Alien vs Predator

You walk through the dark corridors of a colony, the motion tracker beeping ever faster, and you don't know whether an Alien will leap out of the darkness or a cloaked Predator will materialize behind you. Alien vs Predator for the Atari Jaguar accomplished what seemed almost impossible on consoles of the mid-nineties: building genuine atmosphere of horror in a three-dimensional shooting environment.

The very structure is ingenious. You can experience the game from three different perspectives. As a colonial space marine you fight for bare survival against the overwhelming force of xenomorphs. As the Predator you hunt for trophies, use invisibility and exotic weapons. And as the Alien you slink through corridors, tear victims apart and climb walls. Each side plays completely differently, has different goals and a different feel to the game, which gives the title extraordinary replayability.

The game was developed by the studio Rebellion Developments and released in 1994. At a time when Doom was only just spreading across computers, Alien vs Predator on the Jaguar offered a surprisingly smooth and oppressive 3D environment. The Atari Jaguar console presented itself as the first 64-bit machine, and this very title was among the proofs that its hardware could do more than most other games managed to extract.

Critics received the game largely very favorably, and Alien vs Predator is today almost unanimously considered one of the best, if not the best, title of the entire Jaguar library. For players it became a symbol of what the console could have achieved had it enjoyed greater developer support. The studio Rebellion later returned to the Alien vs Predator license in further, newer games.

For its time it was an exceptionally tense experience. The sound of the motion tracker, limited resources, the feeling of loneliness in the bowels of the colony and the constant tension of when the next creature would attack made this game one of the first truly atmospheric survival horrors with a first-person view. Even today it can frighten anyone who lets themselves be drawn into its claustrophobic darkness.

Why play: For three completely different gaming experiences in one and for the claustrophobic tension that makes it the crown jewel of the Atari Jaguar library.