Alien 3

Set up the Options screen before you start

How many tries should you set?

Alien 3 has no passwords and no continues. TRIES on the Options screen sets how many lives you start with, anywhere from 1 to 9, and at 1 the first death goes straight to GAME OVER. Set it to 9.

A try is lost when the energy bar empties or the clock runs out. Either way the stage starts over with full time and full energy, and every prisoner you already freed has to be freed again. Your ammo, though, stays at whatever it was when Ripley died. A weapon you ran completely dry is refilled to the standard amount, while a grenade launcher with two rounds left comes back with two.

With no password to write down, Save is the only way to stop and come back later. There is one slot, kept in this browser, and every Save overwrites the last one. Save near the start of a stage: a save made with twenty seconds on the clock loads with twenty seconds on the clock.

Easy, Normal or Hard?

Difficulty changes how much ammo Ripley starts each stage with and how long each stage's clock runs. The gap is widest on the grenade launcher:

Ammo doesn't carry over: every stage hands you the standard load again and pays out whatever is left at the exit as bonus points, so spend it. Hard cuts the grenade launcher to 12 rounds, and the launcher is the weapon every Guardian fight is built around. It also shortens the clock: the final stage gives 2:45 where Normal gives 3:00. Stage times further down this page are Normal times.

Easy hands you 99 of everything, and the end-of-stage tally pays no difficulty bonus for it: 0 points, against 7500 on Normal and 15000 on Hard. If you don't care about score, that's a cheap price. For a first run, Normal with 9 tries makes sense: the clock still pushes you, and every Guardian stage starts with 50 grenade rounds.

Which weapon for which job?

A switches weapons and B fires. Ripley can shoot crouching but not in mid-air, so every jump is a moment she can't defend herself. On a ladder she fires straight up, and Down+B fires down. Air ducts work the same way: hold up or down with fire to hit an alien above or below.

Most of the time you'll be holding the pulse rifle. It fires rapidly, works while Ripley runs and aims diagonally if you hold a diagonal with fire. It's also weak: an adult alien takes several shots, and a fast one can reach Ripley before the last of them lands. In a tight corridor, switch to the flame thrower, which also fires rapidly and reaches medium range. Against a Guardian, or any alien you want dead right now, use the grenade launcher. It fires slowly and hits hardest of the four.

Hand grenades go where bullets can't. Thrown normally they fly in an arc, bounce once and explode. Thrown while crawling, they travel straight along the duct, and from a ladder they drop straight down, which is the cleanest way to deal with an alien waiting at the bottom. The blast doesn't touch Ripley, so you never have to back away from your own grenade.

Pick-ups are collected by touching them, and most add a fixed amount:

• Medpack (white cross on red): half a bar of energy
• Pulse rifle ammo (a grey clip): 50 rounds
• Flame thrower fuel (a blue can with a flame): 30 bursts
• Grenade rounds (they look like fuel tanks but are rounds standing upright): 10
• Hand grenades (black and red canisters): 20
• Battery pack: powers the radar for a limited time

The radar sits in the top-right corner: white dots are aliens, bright red dots are prisoners. Aliens tend to appear on screen about when they appear on the radar, so the red dots are what it's good for. They show where a prisoner is, and in these mazes the shortest way there is not always the one that connects.

Facehuggers, eggs and adult aliens

Start with the eggs. An egg sits still and lets you shoot it from a distance, but walk up close and a facehugger jumps out at Ripley. Any egg on screen gets a few rounds before you go near it.

When a facehugger does jump, crouch: that keeps it from latching on, and a short burst from any weapon kills it. If it lands anyway, shake it off right away, because every second it holds on costs energy.

Adult aliens close in very fast. Some charge, others spit acid, and they come up out of the floor and out of the ducts, so a quiet corridor isn't a safe one. Every hit also stuns Ripley for a moment, and on a clock of four to seven minutes those moments add up.

Stages 1 to 7: routes and hidden prisoners

Stages are numbered here in play order, Guardian fights included, so stage 4 is the first Guardian. The rest come in three types. In a Mission stage the exit opens once every prisoner is free; aliens left alive don't keep it shut, so the ones off your route can stay where they are. A Mayhem stage has no prisoners and the exit is open from the start. A Rescue stage turns that around: lots of prisoners and next to no enemies.

