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.
Another great “hidden gem” on the Atari ST – Wrangler, developed by Magnetic Fields and published by Alternative Software in 1988.
Wrangler a strange isometric puzzle game, with you playing the role of a robotic cowboy called “Glint Eastwood” (groan), and who must patrol various levels, collecting a required number of coloured tiles in order to shut down some alien gates. It’s a difficult game to explain, but is quite easy to play when you get the hang of it, and also quite compelling.
A 1990 release into arcades by Tecmo of Japan, Raiden is an action-packed shoot ’em up with a vertical screen and impressive 2D graphics.
Not to be confused with Alien vs. Predator from British developer Rebellion, this gaming sequel was created by Monolith Productions and published by Sierra On-Line in 2001.
Whatever you think about the AvP series you can’t disagree that the concept does work extremely well as a video game, and this first-person shooter arguably proves that.
Probe Software developed this side-scrolling version of Alien 3 for Acclaim in 1992.
It is a run-and-gun platform game with you playing a bald Ripley trying to rescue cocooned prisoners while fending off waves of attacking aliens.
When film-maker Steven Spielberg wanted to make a video game he went to George Lucas and his company LucasArts for help making it, and the end result was The Dig.
Archer MacLean‘s Dropzone was initially released on the Atari 8-bit machines in 1984, before it later appeared on the Commodore 64 and became a smash hit.
David Lubar‘s 1984 classic, Pastfinder, originated on Atari 8-bit home computers.
It’s a strange, vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up with strategic overtones.
The Atari 800 version of Rescue On Fractalus was released in 1984 and was the first version available. It was a critical success and drew quite a lot of attention to Atari 8-bit home computers (jealous Commodore 64 owners had to wait almost a year before they got a conversion).
An early attempt at a vertical shoot ’em up by Derek Brewster, Starclash was published by Micromega for the ZX Spectrum in 1983.
The King of Grabs 