Forget The Godfather, Part II, The Empire Strikes Back, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment.
For this reviewer’s money, the best sequel in cinematic history remains James Cameron’s crackling science-fiction spectacle Aliens, thanks in no small part to those iconic face-huggers.
The other star of that epic space adventure is Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, a female role model for the ages.
If you’re to stand any chance of success in the attractive, yet relentlessly tiresome twin-stick shooter Creatures – The First Blood, then Ripley’s spirit, tenacity, and weapons skills need to be invoked.
Lost in spaceWithout any backstory, your hero finds himself marooned on the isometric deck of an abandoned space craft. Well, deserted save for the approaching hordes of alien creatures, which you must obliterate with either a stock shotgun or something fruitier like a railgun picked up among the remains of the vanquished.
Being a dual-stick shooter, a virtual D-pad takes care of movement, while the strafing duties are relegated to a secondary, rather slippery dial.
The occasionally hyper Survival mode requires that you kill a certain number of critters to enter a portal and progress to the next level. Which, harrowingly enough, places you aboard the ship, trapped for 60 seconds between a portable barrier and a wall of spikes.
To make matters worse, the very same spidery nemeses scampering around on deck are driving the blockade, and ultimately you, towards the perilous points.
Odds and evensIn both the Defence and the Survival stages, you can call upon two types of traps – a slow field generator and a mini sentry – to assist in the alien dragon annihilation and rack up the high scores.
The range of attacking weaponry – four guns, to be precise – is disappointing, and the inability to unlock a further arsenal to combat the fire-breathing foes more so.
Alternating between only two scenarios - i.e. the Survival Grid and the Defence Corridor - soon rankles in spite of the increasingly colourful and sizeable foes. The lack of co-operative play prevents favourable comparison with other well-to-do shooters like Alive 4-ever.
These glaring deficiencies, compounded by the lack of responsiveness of the secondary virtual stick, ensure that Creatures - The First Blood is nothing more than a mild take on the twin-stick shooter.