Alien Gate was SPC Visions introductory title to what would become a stream of visually brilliant and critically acclaimed CD-i games. The fact your ship had hands and feet didn't seem to worry the buying public as this game was an instant commercial hit with CD-i users. Watch the rolling text at the bottom of the screen and you'd see a hidden announcement of the spiritual sequel to Alien Gate in Steel Machine. It's a game that plays best with a CD-i mouse. The fact that Alien Gate plays so good with the mouse is because it was developed on one, I think the touchpad / gamepad didn't exist yet when Alien Gate was developed and SPC Vision certainly didn't have one. They did have a roller ball controller though, which is reportedly the best pointing device for playing Steel Machine. You can use these codes to skip through the first levels and straight jump to the better ones:
Level selection:
- Level 05 : CWOA
- Level 10 : ASJA
- Level 15 : VZOA
- Level 20 : SAKA
- Level 25 : TNNB
While Alien Gate can be seen as a relatively small and simple game nowadays, back in 1993 it was a technical marvel on CD-i and really first-of-a-kind to have this kind of shooters on CD-i. Philips was amazed by what SPC Vision actually could do with the limited hardware of the CD-i. It might be the start of trust to SPC Vision to bring more games like this to CD-i. Next projects included The Apprentice, Dimo's Quest, Lucky Luke, Accelerator which all the same kind of graphics. They produced many other titles (including professional ones) but also other games like Lingo, Uncover Tatjana and Sport Freaks.
It's quite easy to find the game these days for a low price, but most of them come in a large vertical oriented CD case. Philips also rereleased the title in a standard (CD-Audio) jewelcase, but this version is far more rare.