When the film Alien [1979] became a sci-fi/horror hit, it took many by surprise, namely the lack of marketing and by extension the merchandise i.e., swag, which had seen a jump from collectors since the release of the cinema related items to Stars Wars (1977) a mere two years earlier. However, later that same year after some rather lame trading cards made their way to comic bookstores, the strangest item appears, because it was marketed to children 9-years old concerning an R-rated film. If one recalls this flick has the gruesome chest bursting, birthing scene of this new deadly species, that delivers explosive blood splatter to the face of Veronica Cartwright and obliterates the life of John Hurts’ character. That item is the Kenner board game called Alien, for two to four players with the average lasting a tad over 35-minutes of play and has been a sought-after treasure for the growing fan base, with one important note it comes in two censored versions English and French sold in Canada. There are two uncensored versions located in Australia for unknown reasons by the manufacturer TOLTOYS  which has the Alien’s head free of any airbrushing, and the last one is from Italy in strangely a green box.

Game Objective

The object is to be the first player to get one of your three Astronauts through the Nostromo to the space shuttle Narcissus. You also use your Alien to eliminate the astronauts of the other players. Sadly, a game player could not solely be the Alien to stalk the other players, well not formally or properly to the actual game play instructions. Hence, a major problem between the game and the movie, the Alien aka Xenomorph is in control but exacting directions and abilities.

Gameplay

Let’s discuss the Gameplay. First each player chooses a color there are four choices, as well as a matching alien, lacing their astronauts’ pieces on their start space. Hence a player rolls two dice which included the white die is for the astronaut and the red was obvious for the alien, however many do not approve of the alien color prefer it should have been green, alas they indicate the number spaces to move. The goal is to get one of the game pieces (astronaut) through the Nostromo to the Narcissus found at the center of the board. The layout requires the player to complete one lap before moving to another inner circle which allows to eventually proceed to the center of the board. A player might be able to land on a space label as “Astronaut’s Choice” to a shortcut to the inner circle, there are four of them available. The aliens exist to eliminate the opposing players pieces by either landing on a space occupied by an astronaut or a player has no choice but to move one of their pieces onto the spot held by an alien, the aliens regardless of color can’t kill off each other nor an astronaut of the same color pieces. If one of the players has lost all their pieces, they remain in the game and now roll both dice to move the alien to eliminate the other players, this continues until either one player as achieved success or all players are working together to have their Aliens kill off the remaining astronauts resulting in no one wins.

The assessment of the game, purely for collectors regardless of which edition you seek, all four for the die-hards, add one with all the games included, however as the gameplay entertainment, it lacks even for when it was first released its sort of like Parcheesi or Sorry, and most critics found it dissatisfying. Although some nice touches do exist, one could spend hundreds of dollars to obtain one of them or even all four but in the end it is a so-so game, far inferior to all the other collectibles since then generated for this film and the entire franchise.

Baron’s Rating: 3.0/5.0