Alien Crush

Written by Peter Skerritt  on December 20, 2006

Review: The biggest alien crush since Seven of Nine.

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Many players received a welcome surprise when Alien Crush was announced for the Virtual Console. Rather than being based on the pinball tables of the time (like RARE did with releases of High Speed and Pinbot for the Nintendo Entertainment System), Alien Crush had a decidedly scary edge to it, with skulls, brains, and aliens who owed a nod to Ridley Scott. The table was two screens high and brimming with bonus opportunities and millions of points just waiting to be scored.

Unfortunately, since the game came out for the TurboGrafx-16, it never really had a chance to succeed. The TurboGrafx-16 could not stand up against the NES or Sega's true 16-bit Genesis console. Thanks to Nintendo and the Virtual Console, though, a new generation of gamers can experience one of the better pinball games of the time period in Alien Crush. At 600 Wii Points-- or $6 USD-- the big question is:

Is Alien Crush worth getting?

If you're a fan of pinball, the answer is a resounding yes. Success in Alien Crush is dictated by the player's skill with using flippers to make certain shots while keeping the ball in play. Since Alien Crush is all about scoring millions of points, play sessions can be rather long; however, due to the Virtual Console's ability to save games in progress (called save states), it's possible to play Alien Crush in spurts. That being said, the game is engaging, especially when you see how quickly you can rack up points. High scores in gaming are not the main point of focus today as they were during the 1980s and early 1990s, but Alien Crush is all about high scores and points. The ultimate goal is to reach the maximum score of 1 billion points.

There are some drawbacks here. Unfortunately, there isn't a multiplayer option, which may turn off some players. There's also no online leader board to compare high scores against someone-- which would have added to this game's appeal. The only competition in this game is the confrontation between the player and the pinball. The game also has a quick hook when it comes to "nudging" the table in order to keep the ball away from any outholes, which is unfortunate since one of the skills required to perform well when playing an actual pinball table is to nudge-- but not tilt-- the machine. While these are all flaws that stem from the game being a straight-up emulation of the original game, they are glaring in that current game players have different expectations than players did in 1989.

In terms of emulation quality, the VC Alien Crush is spot-on. While the sound may be lacking with only two background tracks to choose from (and no voice), the visuals still stand up today. The creatures and playfields seem to have a mix of science fiction and horror movie inspirations to them, but there's no blood to speak of. The game is certainly colorful (one of the strengths of the TG-16 versus the NES at the time), although the color seems to bleed a bit more than it did back then. As you'd expect, there aren't any technical issues like slowdown to impede the experience.