What it was
Not the Capcom arcade game. This is a separate Super Nintendo beat 'em up that happens to share the name, with its own story. The Predators spot a distress signal from the city of New Shanghai, on the planet Vega 4, where a work crew has dug up a colony of Aliens. The Predators decide the Aliens are worth hunting, and you take the job.
You play a Predator and fight through six stages, killing the Aliens. You can turn invisible for a while, and you can charge your energy weapon to wipe out every enemy on screen at once. The bosses are the hook: several are Aliens that gestated in animals, so you get one from a dolphin, one from an ape, a winged one from a bat and a snake-like one. The last stage is in the Orion Nebula against the Alien queen.
Where it sits in history
Jorudan developed it. They had made Xardion and Musya before. Activision producer Tom Sloper oversaw it, and Tenpei Sato wrote the soundtrack. Information Global Service published it in Japan on 8 January 1993, Activision in North America in September 1993, then Europe that November.
The Japanese version, called Aliens vs. Predator, is a different build. The Predator moves slower there but can run by double-tapping the direction button, and he is orange. In the international release he moves faster, cannot run and is brown, and the charge meter for the energy weapon is shorter. The Japanese version also has a two-player mode where one person plays the Predator and the other plays an Alien. The international release cut it.
Ports were planned too. People involved have said an Atari Jaguar version was floated and then turned into a first-person shooter pitch, and Sloper has said Mega Drive and PC versions were in the works and scrapped by Activision, who were unhappy with them.
How it plays today
Critics were not kind. The game got generally unfavourable reviews, and that is no surprise to anyone who has played a lot of brawlers. Final Fight set the bar for what a scrapper should feel like, and this does not clear it.
That said, the idea is a good one. You are the monster the Aliens should be afraid of. Cloak, charge, clear the screen: the power fantasy is there. Play it as a curiosity and try the Japanese version if you can, because it is the one with the versus mode.
Compared with
- Final Fight: The brawler this one is measured against, and the better playing of the two.
- Captain Commando: Capcom's own sci-fi brawler from the same years, and far more fun to throw a punch in.
- Contra III: The Alien Wars: Another SNES game about fighting an alien infestation, this time with guns.
Why it matters
Most of us spend our time in games as the hero who is outmatched. Here you are the hunter, and the Aliens, which have haunted a lot of screens, are the prey. Switching that around changes how the whole thing feels.
Caillois called one kind of play mimicry: taking on a role and living inside it. Putting on a different character for a while is a big part of why people play, and flipping who is frightened is about as direct a way to do it as any game gets.
Read: Who you are when you play →
- Caillois, R. (1958/1961). Man, Play and Games (trans. M. Barash).
What you're levelling up
You have been training these without noticing. Here is how to do it on purpose, and where it pays off away from the couch. All the skills games teach →
Timing and rhythm
In the game. The energy weapon has to be charged and then released, and it clears every enemy on screen. Fire too early and you waste it.
Do it on purpose. Hold the charge through one whole stage and only release it when the screen fills up. Note what it saves you.
Off the couch. Saving the big news, the pay-rise ask or the 'I like you', for when the room is actually listening.
Judging risk
In the game. You can turn invisible for a while, so every fight is a call on whether to cloak and wait or wade in.
Do it on purpose. Play one stage using the cloak only when you are in trouble. Then try it before a boss. Compare the damage.
Off the couch. The job offer interstate: say what you lose if it goes wrong, then decide, rather than drifting into it.
Pattern recognition
In the game. The animal-host bosses, like the dolphin, ape, bat and snake Aliens, each fight differently. You work out what each does.
Do it on purpose. Watch the first thirty seconds of each boss without attacking. Write down two things it repeats.
Off the couch. Watching how a date treats the waiter before you decide how much of yourself to share.
Verdict · 4/10
A rough brawler with a great premise. The Predator angle is the draw; the fighting is not.
