Developed by an Australian company called Wicked Witch Software for Crawfish Interactive, and published by Fox Interactive in 2001, Aliens: Thanatos Encounter is an overhead shooter in the style of Team 17‘s Alien Breed. It was released exclusively for the Game Boy Color.

The game sees you exploring the abandoned space cruiser Thanatos, which has been overrun by aliens. You can choose individual members of a team of marines who must go in, rescue any survivors and destroy any aliens still on-board.

There are twelve overhead scrolling levels to play in total in a single-player-only campaign. You can equip weapons and tools in either hand, but start off with only a pistol and a motion-tracker. You can find shotguns, automatic weapons, and other useful items (like keycards and health packs) as you progress. If you lose one of your soldiers you must then choose another from your squad and try to rescue the previous member from the aliens within a set time limit, which is a nice feature.

You encounter aliens at different stages of their life cycle, including face-huggers (that of course jump onto the heads of the marines if they get close enough), chest-bursters, juvenile aliens, fully-grown aliens, and beyond.

Aliens: Thanatos Encounter is a pretty good game overall, based on this particular franchise, but it is frustratingly difficult at times. Mostly due to the erratic nature of enemy movement. The game is quite basic too. There are some highlights – like getting into the powerloader suit (although it makes you move much more slowly) – and the presentation is very good, but it wouldn’t be unfair to say that the game is a little ‘generic’ overall.

More: Aliens: Thanatos Encounter on Wikipedia