Alien 3

STORY / GAMEPLAY
The main hero of the game is the beautiful and redneck Lt Ellen Ripley (played in the movie by Sigourney Weaver). Ripley wakes up after being forced into cryo-sleep, at a scientific base situated in Sulaco. Two alien monsters have stowed away, so the nightmare is still on. Lt Ripley must fight her way to destroy the menacing breed once and for all and save the humans that are kept hostages by the Aliens for experimental purposes. You, as Ripley, must find and free the hostages and also conserve your ammunition since there will be many times where you'll be left with no bullets at all (an issue that will make things even tougher).
The control of your character is quite good, though a bit odd when you try to land after jumping. The NES version obviously doesn't pack enough power to match the 16bits special effects. However, the particularly challenging gameplay and the vast environments, add to the game more punch than an average NES fare.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Technically the game pushes the Master System into its limits. The Master System version looks quite similar to the Genesis version, offering great graphics and sound and it is much superior to the NES rival (which also looks great) I think. The sprite animations are smooth (note that the number of on-screen sprites is quite limited so that it does not cause flickering or slowdown issues) and it is always fun to watch the aliens explode into pulpy fragments. The levels are vast and well detailed, resembling enough the dark and horrifying atmosphere of the movie. The background music consists of multiple layers of synthesized riffs, while the sound FX add some extra, eerie atmosphere to the game.