More: Alien Crush on Wikipedia