Stage 1 (Mission): 4:00, 8 prisoners

A gentle start. To open a door, stand at its switch and press Up. Near the end, slide down the ramp and climb down the ladder at the bottom: the last two prisoners are at the left end of that hallway, and the exit door is at the right end.

Stage 2 (Mission): 4:00, 5 prisoners

Kill the alien at the start, then jump at the wall to the left for a hidden room with another alien and some items.

Stage 3 (Mission): 5:00, 5 prisoners

Every area here leads back into another, so getting lost costs little. Jump the open fan pits. In the large chamber, ride the right-hand platform up while staying on its right side and crouched, and the jumping alien there won't hit you. When the air ducts bring you to the bottom, the left way out has items and the right one leads to the exit.

Stage 5 (Mission): 5:00, 9 prisoners

One of the first tough stages, and most of its pitfalls are distance jumps. Riding the sliding ramps costs a lot of energy, so jump out over them instead: Ripley still lands before the end of the ramp, but unhurt. Past the ramps, jump the spikes onto the moving platform, and take running jumps from the moving platforms onto the black platform to the left and the ledges between ramps. The first prisoner stands right next to the start. In the room at the top of the ladders on the right, a prisoner waits next to an alien egg, so shoot the egg before you walk in. The last one is at the top of the long ladder, beside the exit door.

Stage 6 (Mayhem): 4:00, no prisoners

This one is a run. Go right to the end and take the lift down twice into a brick area, grab the health and take the ladder at the end down one level. Then go right, lift down, ladder down, along the hall into the air shaft, through it into the next hall and out. Kill what's in your path and nothing else.

Where is the exit in stage 7?

Stage 7 (Mission, 5:00) has 12 prisoners, a door on the right with facehuggers behind it, spikes and an alien that jumps across at you. One prisoner is reached by climbing a ladder into darkness: when the screen stops scrolling, press right to pick up hidden items, then left to come out on the side, where an egg and the prisoner wait. On the optional path to the left, the ammo sits in hidden rooms you have to jump into.

The exit is well hidden. Go back to the large ladder between this section and the big room at the start. Halfway up is the spike pit you climbed past earlier: jump it, jump the next one, and the exit door is behind them.

Stages 9 to 15: secret rooms and the first hive

Stage 9 (Mission): 5:30, 12 prisoners

Run forward from the start and shoot the barrels: the blast kills an alien waiting behind them. More barrels block the path later, and shooting those kills another. The middle level has three medpacks, so if you're hurt, that's the place to heal. The 11th prisoner is down a ladder, and the exit is at the top of the elevator shaft.

How do you rescue all 19 prisoners in stage 10?

Stage 10 is a Rescue stage: 6:30 on the clock, 19 prisoners and not a single enemy, so the only things against you are the layout and the timer. The exit door is at the right end of the level, next to a prisoner, and you'll have to come all the way back to it. A central moving platform stops at several floors, and a second one has floors of its own that lead to the remaining prisoners. The final two are at the bottom of the main room, one at each end, and from there it's a long ride back up the platforms and ladders to the exit. Leave time for it.

Where is the last prisoner in stage 11?

Stage 11 (Mission, 6:00, 8 prisoners) opens with items above you that you can't reach. Don't waste time on them: the same items are in a secret room later, which you find by jumping at the left-hand wall. Getting back out of that room takes two jumps.

Hit the alien on the other platform with the grenade launcher. When an alien blocks a gap in a wall, drop back down on the left side and throw a hand grenade through the gap. One prisoner is behind the square grid. The last one is in a second hidden room: when you reach the lift at the end of the hallway, jump at the right wall. Before you leave, clear the alien running around the top-right path with the grenade launcher, then take the ladder and the lift to the exit. Skip the ladder past the gap, which leads into a later area by the bad route.

Stage 13 (Mission): 5:00, 9 prisoners, the first hive

The hive stages are full of holes, aliens come out of everywhere, and acid drips in places. The acid drips are the nastiest part of it. Items and sometimes prisoners are hard to spot here. A gap in a wall leads to a room with an egg and a prisoner. The exit is at the far left, and to reach it you jump up steps hidden behind part of the wall, so if you're at the left end with no way up, keep jumping along the wall.

Stage 14 (Mission): 7:00, 11 prisoners

Plenty of prisoners, seven minutes for them and a straightforward route. A facehugger and an egg guard the first prisoner. The ladder on the left only leads back to the start, so ignore it. When everyone is free, jump back up the small gap you dropped down and go all the way right to the exit.

