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Aliens xcom or whatever is a good idea, looking forward to it. Also I think they announced new content for fire team elite
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Jun 10, 2022 01:02
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Ferrinus posted:Yeah, like the Elder Things. Not exactly, the Alien is a shoggoth as far back as the first movie, it’s a spooky hostile black amorphous creature narratively tied to the long-dead spooky Elder Things ship carrying a cargo hold full of the things. And it absolutely has cosmic horror, it’s a movie about a tiny group of explorers deep in the void of space learning the hard way that there are ancient uncaring horrors lurking in the dark waiting for someone to stumble across them and get their poo poo wrecked. That is cosmic horror. Like I said, the filmmakers very specifically cited Lovecraft as an influence, and included Lovecraftian tropes in the movie. Lovecraft had a lot of tropes, just because Alien checks some different boxes from Prometheus doesn’t mean it isn’t Lovecraftian lol
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Jun 10, 2022 01:02
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Xenomrph posted:Not exactly, the Alien is a shoggoth as far back as the first movie, it’s a spooky hostile black amorphous creature narratively tied to the long-dead spooky Elder Things ship carrying a cargo hold full of the things. First off, the alien isn't amorphous. The black slime intended for terraforming but which boils out of control and becomes monstrous is a key element of, specifically, Prometheus. Only with Prometheus do we realize that the titular alien is a shoggoth and not, like, a sasquatch. Second, in no sense do the crew of the Nostromo "learn the hard way that there are ancient uncaring horrors" etcetera. They don't, like, go into the movie excited to do space travel and explore the unknown only to get their expectations rudely subverted. They in fact extremely don't want to get off their spaceship and find the source of the distress signal, except they're forced to by their contracts. Their ship has well-established quarantine protocols that exist precisely because space may well contain ancient uncaring horrors, but the quarantine protocol is subverted by a bad actor who is hostile to the crew for perfectly comprehensible political-economic reasons. The movie in which explorers (not porters) who learn the hard way that all their dreams are in fact nightmares is, once again, Prometheus.
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Jun 10, 2022 01:10
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Ferrinus posted:The movie in which explorers (not porters) who learn the hard way that all their dreams are in fact nightmares is, once again, Prometheus. "All their dreams are in fact nightmares" is not Lovecraftian. And Shaw is not driven mad at the end of Prometheus, a trademark of cosmic horror. Cosmicism, indifferentism of the gods, is the core theme of Lovecraft's stories. The engineers in Prometheus are fair from indifferent to humanity. Joe Chill fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Jun 10, 2022 |
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Jun 10, 2022 01:24
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Joe Chill posted:"All their dreams are in fact nightmares" is not Lovecraftian. I guess I could have used a different turn of phrase, but it's Prometheus in which people set out to discover something and deeply regret it because of the unpleasant nature of what they discovered. Shaw doesn't crack but Holloway certainly does.
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Jun 10, 2022 01:27
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Just because Prometheus has things doesn’t mean Alien doesn’t. Just because Prometheus has more things, or more overt things, doesn’t mean Alien is bereft of them lol The explorers did not know there were uncaring horrors, they especially didn’t know about the derelict, they venture into the derelict to see what’s there (“We must go on! We have to go on!”). Them being told to do it by someone else doesn’t matter, at least some of the crew wants to explore and see what they find; the fact that there are uncaring space horrors (among the other like 5 things I listed) is what makes it Lovecraftian The Alien absolutely is amorphous, it starts as an egg and turns into a facehugger, then a chestburster, and then an adult. A big part of the movie, for both the characters and the audience, is that they don’t know what the Alien is going to turn into next. That makes it amorphous, like the shoggoth. And like I said they’re found onboard a derelict ancient Elder Things spaceship with a cargo hold full of shoggoths where one of the shoggoths clearly got loose and killed the pilot I strongly disagree with your opinion, and that’s okay 
Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Jun 10, 2022 |
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Jun 10, 2022 01:27
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Lovecraft influence being confined to Prometheus helps confirm it’s bad movie status
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Jun 10, 2022 01:28
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alien is lovecraftian imo
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Jun 10, 2022 01:29
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It most definitely is Lovecraftian.
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Jun 10, 2022 01:34
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Like the most adventurous and exploratory character, the one literally egging the other crew members on to keep going and keep exploring, is the one who pushes his face into an Alien egg and gets owned. It’s super duper on the nose.
