11 Minute Look at ALIENS: Colonial Marines - E3 2011

[Darkfox]

What I don't get is the obsession with LV426 and the Sulaco. Why not just set it somewhere else, another colony and another warship that look the same if that's what they want, thus getting rid of the whole 'but could it survive being nuked' stuff.

Well, of course, that has been here a million times. Basically all the computer games this far were based on taking place somewhere different, completely unrelated to the canonical "sites of appearance" (or only very vaguely, at most indirectly, if you don't count the Derelict in the '99 AvP). It is the same like with all the books and comics: the basic thought, since the dawn of the Aliens EU, being mostly "if there is one planet infested by Aliens, why not a dozen? If there is one Derelict, why not a dozen?" - and thus you end up with numerous clones of the scenario "newly colonised planet - Hive happens to be on that planet - colonists get wiped out - Marines come to rescue and almost get wiped out themselves - (usually) the planet blows up and few survivors return home".

So in a way, I appreciate them having this attitude of avoiding (as Hudson had nicely named it above) "making their own shit". I don't like the fact that Hadley's Hope had survived the impact (as it seems from this far), but I can half-close my eyes and pretend it's okay. A spinoff of "heck, there still must be the remains of Sulaco drifting somewhere in space, somebody could bring the remains of eggs from there or whatnot" was something that I had always thought one of the obvious places where somebody could pick up on the storyline, so I don't have anything against Sulaco being revisited, and if it involves the Colony as well, then... I can survive that.

I must second however whoever had said it that the idea of playing the ACTUAL Aliens with the actual Hickses, Wierzes, Gormans, Ferros and whoknowswhat "according to my own scenario" would have been far more amazing (I still consider that simple yet brilliant originally-board-later-digitalized game one of the best discoveries I've made in a while), yet I take what I can get if it does not outright insult me.

[Hudson]

Well I like the idea of going to see locations from the film "first hand," but I think it's a bit weird when they're going to "explain what happened to Hudson" and whatnot. I fucking know what happened to him...he died.

I do think it's cool to go to the Sulaco though. Tie in a little Alien 3 stuff. That ship was completely intact. Never any mention of it ever again.

And the derelict, that'd be cool to see after the 1999 rendering in AvP for PC. 

[deezelboy]

Basically all the computer games this far were based on taking place somewhere different, completely unrelated to the canonical "sites of appearance" (or only very vaguely, at most indirectly, if you don't count the Derelict in the '99 AvP).

Except the film tie-ins at the time, and Alien Trilogy. I think the AVP 1999 game had the right approach - it gave you locations that were extremely similar to those in the films, but weren't. Well, with the exception of Fiorina 161, but that was pretty much the only canonical site of appearance that hadn't been canonically destroyed.

So it feels to me like developers have two choices in 'making their own shit' - they can either make up the locations or make up events. ACM has chosen the latter choice - they're making up their own continuity so they can have the canonical locations.

I must second however whoever had said it that the idea of playing the ACTUAL Aliens with the actual Hickses, Wierzes, Gormans, Ferros and whoknowswhat "according to my own scenario" would have been far more amazing (I still consider that simple yet brilliant originally-board-later-digitalized game one of the best discoveries I've made in a while), yet I take what I can get if it does not outright insult me.

Completely agree - I had great fun in playing the Electric Dreams Aliens tie-in for that reason (and the flash version of the board game).

It is the same like with all the books and comics: the basic thought, since the dawn of the Aliens EU, being mostly "if there is one planet infested by Aliens, why not a dozen? If there is one Derelict, why not a dozen?" - and thus you end up with numerous clones of the scenario "newly colonised planet - Hive happens to be on that planet - colonists get wiped out - Marines come to rescue and almost get wiped out themselves - (usually) the planet blows up and few survivors return home".

Isn't this more of an argument regarding a paucity of imagination, and a desire just to replay Aliens basic plot rather than come up with something new? Something which ACM falls into as well?

I do think it's cool to go to the Sulaco though. Tie in a little Alien 3 stuff. That ship was completely intact. Never any mention of it ever again.

Well... ACM apparently has the Sulaco orbiting around LV426, which to me doesn't make much sense. Why return there after dumping Ripley off in Fiorina 161 (unless they're going to do something devilishly clever there)?

