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 does not push the NES to its limits. This version looks fairly good, though inferior when compared to its rival, the Sega Master System. The graphics are nice and the sprite animations are smooth (note: the number of simultaneous sprites is limited in order not to cause flickering or slowdown issues) and it is always fun to watch the aliens explode into pulpy fragments when shot. The levels are vast and well detailed, keeping the dark and fearful atmosphere of the movie. The NES' background music is great, offering multiple layers of synthesized riffs and the sound FX add a lot kudos to the game. Actually I think that the NES version has better sound than its rival, the Sega Master System.