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Jun 10, 2022 01:44
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Xenomrph posted:Just because Prometheus has things doesn’t mean Alien doesn’t. Just because Prometheus has more things, or more overt things, doesn’t mean Alien is bereft of them lol Butterflies aren't amorphous; neither is the xenomorph. We only learn that the xenomorph is but one possible manifestation of an amorphous chaos-agent... in Prometheus. The explorers know they are surrounded by uncaring space horrors, the first of which is literally space, like, hard vacuum. They have quarantine protocols in place in order to head off another uncaring space horror: infection. It is this second kind of uncaring horror - a lethal biological agent - which kills them, because their quarantine protocols are suborned. The crucial thing here is that there is no reversal of expectations of moment of horrible cosmic gnosis. Nobody expected the horrors to care. No one volunteered to be there, no one was trying to learn something; they were just at work. The reason they "must" go on is that they'll forfeit years of their pay if they don't. Prometheus, meanwhile, is full of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed volunteers. Shoggoths had specific relations with the Elder Things that may have mirrored whatever unknown backstory the space jockey had but is only confirmed in Prometheus and Covenant. A terraforming agent that evolved out of control is very different from, say, an improperly-stored bioweapon or dangerous exotic pet. FastestGunAlive posted:Lovecraft influence being confined to Prometheus helps confirm it’s bad movie status See this is a position I respect.
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Jun 10, 2022 01:45
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Ferrinus posted:I guess I could have used a different turn of phrase, but it's Prometheus in which people set out to discover something and deeply regret it because of the unpleasant nature of what they discovered. Shaw doesn't crack but Holloway certainly does. Holloway didn't crack, just disappointed he won't find answers. He doesn't even learn any truth.
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Jun 10, 2022 01:49
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Kane is saying they “must go on” because he personally wants to keep exploring, not because he’s a company man with a gun to his head. The Alien is amorphous because the audience and the characters see it keep changing shape and don’t know what it’s going to turn into next. The Alien isn’t a butterfly, or any kind of terrestrial creature, that’s the point. Only with the benefit of hindsight and sequels do you “know” the process - first time audiences and the characters are getting surprised at every turn and don’t know when the roller coaster is going to stop, and that’s very much intentional (and shoggoth-like). The Alien doesn’t need to literally be a seething black shapeshifting mass covered in eyeballs to be a Shoggoth, it is one both symbolically and in many ways textually. That’s what makes that aspect Lovecraftian. Like I said I very much disagree with you, and that’s okay Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Jun 10, 2022 |
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Jun 10, 2022 01:50
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Ferrinus posted:First off, the alien isn't amorphous. The black slime intended for terraforming but which boils out of control and becomes monstrous is a key element of, specifically, Prometheus. Only with Prometheus do we realize that the titular alien is a shoggoth and not, like, a sasquatch. It's a difference of perspective. A rich failson learns there are things beyond his control and they are horrible beyond imagination. Blue collar workers understand things beyond their control and that things are horrible. Something horrible beyond imagination is new though.
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Jun 10, 2022 01:57
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Joe Chill posted:But Holloway doesn't learn any truth, he was still looking for answers. He does! He's there for most of the analysis, right next to Shaw and the others when they discover that Engineer DNA matches human DNA and such. But that's not enough of him, so he seeks out direct communion with the mysteries of the facility, which destroys him from inside out. Xenomrph posted:Kane is saying they “must go on” because he personally wants to keep exploring, not because he’s a company man with a gun to his head. You've scrambled the words a bit. He's a man with the company's gun to his head. Now, it may be the case that in terms of his personal demeanor and quirks, he's the most curious and adventurous member of the crew. But going down there isn't his idea, and it's a cold, hard, fact that if he doesn't go down there and find where the transmission is coming from his life is going to be ruined. However, there's something more important here than just the most curious person getting owned. Someone insufficiently cautious dying first is an element of many movies across many genres, and is in fact a perfectly logical thing that you'd expect to happen IRL where the only threat is a regular infectious disease or a hungry tiger or something. What's really important is the contrast between Kane and Ripley. Ripley isn't at all excited about exploring an alien wreck; she's completely aware that it could be dangerous in unforeseen ways, and as soon as something untoward happens she refuses to let a potentially-contaminated party back on board. This would work, except that Ripley is betrayed by another crew member who very much cares about what's going on in a comprehensible way. There's a scene in Prometheus in which a giant rolling spaceship is barreling down a hill at Shaw and Vickers. One of them runs straight away from it the same way it's going - stupid, right? The other makes an immediate turn to avoid it - makes sense! Obviously, the Kane of this scene is squashed flat by the giant ship, just as you'd expect, because they aren't making the best tactical moves. But then the spaceship loses balance and falls over on its side directly onto the Ripley of the scene, who only survives because she happened to trip and fall next to a spar of rock taller than her body. In one film, calm professionalism in the face of the unknown is fully effective. In the other, we can writhe and struggle all we want, but it doesn't matter, because we're totally out of our league and are only getting out of this one through dumb luck.