From the point of view of Alien 3, the Sulaco's uninteresting. The flight recorder gave Bishop the lowdown on all Alien activity on the ship ("It was with us all the way") and sent it on to WY ("The Company knows everything that happend on the ship"). They sent a ship to intercept Ripley because they knew she had an Alien with/in her. They would have intercepted the Sulaco if they thought that there was an Alien on board... and they would have known.

[Darkfox]

Well I like the idea of going to see locations from the film "first hand," but I think it's a bit weird when they're going to "explain what happened to Hudson" and whatnot. I fucking know what happened to him...he died.

Did they say that? Eurgh. Come on, the last thing I want to see is something like "during mission 4, you are one man short. Look, there is somebody in the basement of the colony cocooned to the wall! Oh my! Look at it! Amazing! It's Hudson! Hello! Save him and he joins your party, thank you very much!" Not that it wouldn't be lovely to have Hudson in your party, but on second thought not anything I would really like to see in practice. But not that I'd believe them being capable of doing it. Finding a random suit of armor of Hudson's customization lying in the underground corridor (with some dogtags next to it to make sure everybody gets the point), perhaps... not sure what else would they want to do with it.

And the derelict, that'd be cool to see after the 1999 rendering in AvP for PC. 

Well I think the graphics of that one are still rather cool. Okay, of course... but... I guess the darkness did a lot, you didn't need to have such brilliant textures since half of the time you were in complete dark anyway
 

Except the film tie-ins at the time, and Alien Trilogy. I think the AVP 1999 game had the right approach - it gave you locations that were extremely similar to those in the films, but weren't. Well, with the exception of Fiorina 161, but that was pretty much the only canonical site of appearance that hadn't been canonically destroyed.

Quite so. Of course, the '99 AvP had the "advantage" of having very little storyline (only a sort of general frame), so you didn't bother so much about how exactly is your current situation related to the Alien(s) universe, you just wandered around in the same atmosphere...

Isn't this more of an argument regarding a paucity of imagination, and a desire just to replay Aliens basic plot rather than come up with something new? Something which ACM falls into as well?

Well, yes, then again the truth is, that's probably unavoidable. Aliens is Aliens, each player expects the "Aliens movie experience" the foremost of all when he sees a game with "Aliens" in its title. Especially those who haven't played such a game previously. And since every new game approaches new audience, they do the same over and over again, if only to satisfy the expectations of the new audience. Maybe they could have avoided that with the books etc after a while (well, I think they partially did, but still...).

Well... ACM apparently has the Sulaco orbiting around LV426, which to me doesn't make much sense. Why return there after dumping Ripley off in Fiorina 161 (unless they're going to do something devilishly clever there)?

Yes, that would be weird. Unless one says "well there was some emergency random homing beacon sending it to the last location so that it could be picked up more easily..." But that would be really rather weird (it would make much more sense to "go back to homebase - what is homebase? - Earth, erm, Gateway" ).

From the point of view of Alien 3, the Sulaco's uninteresting. The flight recorder gave Bishop the lowdown on all Alien activity on the ship ("It was with us all the way") and sent it on to WY ("The Company knows everything that happend on the ship"). They sent a ship to intercept Ripley because they knew she had an Alien with/in her. They would have intercepted the Sulaco if they thought that there was an Alien on board... and they would have known.

Well, we are not sure. What if there was something and they did know? There might have been some random eggs, but they knew Ripley was with the Queen, which would certainly have priority (if WY e.g. couldn't be sure whether the eggs will produce a Queen or just a random drone).

Of course this is all stretching it, but for the purpose of this semi-canonicity, I think it is not that much of a stretch.

[deezelboy]

Of course, the '99 AvP had the "advantage" of having very little storyline (only a sort of general frame), so you didn't bother so much about how exactly is your current situation related to the Alien(s) universe, you just wandered around in the same atmosphere...

I'd definitely view this as an advantage!

Well, yes, then again the truth is, that's probably unavoidable. Aliens is Aliens, each player expects the "Aliens movie experience" the foremost of all when he sees a game with "Aliens" in its title. Especially those who haven't played such a game previously. And since every new game approaches new audience, they do the same over and over again, if only to satisfy the expectations of the new audience. Maybe they could have avoided that with the books etc after a while (well, I think they partially did, but still...).

Obsidian at least tried to do something different, both in terms of gameplay and location/story, with Crucible before it got canned.  But I think canning it reinforces your point.

