I played this game a long time ago. I remember they had a demo that just dropped you into it as a marine with no explanation, no understanding, just one clip of ammo and monsters in the dark. And, oh, so dark was it. And many monsters had it. The fear it caused was ramped up by several things. The action was FAST, and the xenomorphs lethal. It was akin to Live Die Repeat or Groundhog day, where you restarted at the beginning whenever you died. This also heightened the sense of fear that every encounter was going to end your progress. You started unloading with those few last clips of ammo you had, using those flares a little more liberally... Then you ran out! Every fight ended up with you backpedaling and trading ground for life as you aimed more carefully or you just ran for cover or looked for a dead marine to loot. I'm not ashamed to admit I ran back to the APC a number of times as an Alamo situation. This type of gaming is gone. Games now have too many checkpoints, auto saves, too much interpolation of movements or "leap-over" animations. This was back in the twitch gaming era where YOUR off-screen jumps lent a jump in mouse movement that mimicked your own. It was visceral. It was intense. It was SCARY. I even played it late at night with the lights out. The most intense game of its era, to my mind. I wound up playing all the SP campaigns and the games that came later. This had the better feel, immersion, and storyline by far. I think the marine was the best representation of a horror FPS in a long time. I felt the xenomorph was a little awkward and the predator was cool but too hamstrung by lack of powerups and needing too much power for all your goodies. Overall: The graphics are very dated now (1 star off for that), but the action and tension are still there. They added a patch later to allow a couple of savegames during maps, but if you want the truly tense gameplay, don't save. Just play through til the end of the map. This game is a retro classic.