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Jun 10, 2022 01:59
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Again it’s not a zero-sum game, there isn’t One Lovecraftian Movie to Rule Them All, both movies can (and do) have Lovecraftian tropes present in varying ways and of varying intensities, both symbolically/metaphorically and textually. Just because Prometheus is Lovecraftian doesn’t mean Alien can’t be. Kane knows he has to go because of his contract, but it’s also clear he wants to go regardless of what his contract says. He is the Explorer Character, he eggs the crew on to keep exploring, he willingly ventures further than the other characters, puts his face in a weird egg, and gets smoked for his inquisitive nature. He could have said “welp I found an egg but I ain’t touching that poo poo, make Lambert do it”, or have been encouraged (as Billy Crudup in Covenant is) or railroaded into doing it (as the characters in Prometheus are*), but he does it because he wants to. *worth pointing out that almost all of the crazy poo poo in Prometheus, aside from maybe Milburn getting wrecked, happens to the characters because of the actions of other characters, not because they’re willingly exploring (as Kane was). Holloway gets poisoned, Shaw gets unknowingly inseminated, Fifeld doesn’t want to be there and outright says he’s doing it for a paycheck, Vickers doesn’t want to be there and doesn’t care, Janek and his crew don’t want to be there once they realize poo poo is weird, David is ordered to do everything (only in Covenant are we exposed to his genuinely inquisitive side), the security detail is following Weyland’s orders. The only ones who willingly put themselves in harm’s way are Weyland and Milburn, and Weyland isn’t a scientist and doesn’t care about grand cosmic answers, he’s in it because he wants to personally live forever. Everyone else either gets coerced or railroaded into their fate against their will. Kinda like the Nostromo crew. 
Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Jun 10, 2022 |
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Jun 10, 2022 02:14
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Like I said, people suffering or dying for being incautious is just... a logical, real-life outcome of putting one's self in a dangerous situation or failing to take precautions. Insofar as danger is present, whoever is least aware or takes it the least seriously is at least statistically likely to suffer it first. If we really want some mind-bending cosmic indifference, we need to see some sort of deleterious alien power that dissolves everything into chaos regardless of what we did or could have done. It should to turn out that everything we thought was important doesn't matter and that something we really wanted to understand or exploit is at best beyond us or at worst totally and incomprehensibly arbitrary. These are the stakes of the Prometheus mission and it's in Prometheus that, again and again, expertise and resources that should've been relevant prove useless if not harmful.
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Jun 10, 2022 02:31
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We will have to agree to disagree
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Jun 10, 2022 02:33
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Ferrinus posted:Only in the sense that there's some old spooky architecture. The actual narrative themes of Lovecraft's work only crop up in Prometheus, which has basically the same plot as At the Mountains of Madness. From the beginning of the film up until Kane gets Facehugged parallels "The Nameless City" perfectly.
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Jun 10, 2022 10:18
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Pretty good write up in the old The Thing video game that nails what held it back https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgyqv4/the-video-game-version-of-the-thing-is-an-empty-promise-worth-playing Game had such a great concept and there was a lot to like about it but but never fully delivered on its ideas. I still remember liking it though A remake or a sequel would be cool
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Jun 10, 2022 13:37
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BiggerBoat posted:Pretty good write up in the old The Thing video game that nails what held it back This game is now as old as The Thing was when this video game came out, and I still remember Lowtax's review of it. 
