The History of Alien Video Games
1979’s Alien, written by Dan O'Bannon and directed by Sir Ridley Scott, is a sci-fi masterpiece which should need little introduction. A part sci-fi, part slasher smash hit of absolutely soaring standards, Alien is broadly regarded as one of the most important and influential science fiction and horror movies ever made – and deservedly so. It’s also a member of an elite list of fabulous film series that really should’ve stopped at just the one sequel. You know, like The Terminator. Or RoboCop. Or The Godfather. Or Home Alone. Or… Shrek.
Mate, we’ve only just started. At any rate, there’s not a lot that hasn’t been said about 1979’s Alien. What you may not know, however, is that Alien was already an established multimedia franchise well before its first theatrical sequel arrived in 1986.
The history of Alien video games stretches back over 40 years, beginning with Alien for the Atari 2600 in November 1982.
1982’s Alien was one of the earliest ever video games based on an official movie licence, an honour it was only marginally beaten to by Raiders of the Lost Ark (which also came out in November 1982 and holds the Guinness World Record as the first).
Unfortunately, Alien wasn’t exactly a complex or ambitious tie-in. The technical limitations of the Atari 2600 notwithstanding, it wasn’t a unique one, either. In fact, it was just a Pac-Man clone. Ghosts became aliens, Pac-Dots became alien eggs, and Power Pellets became… pulsars. It’s pretty brazen. There is one key difference: it arms players with a limited flamethrower.
Well, yes, but in this case… it’s not a drastically effective tool to rely on.
1982’s Alien was programmed by Doug Neubauer, who had previously made the well-regarded space combat sim Star Raiders. Neubauer later explained his keenness to work with Fox Video Games stemmed from his assumption he’d have a chance to work on all its movie licenses at the time – including Star Wars, which was previously distributed by Fox, before Disney bought Lucasfilm, and
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