It does feel like we've had around 20 years of walking down the same corridors armed with the same weapons and equipment carrying out the same mission objectives. Sometimes the names change, and the graphics get better with each iteration, but it's still the same game, with a distinct lack of any pushing at boundaries (I mean, even the gameplay potential of acid blood has been persistently downplayed!).

ACM feels to me like a retrograde step with the decision to go back to the film beyond recreating the atmosphere- although to be fair I'm quite interested in what the conflict between the recreating of Aliens sets and the remodelling of Aliens ending might bring.

I'd never want to see it done in celluloid, but surely fighting a rearguard action against Aliens overrunning a future Earth, or infiltrating an Alien hiveworld, or finding unfamiliar extraterrestrial derelict ships full of Aliens, are vastly more exciting concepts to place your Colonial Marines in?

Yes, that would be weird. Unless one says "well there was some emergency random homing beacon sending it to the last location so that it could be picked up more easily..." But that would be really rather weird (it would make much more sense to "go back to homebase - what is homebase? - Earth, erm, Gateway" ).

Yes - I love the idea the a warship will return to the point it's retreated from in the event all the crew bails! All those nukes it carries handily delivered to the potential enemy...

Well, we are not sure. What if there was something and they did know? There might have been some random eggs, but they knew Ripley was with the Queen, which would certainly have priority (if WY e.g. couldn't be sure whether the eggs will produce a Queen or just a random drone).

I'd imagine that WY would have more than one ship at its disposal. If they knew something was on the Sulaco it could well have been intercepted.

All we know is that the Fiorina 161 mission ended in failure for WY*, and that 200 years later we learn that this was the last opportunity WY had - Ripley effectively caused the Aliens extinction (which does raise a lot more questions than I suspect the clean break from continuity was supposed to).

To be honest, I think just turning your back on canon and going for the most interesting idea is the best way to go.  It's not like the EU is ever going to be seen as canon. It's not even like the films are going to if a new film comes along and changes things (I'm thinking of AVP and Prometheus here!).

* It still irks me that at the end of Alien 3 the Company was pretty much walking over the extremely useful specimens of Alien body parts strewn over the floor, and might have discovered the remains of a facehugger had they bothered to look. Yet apparently only live Aliens will do...

[BishopIII]

 The audio diaries on 2010's AvP (Dr. Groves, if I remember correctly) make mention of years spent "working with broken scraps", with relation to WY's alien research. At least that game attempted to address the issue of the blown-apart alien in the leadworks, and possibly the dead facehugger. If WY didn't bother with a thorough search of Fiorina 161, which I don't believe for a second, maybe there are other things that eluded the inmates (and Ripley's) attention. An unanswered question; What became of the livestock in the abattoir? Perhaps the alien egg-morphed an ox, or chicken, and hid it in one of the myriad air ducts? I know there would be the usual objection that the presence of the queen within Ripley would nullify the need for it, but I wouldn't underestimate the alien's drive to survive so much that I'd reject the idea.

[Darkfox]

Obsidian at least tried to do something different, both in terms of gameplay and location/story, with Crucible before it got canned.  But I think canning it reinforces your point.

Yes. I still think that's a pity, because an Alien RPG is something that has vast potential and I'd love to see that (despite it having Rhinoliens or whatever it seemed to be, but hey, it's innovative. The only question is how you check in).

I mean, if I had the skills and resources, I'd work on such a game myself if no big publishers wish to do that (and I'm probably not the only one who would think so). It would even be fun work, writing scripts and plotlines and characters and dialogues or draft locations... but yeah, I wouldn't have the skills to put the visualisation and the vision into reality, like I said.

It does feel like we've had around 20 years of walking down the same corridors armed with the same weapons and equipment carrying out the same mission objectives. Sometimes the names change, and the graphics get better with each iteration, but it's still the same game, with a distinct lack of any pushing at boundaries (I mean, even the gameplay potential of acid blood has been persistently downplayed!).

Acid blood indeed! I mean, go with holes in the ground, I am sure we are at the level of gaming technology where we could do something like that...

ACM feels to me like a retrograde step with the decision to go back to the film beyond recreating the atmosphere- although to be fair I'm quite interested in what the conflict between the recreating of Aliens sets and the remodelling of Aliens ending might bring.

