Game of the Day - Alien 3 - The Gun

Don't be fooled by the name, you don't need a gun to enjoy Alien 3 - The Gun.  Based on the movie of the same name, Alien 3 is a cross-hair shooter that used mounted guns in the arcade version of the game.  Obviously, if you have a light gun with your MAME setup, you can enjoy similar action, but I don't have a gun.

You can play the game with a joystick, setting it up in MAME is easy if you are a newbie.  But, this game plays unbelievably well using a trackball as the gun/cross-hair/aiming mechanism.  I've tried many games that were designed for use with guns in the arcades, and some of them play well with other controls like a trackball and some don't.  It depends on how the things come at you and what kind of action the game has as well as other factors.  There are some games where it is more about aiming and a quick/steady hand - those are better with lightguns and not so much with trackballs.  However, games where there are lots of enemies coming from everywhere and where you can zoom all over the place with the trackball - starting and stopping at will - provide a very satisfying game experience without the benefit of a gun.  Alien 3 is one of those games.

You have two buttons, fire and bomb.  Normally the fire button is for bullets, but you can change weapons by finding and shooting items (flamethrower, for instance).  When you hold down the button to shoot, it acts like a machine gun EXCEPT, the longer you hold the button, the slower your bullets fire.  It's essentially like overheating.  So, you have to give it a rest here and there to keep at max firepower.  The bombs pretty much kill everything in sight.  You start with a couple but can get more by shooting items as you move around.  Other than weapons and bombs, you can also shoot an item that gives you more lifeforce.  Alien 3 is a game that gives you a certain amount of lifeforce to start that decreases when you take hits (as opposed to games that you die each time you are hit and give you multiple lives).

There aren't actually a lot of items to get and the graphics tend to lack variety, but those weaknesses are made up for by the fun of the action that is all around.  Watch out for the Facehuggers.