Alien Crush (1988)

Day 1

Wow the PC Engine just keeps impressing me left and right. The graphics, the advanced features, loving it. Pinball games aren't usually a favorite, tho I did play the Kirby Pinball for Gameboy a lot as a kid, and I liked how that had bosses and "levels" which it seems this one does too? I'm on some "boss" that reminds me of a Zelda boss? I dunno, my main worry is, with pinball games, unless there are actual levels leading to an end, I wont find a drive to play it for very long. However, the music is great, I love the customizability of speed and music, the graphics are excellent for its time, and the controls are tight and intuitive. I was playing Super Mario Bros 2 tonight, which I wasn't clicking with so temporarily moved on to give it another try tomorrow. I'm super tired because terrible sleep last night from a storm, and then an early morning meeting today, so I also didn't feel up to OSRS bossing. So, I credited it to all that sleep factor. But this game instantly hooked me in! Oh and it's cute that it has a shake the machine button, like a real pinball machine :-p

Alright so I did some research. There's only one table booooo, and this isn't a boss for progression it's just a Bonus Area for points. I think what my "finishing the game" will qualify as is accessing each of the bonus stages at least once. I now read that there is an "ending" by getting 999 million points, which would take about 10 hours of continuous play lol. Nope. And the "ending" is very brief anyway.

I really like all Bonus Stages music, but this one with the green aliens was especially great. I'm 2 of 4 bonus stages done then I'll just play till I run out of balls and consider that a finish. Short, but truly a pinball machine brought to home, with excellent music and graphics. I was wondering if I'd ever get the yellow area to light up for the final bonus stage I had to access, where you go in the main alien's mouth in the bottom half of the table, but then at last I did!

Nice, brief little playthrough there. I didn't try super hard on my last 2 balls, it was time to move on, but for a one-table pinball game this was fun. Some of the bonus stages felt a bit more like a chore than a blessing (namely the one with the, uh, blue things you bounce off of.. I prefer the ones that felt like you were fighting enemies or a boss), and I'm not a high score chaser. But the best of the early pinball games so far, and another example of the PC Engine's power!

Look: 8/10 Great look for an 88 home game. Looks like an arcade game.

Sound: 8.5/10 To-the-point and very fitting.

Play: 7/10 I have to admit I'm always just relying on luck and trying not to let my ball die in pinball games, whether simulated or real :-p The gameplay gets old quite quickly, but for what it is, this is great.

Feel: 7.5/10 Not a genre I will ever full-blown love, but this gets credit for being such a well-done early example of it.

Attachment: 7/10 I doubt I will be returning to this, except just to show the PC Engine's abilities? I dunno. Doubtful, but a good game and worth checking out for any pinball game fans.

Overall: 7.6/10

Completion: Accessed and earned points in all bonus stages

Score: 5,309,700 Points

Platform:

Turbografx-16 version.

Graphics:

The graphics are good but compared to later games (e.g. Devil's Crush) they are less lively, and some of the backgrounds are a bit bland. But overall they do a great job at creating an alien atmosphere that has clearly been influenced by Giger.

Gameplay:

It's a pinball game, but not trying to be a realistic simulation of one. Rather it's taking the gameplay of pinball, and adding all kinds of weird stuff like alien monsters moving about on the table. Maneuvering the ball into a certain hole will make you face a mini-boss. There are several of those, and I don't know if there is any specific order in which they appear. This game's main weakness is that it doesn't have any scrolling. The table is made up of several screens, which makes it sometimes hard to react when it passes the screen borders.

Difficulty:

It's a pinball game, so quite a portion of the success depends on luck. But that's ok, I didn't feel there was overly unfair deaths or anything, The physics seem consistent and the controls are responsive, so no problems here.

If you like pinball games like Epic Pinball or Devil's Crush this is definitely something you might like. It's obviously not as accomplished as the latter, but I still like coming back to this from time to time.