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Jun 10, 2022 15:41
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The main Thing I remember about it is they went to all this trouble to explain the fear mechanic, the hidden monster among us and the blood testing kits but all of that was undone by scripted elements. Like, you'd all be in a room and blood test everyone negative but then there's a cut scene because it's time for Gene to turn into a monster now and it just became a combat game.
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Jun 10, 2022 16:03
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BiggerBoat posted:The main Thing I remember about it is they went to all this trouble to explain the fear mechanic, the hidden monster among us and the blood testing kits but all of that was undone by scripted elements. Like, you'd all be in a room and blood test everyone negative but then there's a cut scene because it's time for Gene to turn into a monster now and it just became a combat game. This is exactly what it was. The game started out like it was going to be a slower paced Resident Evil sort of thing and it SORT of is that early on, but somewhere along the line when they were making it they were just like gently caress it and none of the stuff really mattered or worked as advertised and it was a crappy shooter.
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Jun 10, 2022 16:06
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it was a really ambitious game but they lacked the budget and technology to do what they wanted but its still worth playing imo
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Jun 10, 2022 16:07
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The Thing is great and the best way to enjoy it is to not be a Patrick Klepek.
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Jun 10, 2022 16:38
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Neo Rasa posted:This is exactly what it was. The game started out like it was going to be a slower paced Resident Evil sort of thing and it SORT of is that early on, but somewhere along the line when they were making it they were just like gently caress it and none of the stuff really mattered or worked as advertised and it was a crappy shooter. Idea: Get the Alien: Isolation dev team on a remake and do it right. 16-bit Butt-Head posted:it was a really ambitious game but they lacked the budget and technology to do what they wanted but its still worth playing imo See, I don't know though. Parts of the game worked just like they advertised but then just...stopped...and even back then it seems to me that you could pull off what they were trying so long as everything didn't need to be on rails to some degree. If you need set pieces, just make it so that Baker or whoever is unaccounted for and he hosed off to the outhouse to take a poo poo or something. But, ideally, the game would just make you play smart and if you did everything right it would come down to you and one other character like the movie did. If you did poorly, then during the final act there's like 4 dudes left. Limit the # of blood test kits if you have to. Make having everyone be together at all times impossible for reasons. When you replay it, different guys get infected. Problem solved. I don't see why the AI scripting would be a huge problem in and of itself.
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Jun 10, 2022 16:47
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CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:The Thing is great and the best way to enjoy it is to not be a Patrick Klepek. Nah I purchased it the day it came out and haven't played it since, my thoughts on it haven't changed. BiggerBoat posted:Idea: Get the Alien: Isolation dev team on a remake and do it right. I think part of it too is that at the time, the best way to construct the game was anathema to western action game design. To me it would be a potentially very short game like Way of the Samurai from around that time, but with some randomized elements too about who goes where/when and who potentially gets infected. I agree that you definitely could have made a great Thing game at that time, trying to fit The Thing into an action shooter kind of thing at all sort of dooms it to fail. Also something Way of the Samurai games do that to me a Thing game should have (and honestly all games should have): During any cutscene, you can press a button to just straight up murder the person who's currently talking to you, ending the cutscene and then how poo poo goes down from there and later on changes depending on who/when you did that. But generally oh my God I wish the Alien Isolation people could be given Isolation's budget to make a Thing game. I hate how Colonial Marines had people not as interested in that one at first (myself included), probably one of the best games I've ever played. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Jun 10, 2022 |
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Jun 10, 2022 17:03
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The thing game was good and spooky
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Jun 10, 2022 17:21
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BiggerBoat posted:The main Thing I remember about it is they went to all this trouble to explain the fear mechanic, the hidden monster among us and the blood testing kits but all of that was undone by scripted elements. Like, you'd all be in a room and blood test everyone negative but then there's a cut scene because it's time for Gene to turn into a monster now and it just became a combat game. There is a vent in the game where you are crawling through, and whoever is with you turns at the end, and you can literally blood test him one step away from the trigger point and it would be negative. Still was a good game back then. There is a more recent game called Distrust that is a homage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6mqxrI1lGU
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Jun 10, 2022 17:28
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Video game-wise, all I want in this world is for the Alien Isolation team to make a Jurassic Park survival horror game of the original film. Get from the tour vehicles to the bunker in the Visitor's Center, maybe having to get Tim and Lex there alive if it wouldn't end up like an escort mission. If not, I will begrudgingly (happily) take a The Thing game from them as a consolation prize.