Stage 15 (Mission): 5:00, 9 prisoners

Patience pays here. One alien drops in at the top of a ladder and scuttles off, so wait for it instead of walking into it, and watch for another hiding behind a wall in the foreground. The air duct has two aliens in it, which is what hand grenades thrown while crawling are for. Out of the duct, blow up the two eggs and run straight through the exit.

Stages 17 to 19: the hardest stretch

The last three stages before the final fight are built from falling floors, conveyor belts, shafts, tubes and lead pools, and here the layout gives you more trouble than the aliens.

Stage 17 (Rescue): 4:00, 10 prisoners

This is the first lead smelt stage, and once Ripley drops to the bottom, there is no way back up. Any prisoner you missed above is then out of reach, the clock runs out and the try is gone. One prisoner stands on a platform hanging against the wall that only one route reaches, and several others are tucked into spots like that. Clear everything above before you let yourself drop, and don't slide down the ramp to the right.

Tubes decide where you land. As you slide into one, hold left and Ripley comes out on a platform to the left. Another one you have to jump through, or you fall down it. At the far right end, drop into the last tube holding right. Rescue stages normally have no enemies, but near the end of this one an alien jumps out. Kill it, ride the elevator to the top and climb into the air duct.

This is where the Save button on this online version earns its place. Save when everything above is cleared, not after a fall: there is one slot, and a save made at the bottom with a prisoner still up top costs you a try every time you load it.

Stage 18 (Mission): 4:00, 6 prisoners

Before you head back for the battery pack, wait about a second: the door closes and crushes the alien coming at you. Go all the way right until a section of floor drops out, and fall through it holding right to land on a moving platform. Ride the conveyor belt across, grab the items and jump onto the stack, landing on its far side. Drop down the first shaft holding left to land on the left side. The finish is a long run of jumps to the right, ending with a jump onto a moving platform and from it into the exit.

Why is stage 19 so hard?

Stage 19 (Mission, 7:00, 7 prisoners) is the last regular stage, and it has the most awkward prisoner in the game. At one ramp you have to jump onto the platform instead of sliding down. Keep jumping across the platforms that follow until you can drop onto the one with the prisoner, then get on the ramp and slide: you go down a pipe and land on a platform. It's an easy place to spend every try you have left, so save right before that first jump. Ignore the moving conveyor belt and the level with the pouring lead. At the end, climb down all the way to ground level and head left, killing the aliens that jump out, to the exit.

How to beat the Guardians

Stage 4: the first Guardian (1:30)

Switch to the grenade launcher and walk to the middle of the room. The Guardian walks toward you while you fire, then jumps over Ripley, and you turn and do it again. It has two attacks, walking or jumping into you and spitting. Standing in the middle and stepping around now and then keeps you clear of the first, and the spit mostly misses as long as you keep moving. It takes somewhere around 20 to 30 grenade hits. Pick up whatever is left in the room before you go through the exit.

Stages 8, 12 and 16

The stage 8 Guardian (2:00) has two small platforms and falls into a loop: down from one, straight back up onto the other. Break it by running across to the opposite side now and then; it changes tactics and gives you a clear shot. In stage 12 (2:00) it has several platforms to jump around on, but you can stay on the ground and win from there, and since it walks more often, you move less. In stage 16 (3:30), climb the small steps and start firing straight away. The patterns are the same as before, and the exit is at the top.

How do you beat the two Guardians in stage 20?

The final stage gives you 3:00 on Normal and 2:45 on Hard, and the route to the ammo is worth learning. On Hard the launcher starts this stage with 12 rounds, which makes every pick-up on this route count. Run out of the door onto the platform below and go to its near end. On Normal, at 2:54 on the clock, jump out as far as you can onto the platform moving up, run across to the far one and grab both grenade pick-ups. Drop down the side one level to the flame thrower fuel, then again to the ground.

On the ground, fire the grenade launcher whenever a Guardian is in range. The first spit of acid will hit you. After that the Guardian comes in close, then turns and runs off, and the moment it turns, start moving forward: the acid it spits then misses. Repeat until the first one dies.

For the second, ride the moving platform up and jump off onto the first platform on the left. There's health there, and you'll need it. The second Guardian is either already up there or on its way. Keep firing grenades; there are 10 more rounds at the end of this platform, and if those run out too, finish it with the pulse rifle. Then jump on the moving platform and leave through the exit at the top right.