From the tactical espionage action of Solid Snake in Metal Gear to the vampire-slaying exploits of Simon Belmont in Castlevania to the gung-ho guerrilla combat of Bill Rizer and Lance Bean in Contra, Konami made a name for themselves by developing and publishing quality games which could perhaps be best described as “manly.” It was simply something they were good at, and you could even see it in their name (if spelled backwards): “I man, ok?”

Simple, perhaps even subliminal, but effective.

But while those titles have managed to endure, even thrive into the present day, there was another title which was not quite so fortunate: Rush’N Attack.

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To make something fresh, you don’t always have to start from scratch. Sometimes you can take something that’s very well established and simply put it in an entirely different context. Suddenly, what is old becomes new again.

This is something Aliens Infestation does in more ways than one. In it, you’ll find a combination of many things. While the most pronounced is its Metroid “Lite” structure, it also borrows elements from cover based shooters and even has a tinge of survival horror. Everything comes together to form a game with its own strong identity, never feeling like a clone of any of the games it takes inspiration from.

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“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

When Dracula X: Rondo of Blood first made it on the US Virtual Console, I remained casually interested. The early Castlevania franchise has simply never enthused. Yes, the music is always excellent, and the series art has always had the fun Gothic aesthetic, but I just found the whole classic Castlevania era fairly archaic.

Simon Belmont always felt stilted in his movement, almost gawky. Don’t even get me started on how gimped the throwing weapons were. I naturally presumed Rondo of Blood would simply be more of the three NES games I couldn’t get into.

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