Your favourite Aliens/Aliens related game?

[THE ADORING FAN]

tl;dr - What's your best Aliens game?

For me it's got to be Aliens Versus Predator 2 from 2001 on PC, the three campaigns were super fun, playing the marine campaign feels like if you could manually select one of your marines from this game and go solo first person mode. APC's, sentry guns, door hacking/welding, motion trackers etc and movie accurate sound effects for the pulse rifles, doors and so on were spot on. The marine campaign was genuinely unnerving to play, the atmosphere was spot on.

The motion tracker would also throw you off by picking things up from the environment like crane hooks moving, something I feel could have been added here.

Second favourite would probably be Alien: Isolation for how faithfully the devs captured the original films aesthetic and setting, with great sound design and environmental graphics. A horror game that really stands out and is genuinely immersive.

I'd probably place Dark Descent as my third favourite - Trilogy on the Ps1, AVP 2010 and Fireteam were all fine but didn't quite live up to expectations, personally. This game is more buggy than the xenomorphs at times, however it's been a while since I've played an RTS as good as this (when it works that is), and they priced it sensibly.

The discussion board here seem to take digs frequently at the devs for the bugs, and I've had a few myself (door welding/unwelding/welding to save, and glitched primary objective on Pryce of Deception meaning I could no longer progress) however when I compare their responses and fairly fast patch notes to Dead Space remake, a AAA game from EA with a higher price and effectively abandoned after launch (lots of performance related problems and stuttering issues never were fixed, with no communication at all from the devs), with likely a much higher budget than Dark Descent would have been allocated, I can't complain since they actually seem to care; unlike EA. Having said that, I do miss the 90's where companies had to hire game testers to stress test the games to ensure as few as possible bugs exist as possible upon release, since post release patches were not possible on consoles without internet access.

What is your best rated Aliens related game? Putting aside bug issues, do you enjoy the core gameplay of Dark Descent? Any ideas for things that could improve it?

I'd personally change how ammo works so that you can bring spares with you at marine selection, same as tools, medkits and sentries so that excess ammo doesn't just vanish after each mission. A method to choose individual marines to command would be useful, as often times I can't use abilities such as silenced sniper effectively, as my Sergeant is always first in line standing at the door, but my sniper is physically behind and to the side of him, behind the door, and as such doesn't get the required line of sight to execute their shot, and considering the narrowness of some of the corridors in maps, it can prove to be problematic. Perhaps a way in game to switch the marines around (drag and drop their names on the HUD maybe) to manually adjust the priority system, ensuring the soldier you want is always at the head of the group.

[Dregora]

My top 3 would be:

Aliens Dark Descent
Alien Isolation
Aliens vs predator 2010

Good runner up is fireteam elite.


I think they all scratch a certain itch in different ways, but Dark Descent and Isolation are easily the best in terms of atmosphere and immersiveness.


AvP 2010 is just a guilty pleasure and Fireteam elite is just a fun game.

[Stig783]

Top 3 for me would be:

AvP2
Aliens Dark Decent
Alien Isolation

Hard for me though as I also like Alien Trilogy, Alien Resurrection and AvP Gold.

[kordelas]

AvP - Arcade (1994)
AvP - Atari Jaguar (1994)
Alien Trilogy - PS1 version (1996)
AvP - PC (1999)
Aliens (1986) fan game - PC (2021)
Aliens: Dark Descent (2023)

[Narrowmind]

This is the best by far!

[Beltane]

Tough one...especially third one i guess...

1) Alien Isolation, just due to atmosphere and attention to details
2) Aliens: Dark Decent, because i like Aliens and like this kind of game
3) AvP 2, i guess - at the very least it was rock solid and entertaining

Fireteam in theory is not bad and quite fun, but lacked content aka maps to do - at least last time i played. Dunno if something has changed in that regard. Biggest disappointment to this day remains Colonial Marines.

[Sharkon]

1 - Alien: Isolation (best Alien game)
2 - Aliens: Dark Descent (best Aliens game)
3 - Aliens vs Predator (2010) (best AvP game)

[Paladestar]

I've only played six official Alien-universe games. This is my order for them:

1) AvP2
2) this
3) Alien: Isolation
4) Alien 3 (Megadrive/Genesis)
5) Alien Trilogy (original PlayStation)
6) AvP

I really enjoyed them all. 1 to 3 are all pretty close, I'd probably rate them all between 8 and 9 out of 10. 4 and 5 are more like between 7 and 8. 6 I'd probably say 6-7. I really enjoyed AvP when it was first released, but I find the desire to replay it isn't really there, whereas I've played through the others at least once every couple of years since their original releases.

[Salamander]

ISOLATION. Very primal to have something hunting you you have little chance to fight. Must have been like sabretooth tigers for our ancestors.

[chesticles]

The AvP2 2001 game you mentioned was great. A shooter, 3 storylines criss-crossing each other, 3 styles of gameplay (marine ,alien, predator). It could really do with a remaster or remake.
Dark Descent is definitely one of the best Alien games.

[Booby_Tuesdays]

My personal list of only the games I've played.

1) AvP Gold (my first ever PC game back in 99, it was an absolute game changer)
2) Alien: Isolation (probably the best Alien universe game overall)
3) Aliens: Dark Descent (very different genre, but excellent)
4) Aliens: Fireteam Elite (a lot of fun, a more arcade style game)
5) AvP 2 (not as good as the first one imho)
6) AvP 2010 (i wanted to love it, but it's so clunky and slow)
7) Alien: Blackout (it's a mobile game, i play it on airplanes, it's meh)
8) Aliens: Colonial Marines (even modded it's still a bad game)

[Mirvra]

You all wound me....

AvP2 (2001)
AvP extinction (Ravagers for the win)
Aliens: Dark descent.

Honorable mention to Alien Isolation, only reason it's not high is because I'm bad with horror games where I can't fight, and I keep being made to play the game for others entertainment 😔

Also, SS13CM is good! Spitters rule, Lurkers drool!

[TacticalOpossum]

Alien: Isolation is hands down is my favourite game from the setting. It captured so much of what drew me into the franchise as a kid.

Aliens: Dark Descent, comes really really close to Alien: Isolation but doesn't quite catch it due to my preference for Alien: Isolation's first-person-horror. However, for a top down tactics game I was really impressed at how foreboding and tense they made it. I'm really hoping that after patching the bugs, they'll do a couple of narrative expansion packs.

Special mention goes to LV426, a reworking of the game based on Aliens from the '80s that I had it on my Amstrad (yes, I'm ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ old) and I've still not completed it.

[Evil Overlord]

Top for me is Isolation, second is Dark descent.
Third place is this one I found in a discount bin while I was shopping, I can't remember its title but it was for the Nintendo DS.
Fourth would be this AvP RTS game I once owned on the PS2.
*quick google and they are "Alien Infestation and AvP Extinction", loved those two games.

[rami]

Alien Trilogy
Aliens Dark Descent
Aliens Fireteam Elite
AvP2
Alien Isolation

[Cenotaph]

AvP1 and 2 and this game.
I didnt like Isolation much, but i can see the appeal it can have