Alien 3 (NES)

A game based on the movie of the same name and loosely based on Probe's other Alien 3 games.

To do: unused graphics: detailed prisoners death animation with more worms, a lot of unused enemy graphics (check if they are the same), two unused player anim phases, completely unused CHR data for missing cutscene screen at bank $6C

Development Text#

There is a hidden copyright message at the beginning of the ROM, at 0x00010:

ALIEN3...NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM.PROGRAMMED BY DARYL BOWERS FOR PROBE SOFTWARE.CHECKSUM FOR ROMS:

There are no checksum checks in the ROM in any form. The routine to display the string was likely removed from the final version.

Further, no "Daryl Bowers" is listed in the game's credits, with the only programmer listed being "Squidgy". The above message may indicate that this was a pseudonym for Bowers.

Unused Text#

Stored near the main game menu text and data at 0x14766 are "High Scores" and "ONE TWO". Most likely it was planned to be used in a "High Scores" table screen, which doesn't exist in the game.

There are two different level types in the final version: "MISSION" and "GUARDIAN", which stands for regular levels and boss levels accordingly. But the level type names list contains two more strings, unused in the final version, stored at 0x1497C: "MAYHEM" and "RESCUE".

Level Skip#

Pause the game and press Left, Right, Up, Down, Left, Right, A, B, A, B to skip to the next level.