Somewhat. It has to be said, they actually dared to try to work on from the point where the movies had left off, sort of almost starting at the point where Alien 4 could theoretically have continued - the question is, of course, how exactly are they going to do it; from what it seems this far, it indeed looks only like a copy of the "colony survival" style.

I'd never want to see it done in celluloid, but surely fighting a rearguard action against Aliens overrunning a future Earth, or infiltrating an Alien hiveworld, or finding unfamiliar extraterrestrial derelict ships full of Aliens, are vastly more exciting concepts to place your Colonial Marines in?

Most certainly. Although of course it has to be said it requires a great deal of bravery to make such a radical step as e.g. introduce infested Earth - very few people dare to do it (and truly so, I know of *certain* people who brought the Aliens to Earth in the most idiotic fashion I have ever seen...). You have to be very good in order to be able to dare going so far. But yes, derelicts, planetary hives, even the empty wrecks whose crew didn't manage to get to the escape pods, or 'ghost town' space stations which had unfortunately picked up such a shuttle with a wrong survivor... heck, there are still so many open possibilities...

The audio diaries on 2010's AvP (Dr. Groves, if I remember correctly) make mention of years spent "working with broken scraps", with relation to WY's alien research. At least that game attempted to address the issue of the blown-apart alien in the leadworks, and possibly the dead facehugger. If WY didn't bother with a thorough search of Fiorina 161, which I don't believe for a second, maybe there are other things that eluded the inmates (and Ripley's) attention. An unanswered question; What became of the livestock in the abattoir? Perhaps the alien egg-morphed an ox, or chicken, and hid it in one of the myriad air ducts? I know there would be the usual objection that the presence of the queen within Ripley would nullify the need for it, but I wouldn't underestimate the alien's drive to survive so much that I'd reject the idea.

Well, I am not sure if the "scraps" should be taken literally, as in "we had two pieces of Alien tail and an empty egg", but yes, given how much interest e.g. Ash gives even to the dead facehugger, I am sure the Company would take great interest in even the "scraps" which surely WERE to be found somewhere around Fury 161. Not sure about the remains of the lead-exploded alien, but the dead facehugger in some dump, maybe even some DNA samples from the drool all over the place, or who knows what...  I mean, if we wanted to clone something, why start with Ripley, right...

[BishopIII]

Especially if they chanced upon the 'egg-morph' spore cells in the body parts, they'd be able to resurrect the species, without that pesky newborn crap!

[deezelboy]

Yes. I still think that's a pity, because an Alien RPG is something that has vast potential and I'd love to see that (despite it having Rhinoliens or whatever it seemed to be, but hey, it's innovative. The only question is how you check in).

Yeah, well, ACM has its own version of Rhinolien-types. I'm not greatly happy about the idea, but in terms of game design I can see why it'd be deemed as necessary.

I mean, if I had the skills and resources, I'd work on such a game myself if no big publishers wish to do that (and I'm probably not the only one who would think so). It would even be fun work, writing scripts and plotlines and characters and dialogues or draft locations... but yeah, I wouldn't have the skills to put the visualisation and the vision into reality, like I said.

I'm slowly working on an Alien roguelike, mostly down to being a bit bored with the sameyness of the published games (and the fact that I reckon I could probably construct a roguelike!). I'm trying to go back to Alien's "you don't dare kill it" - dead Aliens can be more dangerous than the live ones given acid blood causing hull breaches and the like.

Somewhat. It has to be said, they actually dared to try to work on from the point where the movies had left off, sort of almost starting at the point where Alien 4 could theoretically have continued - the question is, of course, how exactly are they going to do it; from what it seems this far, it indeed looks only like a copy of the "colony survival" style.

It does feel to me that they're working from the point just before Aliens ended - there are still Aliens in Hadley's Hope. There's still Hadley's Hope! That's a pretty bold move (as bold as making an Alien Apocalypse on Earth game, for example).

It sounds like LV42 is the springboard to new locations, so perhaps they go beyond 'colony survival'? Wait and see, I guess.

Not sure about the remains of the lead-exploded alien...

Hey, if you want genetic samples, those remains are gonna be a godsend!

[beckmen]

If they wanted to introduce some new aliens to have more enemy variety, they should have gone the research station route. Set up that all kinds of shit is being used as hosts, possible genetic engineering, exposure to massive amounts of radiation, etc.

