Aliens: The Video Games interview with author Mike Diver
In space, no one can see you read
The Alien franchise has seen plenty of games since its 1979 debut on the big screen, but there's never been a detailed record of what's been made available, until now. Mike Diver (Bluesky, LinkedIn), an ex-journalist who now works in marketing, has a book coming out all about the games, called Aliens: The Video Games. Out from August 30 (Pen & Sword / Amazon / Waterstones), it's filled with insights and interviews about many of the franchise's games from the past, as well as what's on the horizon.
This will be Diver's sixth book. His previous book, The Console: 50 Years of Home Video Gaming, dove into the history of consoles from the past 50 years. But it's clear that Aliens: The Video Games Unofficial Guide is Diver's passion project, especially since it began as a way to talk about the origins of Alien 3 on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, one of his all-time favourite games.
With today (April 26) being Alien Day, I decided to mark it by speaking to Diver all about Aliens: The Video Games Unofficial Guide - from its making of, to what an expanded edition could consist of.
Xenomorphin' Time
What inspired you to create the book in the first place?
Mike Diver: The games of Alien 3. I've written about Alien games over the years, for whatever website I was running at the time, hooked around the annual Alien Day on April 26. You know, 'the best Alien games to play this Alien Day', that sort of thing. Inevitably, one of my picks would be one of the Alien 3 games.
But a couple of years ago, when thinking about that, I found myself wanting to pitch a piece on the games of Alien 3, specifically, as there are four versions and they're all quite different from each other. The SNES game is a very atmospheric, semi-metroidvania side-scroller with quite a lot of exploration involved; the Mega Drive game (which is the basis for a good few other ports, including the Master System and NES) is a fast-moving, against-the-clock arcade platformer; Alien 3 on Game Boy is this top-down adventure game which is pretty unclear with what you're meant to do unless you really focus on it (or watch a guide video); and Alien 3: The Gun is this brilliantly silly light-gun arcade game.
I'd planned to speak to some developers and see why this very grim, very gun-free movie was turned into these particular games. But then I wondered if, actually, there'd be a book in this - expanding beyond Alien 3 and doing all of the officially licensed games, covering them with fresh eyes and including new interviews where I could. I pitched that, it was accepted, and here we are. Only the book goes way beyond official titles - there's also cancelled games, fan games, and all of the Alien vs Predator games.
Is there one specific game in the book you’re proud to have uncovered more info about?
I don't know about proud, but I'm pleased to have had access to over 20 interviewees for the book, all of whom provide first-hand insights into the development of games, from 1984 to 2024. The book mentions The Dream Monitor, a (cancelled) project I'd never heard of before. That came out of an interview I did with David Karlak, who directed Alien Covenant: In Utero.
Alex Moore, who's ex-Rebellion, told me why there's no Predalien in Aliens vs Predator: Requiem for PSP - because that's quite a big miss, given that monster's role in the movie. I found out that the "Game over, man" sample in Alien 3 for the SNES was never approved by Fox, as the developers made two versions of the master cartridge - one to send to Fox without the sample, and the other to manufacturing. I also heard a lot about how hard everything was for developers who worked on Aliens: Colonial Marines, the Gearbox game. None of that sounded fun - at all.
Did you encounter any challenges covering certain games? Perhaps some games you wanted to expand upon, but couldn’t for some reason?
I couldn't name anyone from my Colonial Marines interviews, which I suppose was a challenge of sorts. People there would only speak to me if I kept them anonymous, which is fair enough. So I'd have liked to dig into that game's development more, but for obvious reasons, the people I spoke to were quite reserved about it - they didn't want to invite any more negative attention onto themselves.
Then there's the not-insignificant matter of the next Creative Assembly Alien game, the follow-up to Alien: Isolation, which I do touch upon, but due to the timing of this book, I haven't been able to put anything definitive about it down on paper. I don't really fancy taking on SEGA's lawyers.
The book's cover is great - did you give a brief to Sam Greer (Site/Patreon/YouTube) as to what you wanted for it? How many iterations were there?
Sam's initial design was very close to what you see in the finished art. I loved the style she was showing off with her It Eats Planets comic, and thought it'd be a great fit for a book like this. I was very keen to avoid having screenshots or renders from any particular games on the cover - I wanted it to stand alone as its own piece of art, exclusive to the project, and I think it works.
Which game section changed the most in its structure?
