One of the few games that I had for my TurboGrafx-16 was Alien Crush , a rarity within pinballs when facing various aliens within the typical petaco table that we have all played in a bar or arcade room.
Until its arrival on the Wii Virtual Console, almost two decades later, it was one of the exclusives par excellence of the NEC console, the work of Naxat Soft. And despite belonging to a genre overexploited in the twentieth century, it is still taken as a reference for those who break away from the classical formula and bet on fiction.
A table that was anything but friendly …
As if we were inside the entrails of an alien entity , Alien Crush completely distanced itself from classic-style pinballs by replacing traditional elements, such as bumpers , with larvae or monster heads.
Visually, it was a nightmare game, as if the mythical Alien, the eighth passenger came to life in the form of a table, showing the viscera and bones of the most deadly predator in the Galaxy in every corner of said furniture. It was a pinball that was “alive” , with a series of enemies of different shapes and colors to motivate us to refine our aim with the futuristic metallic flippers.
His main table was not overloaded, with two well differentiated parts: in the upper one a brain stood out in its left corner, with a kind of octopus on the right that gripped and spit out the ball with force; while in the lower area the master alien was shown in the center, surrounded by several creatures on both sides of the screen. With that it was enough to bite us, but there was more.
Terrifying-looking mouths, detours and various secrets that gave us access to other areas, as minigames to score more points by “shooting” other monsters, completed the offer of a pinball game with a lot of personality .
Alien Crush, another great classic from Compile studio
The physics of the ball was not very realistic nor is it something that was intended, but it did lack more control with the levers (controlled with the crosshead and button I, by the way, leaving button II for tilt ), the precision of later games of the genre, such as Demon’s Tilt, a WIZNWAR marvel that knew how to perfectly replicate its essence and that I personally consider the best .
Alien Crush’s biomechanical board , compared to that 2019 game, is stark, but Compile managed to make the most of its space. From seeing how the bumpers at the end could “get out” from there walking in the form of monsters to moving the position of those at the top, to those skulls that opened up to, in some cases, take us to another phase as a minigame, it was a straightforward pinball game that worked really well .
Today it can be blamed for the simplicity of its secret phases, where not all shine equally, apart from being repetitive because the pattern was repeated until we dropped the ball. But in its day it attracted a lot of attention, such as seeing a kind of centipede from which we could section the different parts of its body. A real boss was missed, of course, to round off some hidden bonus phase, since the alien was props .
Apart from its exclusive WiiWare remake in 2008, Alien Crush enjoyed several major installments: Devil’s Crush for the PC Engine and Mega Drive in 1990, and Jaki Crush for the Super Famicom in 1992. Although we cannot forget another game that replicated its essence in 1989 by HAL Laboratory, the great Pinball: Revenge of the Gator from the fireproof Game Boy, rescued in the eShop.
Has it stood the test of time well?
Yes , as much as its formula has been widely surpassed, especially with the recent Demon’s Tilt . But it is clear that this Alien Crush had something special , otherwise its remake would not have been developed two decades later with Alien Crush Returns . A classic that you want to revisit to play quick games.
Alien crush
| Platforms | TurboGrafx-16 |
|---|---|
| Multiplayer | Not |
| Developer | Naxat Soft |
| Company | NEC |
| Launch | 1988 |
| Price | 5.99 euros (Wii and Wii U Virtual Console) |
The best
- An alien board with a lot of life
- Go unraveling all its secrets
- Shocking aesthetics for the time
Worst
- The minigames sinned as simpletons
- A single board and two songs
- Losing your remake by shutting down WiiWare
