Aliens: ACBA

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="20f785a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Mikes Homepage</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Homepage"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id563.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien"><U>Alien</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id565.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien (Argus)"><U>Alien (Argus)</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id566.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Aliens TCG (Activision)"><U>Aliens TCG (Activision)</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id568.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Aliens TCG (Software Studios)"><U>Aliens TCG (Software Studios)</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id569.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Aliens : Alien 2"><U>Aliens : Alien 2</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id570.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien³"><U>Alien³</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id571.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien³ (SNES)"><U>Alien³ (SNES)</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id572.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien³ Gameboy"><U>Alien³ Gameboy</U></A>   |   <B>Aliens: ACBA</B>   |   <A HREF="id574.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien 3 : The Gun"><U>Alien 3 : The Gun</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id575.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Aliens Arcade"><U>Aliens Arcade</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id576.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien Trilogy"><U>Alien Trilogy</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id577.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Aliens Online"><U>Aliens Online</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id578.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Xenomorph"><U>Xenomorph</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id579.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien Resurrection"><U>Alien Resurrection</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id580.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Aliens: Thanatos Encounter"><U>Aliens: Thanatos Encounter</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id581.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Aliens Unleashed"><U>Aliens Unleashed</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id582.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien X Hunter"><U>Alien X Hunter</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id583.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien Xenocide"><U>Alien Xenocide</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id584.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien RL"><U>Alien RL</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id585.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Aliens Extermination"><U>Aliens Extermination</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id586.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" LV426"><U> LV-426</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id587.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien Infestation 13"><U>Alien Infestation 1-3</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id588.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien Legacy"><U>Alien Legacy</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="210d2b03.jpg"> <div> <A HREF="id564.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alien Games"><U><B>Alien Games</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>Platform</B></div> <div> PC</div> <bR> <div> <B>Download</B></div> <div> <A HREF="AliensCBA.rar" TARGET="_top" TITLE="AliensCBA.rar"><U>Alien </U></A><A HREF="AliensCBA.rar" TARGET="_top" TITLE="AliensCBA.rar"><U>A Comic Book Adventure</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Aliens: ACBA</I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="1327da370.png" border=0 width="218" height="311" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> Aliens: A Comic Book Adventure is an adventure game loosely based on the Aliens comic book series with many references to the "Labyrinth" graphic novel.</div> <bR> <div> The main protagonist, Lt. Col. Henricksen, is a nod to famed sci-fi actor Lance Henriksen, who played the android Bishop in Aliens and Alien³, and Charles Bishop Weyland in Alien vs. Predator.</div> <bR> <div> In 1994, Jean Martial Lefranc who was the CEO of Cryo Interactive charged Nicolas Choukroun, a French video game author, to build a small team in order to create an adventure game based on the Aliens Comic Book published by Dark Horse Comics. Mindscape was the Publisher and Fox gave their authorization as long as the game would not have any characters from the movies and would have a realistic movie style.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="132a5c050.png" border=0 width="348" height="261" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> <IMG SRC="132c5f070.png" border=0 width="351" height="263" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> The new ideas from the Dark Horse comic inspired the team who created an adventure with a lot of innovation. In the game, the player can use Synthetic Aliens in order study the real Aliens. Also the concept of a military base, using the Aliens to build an army against the Earth was original and was opening new horizons.</div> <bR> <div>  The familiar plot involves the four crew members of the USS Sheridan awakening from their cryogenic sleep to investigate an SOS from a mining colony which, as you will discover, is not as innocent as it seems. You must search the mining complex and piece together the scattered evidence to learn exactly what and who is behind the sinister experiments that have gone horribly wrong.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="132e54ff0.png" border=0 width="340" height="255" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> <IMG SRC="133055000.png" border=0 width="341" height="256" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Aliens: A Comic Book Adventure combines very impressive graphics with a suitably claustrophobic atmosphere that succeeds in capturing the mood of the movies. The cut sequences featuring the alien creatures are very well done and one scene in particular, as I attempted to retrieve an item, provided quite stunning shock value. The game comes on two CDs and offers a first person perspective that switches to third person during the cinematic sequences showing your party exploring the base. It also presents a third person 'isometric' view during the combat sequences which, surprisingly, I didn't find too off-putting.</div> <bR> <div>  From a purely adventuring point of view the game had a lot of potential incorporating some interesting problems to solve, items to find, locations to explore and a sinister plot to unravel. Unfortunately, this promising aspect was marred for me by two major flaws that conspired to ruin the game entirely so that it quickly ceased to be fun to play.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="133259030.png" border=0 width="345" height="259" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> <IMG SRC="13345c050.png" border=0 width="348" height="261" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> The first of these involved the interface which became rather cumbersome, especially when swapping items between the four characters. Each of the characters can carry a maximum of eight items and I spent almost as much time swapping things between inventories as I did solving puzzles. This was particularly noticeable when it came to simple, yet mundane, tasks such as eating. Your characters will get hungry so you need to take along an ample supply of food. To feed them the food must first be in each individuals inventory before you can drag it over to their 'portrait' to enable them to eat it. If the hungry person has a full inventory but with no food you must clear a space by moving an item to someone else then switch to the person with food then drag the food into the newly created spot then finally feed them. All this takes precious time. Of course, one way to avoid some of this is to make sure every one carries sufficient food. However, with only eight item slots each and lots of things to pick up along the way the inventories soon become full and you will still find yourself forever swapping items or switching inventories.</div> <bR> <div>  The interface by itself would only be a minor annoyance were it not for the second and even more annoying 'feature' of this game. The action takes place in segments that have a time limitation which means that you can't leisurely explore your surroundings and take your time mulling over a particular puzzle. In fact you are constantly 'dying' as your time runs out and must keep restoring your game. So what's the problem, you may ask?</div> <bR> <div> The problem resides in the design of the save game system. If the developers had gone out of their way to annoy adventure gamers they couldn't have chosen a better way to do it. Put simply, once you leave the ship your games don't save where you intend them but default to the point immediately before you put on your exoskeleton. This means that you must go through the same sequence time and again before you can navigate your way back to the rooms you were searching just before you 'died'. Admittedly, you can cut through some of the cinematic sequences by pressing the space bar, and you do retain any items you may have picked up once you have saved the game, but it does very quickly become boring. To cap it off this problem is compounded once you finally make it through to disk 2.</div> <bR> <div> Swapping disks in the last third of the game almost took on nightmarish proportions for me. When your allotted time runs out you must first insert disk 1 in order to restore; then suffer a, mercifully, foreshortened cinematic sequence that returns you to the start of stage three; and then you must reinsert disk 2 before you can move on, if, by this time you can remember where you were and what you were doing.</div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>