The truth is out there, and sometimes it comes to conquer the Earth! We remember ten games in which our planet has suffered the attack of invading aliens.
In literature and film, this little ball of mud called Earth has been exposed to the attack of aliens, intelligence from other planets, creatures and inhuman come to the earthlings like ants, food or a simple annoyance. A bath of cosmic humility that we’ve also lived in video games, so today, in our series of “the best…” we have chosen a few great invasions of Earth. We hope you enjoy them even though you can’t look up to the sky without feeling a chill.
- Space Invaders
The terror that came from space was shaped like pixelated monsters. Our only defenses were three barriers, which gradually disappeared mined by alien gunfire, and a cannon on the ground, desperately moving from left to right trying to destroy enemy lines and columns, immutable, perfect, terrible. What can we say about the work of Tomohiro Nishikado, the arcade that razed Japan and the United States and confirmed that video games were not a passing fashion, but an industry that had come to stay and revolutionize the world of entertainment? Space Invaders is an icon of popular culture; a phrase made that matches almost anything famous. And the worst part is, no matter how well you play, the alien formation always reappears, until it ends your last life.
- Maniac Mansion
When a comet falls near the mansion of the Family of Edison, and these begin to behave in an extraordinary way, it is impossible not to think that the evil hand of some alien has to do in the matter. Maniac Mansion and its sequel The Day of the Tentacle are two graphic adventures so good that they are still perfectly enjoyable today, and that’s why we’re not going to fuck anything out of history. Just tell you there’s a race of tentacle-shaped aliens in between and teenagers who can end up as bad as any horror movie.
Maniac Mansion was revolutionary at the time because the characters could die, as well as having several endings and a great sense of humor, courtesy of Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick. Also, I allow many players to check firsthand what happens if you put a hamster in a microwave (and turn it on). Its sequel, by Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer, was equally good and contained the original manic Mansion on the computer of one of the characters.
- UFO Enemy Unknown
A shift strategy game in which we handle command of soldiers who are experts in intercepting UFOs (The X-Com) and liquidating aliens who carry out incursions intending to conquer the Earth. As the game progresses, we learn more about these aliens and their leaders, The Eternals, extraterrestrials of enormous mental powers.
UFO was a total triumph at the time and the first of the X-Com saga (which has had a recent spin-off at the Bureau). The key to success was in its depth, as the game allowed us to manage each command soldier separately, with their skills and weaponry, as well as choose various trees of technological development to design weapons. And, on the ground, the battles, in turn, were full of possibilities depending on the scenario or our weaponry. In the different sequels expanded the mythology of the saga and The Eternals.
- Alien Vs. Predator
In the first half of the 1990s, the “beat’em up” were one of the dominant genres in the recreational halls, and from the first street fights, it had moved to much more varied scenarios ranging from Sword and witchcraft to the pseudohistorical ambiance or science fiction. This last genre brought us in 1994 an invasion of aliens (yes, of aliens, of the movie) on the streets of California and, also, two special guests: two Predators willing to ally with two other human soldiers to end the plague. With its vast sprites, protagonists able to hand out both hand-to-hand and with firearms and three simultaneous players, Capcom scored a piece of the title.
- Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark begins with a confrontation between futuristic corporations and takes a turn when agent Joanna Dark is sent to Area 51 and discovers that secret alien investigations are being conducted at the base and that aliens may be infiltrated among us. Ah, and by the way, he meets a short, gray colleague named Elvis, who gives him a hand against the bad guys (the image that accompanies the text is from the Xbox Live version of the game).
Perfect Dark suffered delays, unleashed an extraordinary hype for being the successor to Goldeneye 007 and, for once, failed anyone. Rare created the best subjective shooter experience ever lived on a console. The weapons design was brilliant (including the FarShight X20, X-ray weapons inspired by those of the movie “Eraser”) and gadgets too, all in a development with a wide variety of situations. The game had a sequel with the release of Xbox 360, Perfect Dark Zero, but Rare was no longer at its best, and they were left with an old game on many of their premises. As a curiosity, to say that Perfect Dark is the first shooting game in which, at least I, saw something similar to bullet time: an object called enhancer slowed the action, and we played slow motion for a while, thus gaining a considerable advantage over enemies — a year after the movie” The Matrix ” and a year before the game, Max Payne.