Aliens: The Game

Aliens is a 2008 survival horror video game. Set on a mining spaceship overrun by Xenomorphs released following the discovery of LV-426, the player controls engineer Riley Cameron and a space marine, John Bannon, as they navigate the spaceship and fights the Xenomorphs. Cameron is accompanied by Sister, an artificial intelligence. Gameplay has them exploring different areas through its chapter-based narrative, solving environmental puzzles and finding ammunition and equipment to survive.

Gameplay
Aliens is a science fiction survival horror video game; players take on the role of Riley Cameron and John Bannon, controlling them through a first-person perspective. Players navigate the spaceship Ares, completing objectives given to Bannon and Cameron during the narrative, solving physics-based puzzles within the environment, and fighting monsters dubbed Xenomorphs, while managing supplies of ammunition, health, and armour. The game features five difficulty levels which increase the quantity and damage done by enemies, with enemies moving faster than normal on the hardest difficulty setting. Levels can also include pits of toxic waste and locked doors which require a keycard or a remote switch to be opened. In some parts of the ship that have decompressed, Bannon and Cameron must navigate the vacuum. While in the vacuum, Bannon and Cameron have a limited air supply which can be replenished by finding air tanks within the environment.

Some areas are subject to zero-g, with both Bannon, Cameron and specific enemy types able to jump between surfaces and these areas having dedicated puzzles. During exploration of the Ares, Bannon and Cameron find weapons; including a pistol and plasma rifle, ammunition, health pickups, and Nodes that are used to both unlock special doors and upgrade weapons and armour. Aliens players may carry only two weapons at once, calling for strategy when managing firearms. At points in the ship, Bannon and Cameron can access a store to buy supplies and ammunition. Bannon and Cameron can use a navigation line, projected onto the floor on command, to find the next mission objective.

While exploring, Bannon and Cameron must fight Xenomorphs, which appear from vents. The various types of Xenomorphs have different abilities and require altered tactics to defeat. Bannon and Cameron can access multiple weapons to combat the Xenomorphs. To do this, Bannon uses weapons designed for cutting; the starting weapon is picked up during the first level, while others can be crafted using blueprints discovered in different levels. Workbenches found in levels can be used by Bannon to increase the power or other attributes of his weapons and suit. Beating the game unlocks New Game+, which gives Bannon and Cameron extra currency and crafting equipment, and new video and audio logs. It also unlocks a higher difficulty setting.

In addition to the main single-player game mode, Aliens features two multiplayer modes: "cooperative", in which two to four players team up to play through the main game, and "deathmatch", in which two to four players play against each other.

Setting and Characters
Aliens is set in the year 2188. By the time the maintenance ship Kellion arrives, the entire VII colony and all but a few of the Ishimura crew have been killed.

The game's protagonists are Riley Cameron, an engineer who travels on the Kellion, and John Bannon, a marine stationed on Ares.

Aboard the Kellion with Bannon are chief security officer Jacob Apone (brother of Sergeant Apone from Aliens), and computer technician Daisy Mercer—unknown to the Kellion crew, Daisy is a Weyland-Yutani agent sent to control the situation. Other characters encountered by Cameron and Bannon on the Ares are Nicholas Hammond, an insane scientist who believes the Xenomophs are humanity's ascended form, and Dr. Terrence Kane, a survivor.

Plot
Marine John Bannon has been posted to the Ares after assaulting a superior officer, who ordered his unit to fire on civilians. Bannon acts as security for the Weyland-Yutani's radioactive waste facilities, which are used by the company to perform secret experiments with alien embryo discovered on LV-426. The aliens, revealed to be Xenomorph, get loose and attack the station.

Engineer Riley Cameron arrives at Ares on the Kellion with Daisy Mercer and Jacob Apone. A docking malfunction crashes the Kellion into the Ares' landing bay, and all the Kellion crew but Cameron, Daisy, and Hammond are killed by Xenomorphs when the ship's quarantine is broken. With Apone injured, he entrusts ship's artificial intelligence, Sister, to Cameron.

Cameron finds John Bannon who is still alive. Together, the two navigate the ship, rescuing survivors, restoring systems and finding parts to repair the Kellion so they can escape. They learn that Apone has been captured by Xenomorph, while searching for a potential weapons cache, but rescue him. The Ares' AI, Brother, enlists Bannon and Cameron's help in dealing with the Xenomorph. They almost succeed in repairing the Kellion, but the Kellion is destroyed in a further malfunction.

During his exploration, Bannon and Cameron learn through audio and video logs about the incident. The Ares' illegal mining operation on LV-426, was meant to find the derelict containing the eggs that found in the original Alien. The LV-426 colony was almost entirely wiped out by Xenomorph. The eggs were brought aboard the Ares along with survivors and bodies from the colony. The Xenomorphs that hatched killed nearly everyone aboard.

Two survivors Bannon and Cameron come across are Terrence Kane, a Weyland-Yutani employee who has turned against the company; and Nicholas Hammond, who has gone insane and worships the Xenomorphs.

During efforts to escape and survive, Apone is attacked by Hammond who reveals that he allowed himself to be impregnated by the Xenomorph and causes Brodski is be attacked by a face hugger. Brother reveals that he destroyed the Kellion and has activated the Ares' self destruct to prevent the Xenomorph from spreading elsewhere. Bannon and Cameron attempt to deactivate the self destruct and encounter Brodski who is killed by a chest burster. They are able to deactivate the self-destruct and delete Brother. Another ship, the Valor, arrives and is infected through an Ares escape pod containing a trapped Xenomorph, but records show it was dispatched to remove all traces of the incident. Daisy kills Kane before revealing her Weyland-Yutani allegiance, as Kane threatened the Xenomorphs and their queen.

The Queen was cloned from the body of the dead Queen in Aliens, which Weyland-Yutani had recovered.

Bannon and Cameron sabotage Daisy's attempt to escape the Ares, neutralising the Xenomorphs and setting off a nuclear bomb to destroy LV-426. Daisy retrieves some of the eggs before being killed by the Queen. After killing the Queen, Bannon and Cameron leave on Daisy's shuttle as LV-426 is destroyed.