Instead we'll get, what? A bunch of new aliens on LV-426, without a sufficient reason as to where they came from, or why Ripley and Company didn't encounter them. The same way they didn't think through the destruction of the colony. Once again in this franchise, "Because it's cool" is reason enough to do something. The legacy of Paul W.S. Anderson. It's looking like in a lot of ways, AVP 2010 is going to be a better game.

[deezelboy]

A bunch of new aliens on LV-426, without a sufficient reason as to where they came from, or why Ripley and Company didn't encounter them.

exposure to massive amounts of radiation

Isn't that an answer? AP goes up like a neutron bomb, surviving Aliens irradiated leading to morphological changes?

[beckmen]

Yeah, I suppose. Depending on how much time passes. We'll see if the game addresses it, or if it'll be considered fanwank.

[deezelboy]

I kinda hope the game doesn't address it, much in the same way that Aliens doesn't really address the Queen or Alien 3 the dog/ox Alien.

They're alien... In-character, in-game, you're coming up against things that you've never seen before. You don't stop to try and work out why facehuggers look different to Aliens, or why some have a dome and some don't.

That's for the fans to wank work out!

[Ambervikings91]

i'm not super into shootes but this certainly looks very cool, i love the environment and the sound seems pretty cool as well, it looks good overall as long as it isn't lacking in the story i'm in!

[deezelboy]

Randy Pitchford on how Aliens: Colonial Marines links into the continuity of the films. It's a bit spoilery so here it is in spoiler tags:

Here's Pitchford, with some asides from me, walking me through the fiction of Aliens and Alien3 while zeroing in on the mysteries he hopes to help players solve with the new game.

"At the end of Aliens, Ripley, Hicks, Newt and Bishop go to sleep and are presumably going home. At the beginning of Alien3 something happened. We never knew what or why. But something caused them to be ejected from the Sulaco and they ended up on this prison planet.

"The Sulaco is there at the prison planet." [Note from Stephen: Right? It's definitely not over LV426, which is where it appears to be in the start of Colonial Marines. Logically, it'd be near the planet it ejected Ripley onto.]

"Everything that Ripley dealt with on the prison planet ends with her martyring herself as Weyland-Yutani is trying to collect the specimen." [Note from Stephen: That's the end of Alien3, of course.]

"Weyland-Yutani actually … boarded the Sulaco." [Note from Stephen: I did not know this, but it makes sense. Menacing corporation that sets up Hadley's Hope and wants to retrieve alien queen embryo would obviously track down the Sulaco and search it.]

"Something happened before that Ripley doesn't know about that led to the ejection [from the Sulaco.]. If Weyland-Yutani can't get the specimen from Ripley, and they are on the ship, what would their next step be? It would be to turn the ship around and go back to the source, LV426.

"So the Sulaco gets back to LV426. Now, [in the game], we're part of the contingent that's the rescue crew. Remember, Ripley asks how long before we're overdue can we expect a rescue and Hicks says 17 days. And Hudson says something like, ‘17 days? We're not going to last 17 hours, man.' That creates the opening for the ship that's going to go deal with the fact that something happened. Now the Sulaco is reported destroyed. They didn't send it in 17 days, but they are going to investigate. 17 weeks later, Weyland-Yutani has had plenty of time on LV426.

"Now, LV426 is actually a moon around a ring planet. It's actually not a planet itself. But it's a big one. It's a shake-n-bake colony, so there's a bit of an atmosphere. The atmosphere processor blew [Note from Stephen: during Aliens]. That is about 3 kilometers away is where Hadley's Hope is, and it's taken a lot of damage because that was about a 40 megaton blast. About 1000 kilometers away from that is where the derelict was. That's the big ship that had all the eggs in Alien.

"We know where Alien begins, there's a Derelict on this alien planet and we also know from Aliens that, when they finally found Ripley and Burke sent a report, that got the colonists out to see what is this. [They were told:] ‘Go to this grid point, see what's there.' And that's when they stumbled into the eggs and that's when Hadley's Hope was taken over."

http://kotaku.com/5907653/the-authorized-story-of-the-next-aliens-video-game-will-change-the-way-we-see-aliens-and-alien-3

Well...

It's not too bad an attempt. But why in God's name would WY bother to take the Sulaco back to LV-426? They had the Patna, and I'm not too sure salvage rights apply to automated military ships.