The chapters and how they're laid out were locked in very early on. I had to decide whether to go purely chronological or break the games up into titles based on particular movies, then the non-movie games, and the AvP games, etc. I spoke to some friends, asked for their advice, and they thought doing it movie to movie made more sense, especially for a more casual reader who's maybe coming to the book more from the position of enjoying the movies than knowing about the games themselves.
As for what games changed the most during development, both Alien Resurrection for the original PlayStation and Alien: Isolation began in forms that weren't first-person. The former was a top-down game, then went third-person, then first-person. Isolation began as a game where you could see Ripley, but the devs there very quickly realised it was a lot more immersive, and scarier, to have the player see through their own eyes. If you can see that alien stalking medical, there's a good chance it can see you, too.
Were you ever tempted to go back to the original concept of the book strictly being about the Alien 3 games? Are you still tempted to do that as another project?
Well, I couldn't have written a whole book just about Alien 3 games. Could I do more on each of those games? Absolutely, I'd love to expand quite a few chapters of the book. So maybe in the future I'll be able to do some more on The Gun, for example, where I didn't get a new interview for this book (the other three games all feature new interviews, exclusive for the book).
Did it almost feel like a full-circle moment to feature photos of your Alien 3 games in Chapter 3?
I took a few photographs of my own copies of games, as I think those can provide a better connection to what people used to have and used to play, more than screenshots. That's the thing you held, and read the manual of, and saw on your shelf every day. So there's nothing full-circle about it, but I am glad that we have some product photography in there - some of which (such as everything by Clarence Lim, who has a very respectable Alien collection) is better than the rest (such as my shaky snaps).
Alien Resurrection is a game I clearly remember being featured in magazines back in the day - but plenty of builds have recently come out, showcasing its third-person origins. You've mentioned this, but were you tempted to feature these specifically to build out the game’s section further?
Resurrection was/is already a large chapter in the book, so I write a little about how it looked, how it was meant to play, before its move to a first-person experience. But I don't dwell on that stage of its development. If the word count was extended, who knows? It could be nice to add some before-and-after screens - here's what we could have had, etc.
If you had the chance for an expanded edition, what else would you want to include?
I hate to say this as the book isn't even out yet, but so much. There are at least four standalone Alien-series games in development right now, so I'd love to come back in a few years and add those for an expanded second edition. Since wrapping up the writing of the book, I have learned about a couple more cancelled games, one of which sounds very interesting, so I'm keen to delve into that.
There are also a couple of games that are 'missing' from the book - nothing official, but there's one fan-made game from the early 1990s that I missed, because I simply didn't know about its existence until a few months ago, and another unreleased game featuring aliens and Predators, called Cosmic Hard Bowl, which for some reason I didn't acknowledge until the manuscript was all locked in, despite having read about it some years ago. There isn't a lot about that game out there, but I encourage readers to give it a search and see what comes up. It is ludicrous. So that's a game that needs to be in any second edition.
We’ve seen plenty of remastered collections lately - but what would be in your own Aliens Collection if a company like Digital Eclipse had you in charge of one?
Assuming that I can pick from any era, regardless of who made the game/s in question and where the ownership of them lies these days, I'd do a movies-based collection with Alien for the Atari VCS and Spectrum (very different games), Aliens for the Commodore 64 (the first-person UK version) and the Konami arcade game; Alien 3 for Mega Drive, SNES and The Gun; as well as Alien Resurrection for PS1.
Throw in Alien Trilogy too, since it sort of counts, and if there was a way to free it from its dual-screen design, as it's a DS game, I'd get Aliens: Infestation on there as the best Aliens follow-up game. More people need to hear its end-credits music, too. Please look that up on YouTube.
My thanks to Mike for taking the time to chat with me.
I've recently published a survey to help shape Springboard. If you have a spare five minutes, I'd love it if you could fill in your thoughts about the newsletter so far.
Having read Aliens: The Video Games Unofficial Guide, I found it to be a great read from start to finish from someone who clearly has a passion for the franchise. The front cover, made by Sam Greer, pulls you in to start with. Then, the amount of research that Diver's done for this makes you keep reading until you find that a couple of hours have passed by.
I hope that there's space for an expanded edition someday - it feels like a second volume of Alien games from Diver is a natural fit. You can pre-order a copy now (Pen & Sword / Amazon / Waterstones) for release later this year.
