10 reasons the Alien movies are the biggest influence on video games ever

List the people who've had the biggest influence on video games since the early '80s. Right now. Do it.

Who have you come up with? Miyamoto? Kojima? Carmack? Newell? Mikami? Wrong on all counts. The only names you need are Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Dan O' Bannon and H.R. Giger. Because being brutally honest, the Alien movies have done far more to shape video games than anyone in the games industry ever has. Want proof? Click on. I have 10 proofs.

1. The Aliens weapon-set

Watch Aliens and make a list of the guns you see the Colonial Marines use throughout the course of the film. Pistol, shotun, assault rifle, pulse rifle, flame thrower, genade launcher. That's the list you'll end up with. And what is it, if not the traditional FPS weapon-set standardised by id Software between Wolfenstein and Doom. Doom was originally envisioned as an Aliens-licensed game, you know. Coincidence? Pah.

2. The 'countdown to destruction' ending

Alien, Aliens and Alien Resurrection all end with Ripley making a desperate, minutes-to-spare run through an exploding, siren-honking facility of some sort during the countdown to its solar-system-searing self-detonation. Games play with this set-piece a huge amount, particularly as a post-final-boss climax. The Metroid series in particular uses it on average every 7.14 seconds. Is it any coincidence that 'Aran' sounds like someone mumbling 'Ellen' with a mouth full of biscuits? I think not.

3. Air vents

The dark, creepy air vent crawl has become a long-standing FPS cliche (albeit one that still to this day results in a great deal of manly shouting to disguise the fact that the sound of that extraction fan just made us scream like girls and do a little bit of wee). And they make a lot of sense as a game mechanic.

They're great for quickly switching to a period of quiet, tense pacing. The lack of running-away space and the inherent darkness makes them mortifyingly scary without anything actually needing to happen. And above all, they're really good for masking a cheap transition between environments without thinking too hard about physical geography. They also have the same advantages in film, which is Alien used them back in 1979, when video games still looked like the back alley vomit of a man who'd just drunk ten pints of white pixels.

4. White cyborg blood

Above: I can't write a comedy caption for this without getting fired 

The Alien series established early on that not only can lifelike androids exist, but that they must be fuelled with watered-down natural yogurt. White blood is the de facto filling for walking, talking robo-men, and wouldn't you know it, it's the same case for Metal Gear Solid's slicing, dicing robo-Raiden.

Above: Brimming with creme fraiche 

5. Sergeant Apone

Look familiar?

How about now? And that goes for space marines in general. Colonial Marines, the lot of them.

Next: Five more Alien influences, some subtle, some shamelessly stolen