Alien Crush
エイリアンクラッシュ1988Alien Crush
エイリアンクラッシュThe first Crush pinball table, full of grotesque alien creatures.
Alien Crush is a pinball game that Compile made for the PC Engine. It is the first game in the Crush Pinball series. Its table takes its look from the Alien films, and in North America it appeared on the TurboGrafx-16.
| RELEASED IN JAPAN | 14 September 1988 |
|---|---|
| DEVELOPER | Compile |
| JAPANESE PUBLISHER | Naxat Soft |
| PLAYERS | One |
| SERIES | Crush Pinball, first game |
The table is split into two screens, one above the other. Each screen has a pair of flippers at the bottom. The ball moves between the screens, and play pauses briefly during each move.
Hidden bonus rooms appear during play. Most of them ask you to destroy waves of aliens for points. You can choose a fast or a slow ball, and one of two music tracks.
The table has a hidden ending. When the score reaches 999,999,900 points, the table is destroyed, and a congratulatory message appears. Reaching that score can take dozens of hours.
The art draws on the Alien films and on the style of H.R. Giger. Compile built a table filled with grotesque creatures and strange mechanisms.
Period reviews were generally positive. Computer and Video Games Mean Machines gave it 90 percent in 1989. Famitsu's cross review gave the PC Engine version a gold Hall of Fame award.
The game also won a special prize at the 1988 AVA Grand Prix video game awards. Its sequel, Alien Crush Returns, came out on WiiWare in 2008.
It set the template for the whole Crush series. It also showed how the console's sprite and background tools could build an arcade-style table with a sci-fi feel.
- The original game had no save function. Later versions, on the Virtual Console and PC Engine Archives, added a suspend feature.
- Devil's Crush followed in 1990 as the second game in the series.
- Jaki Crush came out on the Super Famicom in 1992, and it never left Japan.
- Hardcore Gaming 101 later called it the most balanced entry in the series.
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