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Battle Of The Beasts: A history of Aliens Vs Predator - part two - SciFiNow

Battle Of The Beasts: A history of Aliens Vs Predator – part two

Sink your mandibles into this second part of our exciting feature on these warring aliens.

Aliens_vs._Predator-Xbox_360Screenshots16365AVP Global Print 4To celebrate the launch of the fantastic new game from Sega and Rebellion, Aliens Vs Predator, SciFiNow takes a look back at the history of one of sci-fi’s most enduring franchise alliances.

It’s quite possible that videogames were the last thing on Dan O’Bannon’s mind when he thought up Alien. Success can do strange things to a film, however, and before long this landmark sci-fi not only launched a movie franchise, but also mutated to include merchandise and a huge selection of videogames.

Sega and Rebellion’s incoming Aliens Vs Predator for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 is the 37th game to be based on the Alien and Predator franchises and is also looking to be the best of the bunch.

Fox’s foray into the game world began in 1982 with its internally developed Alien for the Atari 2600 – a nifty Pac-Man clone that replaced ghosts with Aliens. A rush of games followed the release of Aliens, including an arcade shoot-’em-up by Konami, a creepy first-person exploration game by Electric Dreams, and a side-on shooter by Squaresoft.

Fox’s Predator also joined in on the digitised fun with a release that put you in the blocky shoes of Arnie on various 8 and 16-bit computers. The run-‘n’-gun’s colourful visuals would occasionally fade to the heat-tracking sensor of the Predator, with Arnie having to avoid the crosshairs that would try to lock onto him.

Numerous games for both franchises followed, but by far the most visually impressive was Rebellion’s superb Jaguar and PC titles that pitted Aliens and Predators against each other.

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