An interesting prototype, this is a fascinating look at an early version of one of the Jag's most famous games. While far from complete, it is still remarkably similar to the released version.

There are no menu screens or intro, the game automatically starts straight after the title screen. The action takes place in an area identified as sub level 2, and it's possible that this is an early level design test. The Marine is the only playable character but a number of features from the final game are present.

The Alien, Facehugger and Predator enemy sprites are all here, the Alien being of a different design to that in the final version. The Alien in the released version is not only the wrong colour, but speaking as a massive fan of the Aliens series, something just seems wrong with the model in general. It would have been nice to see the Alien model used here developed further as with proper animation it would have looked far more authentic.

Spawning points for the enemies are active and basic AI is implemented, the enemy sprites will chase you but tend to easily get stuck on scenery and objects (a problem that was still present in the final release). It seems that the animation is not yet complete as enemies never attack you and collision detection between player and enemy sprites has not yet been implemented, allowing you to walk through them. Elevators are here, but not working, along with the armoury, docking bay and the Alien ship.

The motion tracker and timer don't work yet and the score doesn't increase when you kill enemies. While the hud shows all weapons as being selectable and you can switch to the other weapons, the Pulse Rifle remains in the main view which probably indicates that sprites for the other weapons had not yet been completed. A point of interest here is that the hud shows a pistol and a knife as being available, these were replaced in the final version by the shotgun and smart gun. The presence of the knife is particularly interesting. In the final version, the knife would have been almost useless as the acid splash that occurs when killing an Alien would quickly kill the player, but here the Aliens explode and disappear when killed, so the knife may well have been a viable weapon as the acid doesn't seem to be present in this version.

While a lot of this is just speculation on my part, it would be wonderful to hear from anyone involved in the making of this game, especially if they can reveal any more info about this prototype version.