Octurbo: Alien Crush
by mento
Yep, I'm doing a screenshot LP of a pinball game. Spoilers: this might be a short one. NAXAT/Compile's Alien Crush is widely regarded to be one of the better pinball video games for the TurboGrafx-16, if not the 16-bit era entirely. As will be immediately obvious, the game takes its artistic inspiration from H. R. Giger's xenomorph designs for the movie Alien. I've always felt (and Alien Crush...
Yep, I'm doing a screenshot LP of a pinball game. Spoilers: this might be a short one.
NAXAT/Compile's Alien Crush is widely regarded to be one of the better pinball video games for the TurboGrafx-16, if not the 16-bit era entirely. As will be immediately obvious, the game takes its artistic inspiration from H. R. Giger's xenomorph designs for the movie Alien.
I've always felt (and Alien Crush embodies this philosophy) that a video game version of pinball should be able to pull off tricks that a physical pinball table would be incapable of performing. It's taking advantage of the platform to present a real-life activity in a manner that cannot be enjoyed otherwise - it's why I much prefer, say, Mutant League Football over Madden, because the latter is just too close to watching a regular football game on TV (just with more wonky physics and fast food price-gouging).
There's a rival philosophy that states that a video game adaptation of a pinball table ought to be as close to the real thing as is humanly possible, but I figure you might as well find an actual pinball table to play on at that point. There are no pinball video games quite as visceral as the real thing, after all, with all its sounds and blinking lights and the tactile sense of moving the flippers and surreptitiously nudging the table. On the other hand, you're not paying hundreds of dollars for gear maintenance and carnauba wax for a simulation either.
Anyhoo, this is way too much pre-amble. Talking of visceral...
Alien Crush Sounds Like the Prequel to My Stepmother is an Alien
Welcome to Alien Crush. So much extraterrestrial viscera already.
This is table one! Features include the array of curious alien heads on the left and right, a big spider guy in the middle and what I can only assumed are the cocooned remains of humans who naively believed they could explore the stars without incurring the wrath of the untold eldritch horrors that lie behind the veil of our reality. Also a facehugger launcher! It's just darling.
This is table two! We got a giant brain, some kind of metroid and a whole bunch of creepy faces on the walls. I think that's a Space Jockey down there on the lower right.
By the time I capped this bonus screen (no idea how I got here), I'd already died. The things I sacrifice for this feature.
This is another bonus screen! There may well be more. I had to kill a centi-pider in this one, which is a combination spider/centipede that exists because this game doesn't induce enough nightmares already
I hope you enjoyed this screenshot LP of Alien Crush! You've seen most of its content, I believe. Fairly comprehensive if you ask me.
Hey, at least I got a high score for all my trouble. Plus any score that makes it onto this table gets a big friendly hug from Mr Scowlyskull up there.So, yeah, as is the case with shmups like Blazing Lazers (also a Compile joint!), this sort of genre doesn't lend itself well to lots of informative screenshots.
Pinball has its own set of esoteric jargon relating to score zones and combo multipliers into which I've never sufficiently invested myself to an extent where I can really start to appreciate these games, and specifically the difference between a really well conceived pinball game and a gimmicky one that's only maybe fun for a few minutes (which is all of them for me right now). But I can certainly respect any genre like pinball or MOBAs or MMOs or Monster Hunter or what have you that can inspire such devoted in-the-know discussion, even in spite of my own perpetual outsider status. It's how video games can simultaneously be an in-depth, dedicated hobby as well as light, ephemeral entertainment (and maybe art too, though I'm still not sure where I stand on that debate).
Anyway, sorry this one was so short. Felt I ought to cover Alien Crush, but had no idea how to do so without posting the same image of a table over and over and explaining what I did different each time. I bet that would've been a fun read.