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Jun 10, 2022 17:28
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I didn't mind the action parts of the game but everything didn't need to be centered around that and you could tell that was the original plan. I never thought about the idea that the producers and money behind it might have insisted on more combat but that's a good point. I still think they could have pulled off both and acheived the balance with just a little bit of writing and planning. If you need a monster, 3 guys ran over to the fuel station to fill up their flame throwers. One guy may be The Thing. You have one test kit. Your move, player E: I think there are a few properties they could apply the Isolation template to. Terminator, Halloween, Predator, Friday the 13th but I don't think it sold very well. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Jun 10, 2022 |
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Jun 10, 2022 17:37
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I'm of the opinion that the only reason Isolation didn't sell well is that it was too scary. Like a lot of people were intrigued and word of mouth was glowing, but a lot of gamers heard how tense the gameplay was and decided to watch a Let's Play instead.
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Jun 10, 2022 18:07
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feedmyleg posted:I'm of the opinion that the only reason Isolation didn't sell well is that it was too scary. Like a lot of people were intrigued and word of mouth was glowing, but a lot of gamers heard how tense the gameplay was and decided to watch a Let's Play instead. colonial marines didnt help either
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Jun 10, 2022 18:18
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I really want to write an actual lovecraft re-write of alien. It would mostly be about ripley being absolutely terrified of Brett and Parker. Mr Ripley (ripley is a bookish upper middle class man now of course) would go into great detail describing Brett's disgusting distorted working class features and stunted intellect, and how Parker must obviously be into some serious voodoo stuff. He would only remotely get along with Ash, a fellow titled intellectual, who would of course betray him in the end. It would end with Ripley being driven absolutely insane, not by the alien, but by some transgression of class or racial caste.
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Jun 10, 2022 18:27
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Baronjutter posted:I really want to write an actual lovecraft re-write of alien. It would mostly be about ripley being absolutely terrified of Brett and Parker. Mr Ripley (ripley is a bookish upper middle class man now of course) would go into great detail describing Brett's disgusting distorted working class features and stunted intellect, and how Parker must obviously be into some serious voodoo stuff. He would only remotely get along with Ash, a fellow titled intellectual, who would of course betray him in the end. It would end with Ripley being driven absolutely insane, not by the alien, but by some transgression of class or racial caste. "I understand when why the lowers might be deluded into thinking they deserve a full share instead of half, but to say it out loud?!?!?"
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Jun 10, 2022 18:33
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I think one of the main differences between alien and prometheus is the way their themes are framed. Like in alien, it's pretty much just about how these workers are hosed over by the capitalist corporate machine. In prometheus, part of shaws motivation is in regard to her religious faith, which to me more directly invites ideas of "cosmic horror", because really let's face it: seeing the face of God would drive you insane. In Alien, is there a God?
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Jun 10, 2022 19:20
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SHISHKABOB posted:In Alien, is there a God? Yea the Alien
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Jun 10, 2022 19:22
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Basebf555 posted:Yea the Alien 
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Jun 10, 2022 19:30
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Baronjutter posted:I really want to write an actual lovecraft re-write of alien. It would mostly be about ripley being absolutely terrified of Brett and Parker. Mr Ripley (ripley is a bookish upper middle class man now of course) would go into great detail describing Brett's disgusting distorted working class features and stunted intellect, and how Parker must obviously be into some serious voodoo stuff. He would only remotely get along with Ash, a fellow titled intellectual, who would of course betray him in the end. It would end with Ripley being driven absolutely insane, not by the alien, but by some transgression of class or racial caste.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:35
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Neo Rasa posted:But generally oh my God I wish the Alien Isolation people could be given Isolation's budget to make a Thing game. I hate how Colonial Marines had people not as interested in that one at first (myself included), probably one of the best games I've ever played. Well, I also spent some time playing "Messin' around with Sasquatch" by setting various booby traps next to noisemaker devices so I could watch the Alien come stalking and then get frightened off. Bonus points for the time that self-made minigame came to an abrupt unexpected end when the Alien jumped away from a trap only to land right next to the desk I was hiding behind. It just looked at me with the angry head shudder the Alien does in the movies right before it strikes and then game over, man! What a goddamn great game.
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Jun 10, 2022 19:38
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