"Alien Crush" - Turbografx-16/PC Engine

Alien Crush is the first in the "Crush Pinball" series, apparently-- also it was developed by... Compile (gasp)! They're the people that developed Zanac and Gunnac, which I'm looking forward to getting to on Famicom, and you might know them as the people who developed Puyo Puyo. You might also know them as slightly more than half of the name of the company Compile Heart (basically just the sequel to Compile by some key members of Compile), the people who co-develop the "Neptunia" games with Idea Factory now.

As much as I'd like to rant about Neptunia at this point, I'll stop and talk about Alien Crush instead.

I'll save us both 3 hours by just saying it amounts to "games that I should like but actually don't like... because they're bad."

The English Wikipedia for Alien Crush basically tells us that it's a pinball game, and there's some bonus stages... and you have to destroy the aliens... wow, that's a lot of detail. Let's check out the Japanese Wikipedia.

Apparently Hudson used to own the copyright for this game but it was acquired by Konami in 2012, who owns the trademark now, incase you're clamoring for more "Crush Pinball" after reading this review. Apparently there's also a fancy ending screen you get if you max out the score, but also it takes multiple tens of hours to get that many points, and there's no way to save the game so you'll basically never see it. Sweet.

Also apparently there was a sequel to the game called Alien Crush Returns on WiiWare in 2008. Neat!

So... let's crush some aliens.

Funny how this particular species of Alien has this tendency to form itself into the words "Alien Crush" in English.

----- Playthrough -----

There's not a lot to say about a pinball game-- you hit the ball with the flippers and try not to let it go down the center well. If it does, you lose a ball. If it doesn't, you get points for hitting various objects on the screen.

I tried both the Japanese and American releases of Alien Crush and they were the exact same down to both having everything in them written in English, so there's not much reason to show both of them.

The slimy tentacle forehead skull was deemed appropriate for people of all cultural backgrounds.

The main part of the table is divided into two subscreens, a top and a bottom. Both feature various... mouths you can hit your ball into to access one of the four bonus stages, but more on that later.

In the main table, most things you can hit do something. For instance, going through the slots at the top of the screen charges the weird squid brain man up so that when you go inside it, you'll get all the points that you've accrued while charging it. On the bottom screen are various aliens you can hit that will eventually cause the main background alien to open its mouth, or hitting the bumpers various times will eventually cause a face-hugger type alien to come walking out.

Ewww... why's everything gotta be so... slimy looking?

Most of the bonus stages amount to something flying around the screen that you're trying to hit, with the exception of one stage that involves hitting bumpers which turn on lights at various places on the screen. Most of the stages give you something like a million points, and if you need 999m points to end the game, you only have to play them about 900 times. No biggie.

You and this worm are gonna see each other so often you're gonna start exchanging childhood stories.

There's two speeds for the ball, slow and fast, and after playing for about 20 minutes with the slow ball I had about 5 million points. After 35-ish minutes with the fast ball, I had almost 17 million points, so it's clear that if you want to try to complete the game that's what you're going to want to do.

And by the way, if it took me ~30 minutes to get ~17 million points while playing like garbage, let's say you can probably get around a million points a minute playing optimally. So I imagine if you want to see that table exploding animation, and you're an expert, you'll be playing for around 999 minutes, which amounts to about 17 hours.

It's really a war of attrition with the concept of boredom. Seems like kind of a Zen experience.

Or you can watch it on Youtube, you maniac.

----- Review -----

How long did I play?

About an hour.

How much did I beat?
I beat all the special stages once and got 16.9m points as a high score.

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Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

It's pretty hard to misunderstand pinball since everything important is labeled with giant glowing arrows, and if you have any confusion about what something does, just hit it with the ball a few times and you'll probably figure it out. I'm sure you can gather all the information you need from the game itself.

Gameplay / Difficulty: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel?

I didn't realize I did, but I guess I actually like pinball games because this game was pretty fun to play and that's how I ended up playing a game with basically no goal for an hour straight (I sort of lost track of time...).

The bonus stages in particular are pretty fun and rewarding, with various different types of challenges to try, and I completed all of them once so they're very doable even if you're garbage at video-games like me. Even if you fail you're met with an apology from the game.

Just the one.

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

As is a problem with most old pinball games, there's only one table and a handful of bonus levels, which means within about 15 minutes you've basically seen everything in the game. I don't get the impression you're really meant to sink your teeth into it though.

Sound / Graphics: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

The various aliens on the screen are all rendered in slimy, nasty, almost-90s glory. I guess "Alien" was probably at its height of popularity at the time, with "Aliens" having come out a few years before. The design in the game reminds me a little of Alien Syndrome, which makes sense since I guess they're both rip-offs of the same franchise.

The music in the game is fine-- you're given the choice between two main themes while you play the game, but my favorite song in the game is actually the second one from the bonus stages. There's nothing here that will really knock your socks off, but all of the music is pretty good.

Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

I like the art style and all the cool aliens and skulls and stuff. There's definitely a sense of the over the top 'horror' aesthetic of the late 80s and early 90s here, which resonates me on some very stupid level (even though I hate horror movies-- I like the gratuitously nasty, slimy stuff like Alien).

It seems like the kind of game that would have the "Don't play alone at night!" tagline attached to it from Jaseiken Necromancer.

Unless you want to be visited by PINK SKULLS and GREEN EYEBALLS! ...very spooky.

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

I guess I would say probably not unless you're looking for a fun little pinball game to waste 15 minutes on. This doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would please anyone that much in 2019 if they went out of their way to get it, but if for some reason you're somewhere where it's all set up to go and someone hands you a controller... well, sure, play it for your fifteen minutes and then nod knowingly when someone mentions Alien Crush later on in your life (that will never happen).

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