Xenomorph: Endless Pain

I start off with the ducts, which I guess is the last level of the spaceship before we enter the caverns/mines. Level design has been good enough for a game using block design, but now we're entering an absolute maze. I'll take the old standby of following one of the walls, in this case the right wall. My armor protects me at least, and I now feel confident enough to use one of my cards for food/drink.

Interesting, a ladder down, where does this lead? ANOTHER duct system? What? Okay, now I'm going to be two layers deep in a maze, sure, let's try it. Only one path out, bit twisty...

Screenshots this session won't always line up perfectly, sorry about that.

Oh, good, big slime. I'm going to not fight here just yet, given my experience on the last duct level. It's a gamble I'm going to wait on. I return to the level above. Continuing on the right, I eventually find a big open space with something that looks like a magazine, but is probably a mine of some sort.
 

I don't have a screenshot of the "gravity" mine, but the triangle on the right is another kind of explosive close enough.

This gets into a problem this game has, in that not having in-game descriptions of anything and having the player guesses only works when the player can figure out what these items are. I assumed what I'm using right now is a bullet gun, not a needle gun because I didn't care that much about weapons when I can kill most enemies with a laser gun. My character has an in-universe reason to know what armor does what, since they're supposed to know this crap.

Further making this question pointless, I find two more higher end batteries. Which gives me ten in total. Assuming ten shots per battery, that's a hundred shots, which if my encounters with the chestbursters are any indication, means I can kill about 50 enemies between recharges if I don't miss. Think about that. Think about that very hard. I have regenerating health, heavy armor, and a heavy-hitting weapon which can go about 100 shots before needing to get recharged, which means unlimited ammo. This in a game where I'm supposed to be soiling myself in terror. Of all the survival horror-related games I've played, this, if I were to call it that, would be the least survival horror. There is just no balance here, I might as well burn up my other gun, not like I'm going to need to save it.

Another ladder down. What's with this section? This is the proper path down to the caverns, which is helpful to know. What's with the other section then? Then I spot it, the big gun, which I think was called a particle accelerator. Whatever the name, it uses batteries and it promises to hit like a truck. Now, to find that slime and test it out on it.

It works pretty well, but this section really is another layer to the maze. A dozen of these slimes, and just nothing worth coming down for. Only a single rocket, oh, and the particle accelerator doesn't permanently kill slimes, only temporarily, like everything else. Down to the mines.

It starts off in an area with glass dividers over a big area. A nice big mine, though I can't see the bottom. I don't remember what they were mining, but I presume it isn't these red rocks. Three paths, great. Well, one is a long catwalk, and it is the leftmost one, so that one.

I didn't realize this as I was screenshotting it, but check out that thing in the middle, possibly an appendage shooting out like a stinger.

Hey, these guys aren't the other guys I saw. Probably because I'd remember something this nasty. They're not that hard though, I just kind of overreact to them. They are nasty looking. Another magazine for the needler, all right, we're focusing on that one for the time being. And then I return to that fork, it was just one long catwalk for one magazine. Oh, well.

The needler takes about half a magazine of green ammo to kill one of these things. I can confirm it is in fact, kill, not stun. This explains why it tripped up the slime. Does that mean there is no real stun ammo or that the red ammo, against typical logic, is the stun ammo? Either way, the needler is looking like a weapon I should not have saved for this point. And a grenade with a green button on top is looking like it's going to be useless.

Then there's a freaking glass wall maze. Oh, joy! At least it isn't technically an invisible wall maze? Two more fruit flavored rockets and a random helmet. Okay...The worst thing is that this doesn't seem to lead anywhere, and an item that seems to be hidden in the maze is actually outside it...and it's another green needler magazine, which at this point is less interesting than a battery.

This whole area is weird like that, I can see quite a few enemies before I ever come close to them. It's not like I care if we fight or not, because there are zero consequences for a negative combat. In a sense, this makes it closer to RPG game design than it was previously. Most RPGs, especially of the branch this game was removed from, generally don't have negative consequences. Loss of health in an action game removes limited resources, loss of health in a RPG is expected and mathematically weighed. That's actually it, the ladder down is in an area I wouldn't have found if I didn't spot an alien walking back and forth.

I'm guessing the evolution of these creatures is the egg, facehugger, then the things in the cocoons, this, then the ones in the earlier screenshot.

I think I spotted the blue ones before, so everything is as it should be. Guess the game has a number of half levels which go into the whole ones. There are a lot of blue guys here, they're weaker than the other guys, it takes less than half a mag to take them out. Let me tell you, this area is another maze. It's getting very obvious what they're doing, unfortunately it's working very well, because I have no earthly idea where the hell I am. My main computer is working again, so I should probably make a map. Sigh...I'll do that whenever I find a ladder.

Based on magazine size, it looks more like .50 cal/12.7mm

Soon enough I find that 10mm rifle. I assume it is. With a magazine that is empty. I guess the way this game is designed, items can't be inside other items at the start of the game. I'll have to figure out how it works later, though it does answer why I don't just use the 10mm rifle over the 10mm pistol, incompatible magazines. There are some floating amoebas nearby, I'll let them live.

Well, I can confirm that this floor is the one I found previously, meaning there are four enemies on this floor. Considering that most games of this type didn't have that many, impressive. Makes sense as to why the loading times on ladders are so long even with DOSbox naturally shortening them. I did not remember spotting the amoebas though, although it doesn't matter because they die easily, just like everything else.

I find the other ladder. Now I can begin mapping. This makes everything 100x easier. I can see for four tiles, and having the map is just so much easier because it's just tiles and stairs, I don't need to worry about placing items, well, unless I need to. Unlike Rejection, because I'm constantly using the mouse I'm not switching between things constantly.

Pardon the poor cropping, it isn't a very good map to begin with.

My completed map. It's 32x32, and despite mostly following the usual rules, is edge walled, not tile walled. (Which is much clear later) Oh, and there is no ladder down. Blast. Let's just try the other half of the mines first then. Surely I missed something there? Please let me have missed something there, I don't want to go back into the ducts. Oh...no...it's as I feared. I didn't miss anything in the mines. So, that means I need to check elsewhere. Well...that means I only have one choice, check the ducts. Man, I hate this.

There's something about having to map an area with very little in the way of distinct landmarks that has a way of driving people crazy. We got endless corridors, endless edge walls, and eyeballing it is difficult. Man, no wonder I thought that bumbling around was better. This is probably because this is the game sitting in the corner and flipping you off. At least I found another battery.

I leave you this session, lost and confused. This is one hell of a challenge to map and I wasn't up to it. I made mistakes that make the whole thing physically impossible. I found one ladder down, which also confuses me, because it goes to where I came up in the mines, that is, the ladder leading directly to the base. Either my memory is failing me or the game is screwing with me. If all else fails, I'll try to go past the big slimes, but it's looking like the game is about to place me in a position I might not be able to escape from.

This Session: 4 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 14 hours 50 minutes