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Aliens: Dark Descent
Developer Tindalos Interactive Publisher Focus Entertainment Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series Release Out now
Don’t be fooled by Aliens: Dark Descent’s generic X-COM wrapper. This top-down tactics game might borrow a few tools from Firaxis’ strategic workbag – the base management, the deployment phase, the ‘race against time’ overarching narrative. But step outside the game’s ad-hoc headquarters, the stranded spacecraft USS Otago, and your shoulder muscles will be twisted into knots by a very different kind of extraterrestrial nightmare. This is because it does what all the best tie-ins do, pinning down James Cameron’s blockbuster and extracting its systems directly from the shrieking source. The result is a realtime blend of stealth, strategy and action where things go wrong agonisingly slowly, then terrifyingly quickly.
A mission in Dark Descent sees your reconnaissance carrier roll up to an Aliens-inspired location – be it a rain-slicked Hadley’s Hope knockoff or a huge, cooling tower-shaped atmosphere generator – from which four Colonial Marines will descend the gangplank. These swaggering soldiers are controlled in unison, moving together with a click of the mouse, and deciding among themselves how to interact with the computer terminals and supply boxes designated by your cursor.