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MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Kosmo Gallion posted:

Why did those dumbass marines initially discount Vasquez's theory of dropping in seven cans of CN20 and nerve gassing the nest? Obviously they had no way of knowing if it would work but it seems a better idea than welding yourself into a lab and waiting 27 days for rescue that may also be wiped out.

At the time they went with Plan "Just Get the Hell Out of Here and Nuke it From Orbit", which was a lot more thorough and safer than trying to get close and deploy nerve gas. The welding themselves into the building thing only happened after the drop ship crashed, which I assume wrecked the nerve gas that was probably stored on the drop ship or APC.

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BattleMaster
Aug 14, 2000

Kosmo Gallion posted:

Bishop saying he prefers the term Artificial Person over the term Synthetic. Later in the film when he has to crawl through the pipe, he calls himself a Synthetic. Is this some clever jibe at racism? Like Bishop says "don't worry about me boss, I'm only a Synthetic!"

Maybe he doesn't like being called a synthetic (noun) but has no objection to being described as being synthetic (adjective)? He does say "I may be synthetic" not I may be a synthetic" after all.

edit: Like the whole thing is a response to Hudson being relieved that Bishop volunteered to go over anyone else having to go, which Bishop picked up on being viewed as lesser than the others in Hudson's eyes. He's being self-deprecating but I don't think that he's using language that he would find objectionable.

I think though that regarding the specific wording, "synthetic (adjective) person" is the same as "artificial person" because the emphasis is on the fact that he is still a person, but calling him a synthetic (noun) is essentially a slur and dehumanizes him by removing the fact that he is a person.

BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Apr 15, 2023

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

Kosmo Gallion posted:

Bishop saying he prefers the term Artificial Person over the term Synthetic. Later in the film when he has to crawl through the pipe, he calls himself a Synthetic. Is this some clever jibe at racism? Like Bishop says "don't worry about me boss, I'm only a Synthetic!"

I think it was more just in response to Hudson saying hell yeah send the toaster or whatever.

MrMojok
Jan 28, 2011

Steam Alien Day Sale.

Fireteam is $11.99, AvP 2010 is $2.99


https://store.steampowered.com/sale/alienday2023

Mister Speaker
May 8, 2007

WE WILL CONTROL
ALL THAT YOU SEE
AND HEAR
I think about Aliens a lot at this concierge security job I'm currently at. Every time I have to go on patrol, and the elevator doors open on some desolate empty floor, I imagine the Queen Alien coming out of the elevator, or a pair of xeno hands prying open the closing doors at the last second like the doors of the APC.

Red Rox
Aug 24, 2004

Motel Midnight off the hook

Parkingtigers posted:

I mean, some people like it, and I've had these same discussions at much greater length over on BGG with people who swear they love it. But it's just so odd as it's by Gale Force 9 and they have put out a ton of good games, and it seemed to have a long development cycle.

The problem I have is that every mission is the reactor room scene from the movies. The marines are suddenly outnumbered and overwhelmed and fighting desperately to escape. Now that works in the movie because they only do it once, and they are hampered by lack of weapons and incompetent leadership, and it's first contact with a new and unexpected enemy. When mission after mission does it then they are all turned up to 11, there's no variety, no ebb and flow.

Take the first scenario, which has the marines entering into the complex. You have to move to check out several locations and (randomly) find Newt then exit pursued by aliens. It's the reactor room with a slightly slower start and a need to pick up a missing civvie along the way. It's not "we've met aliens, get back out to the APC/dropship" which would make sense in that setup, it's about running deeper into the complex chased by monsters and THEN facing the reactor room scenario.

A simple change to just that first scenario, to make it a combat encounter that remains smaller than the reactor room, and without bursting that aura of invincibility the marines have (which is the entire narrative lynchpin of the reactor room scene) would be to make it a sweep and clear scenario. Approach the alien spawn points, weld them shut (and being that close to spawn makes it risky) and kill all aliens on the board. It would be thematic, playable, and establishing a safe zone matches the movie and is different from the next scenario. Requires no new rules or game mechanics. But nope, just facegrind the horde.

There's also just Too Many Aliens. Each blip in the game isn't one alien, but 1 - 5, with the model on the board getting a stack of counters under its base for the other 1 - 4 aliens standing in that same square. So you can turn a lot of cards, rotate a lot of dials, roll a lot of dice, and remove a lot of counters, and all your (successful) shooting for the turn can leave the board looking basically identical.

And I'm not joking about it being all those actions. You have a really interesting system where you have a deck of cards to represent hazards and wargear and events. And you have to burn through that deck to attempt actions, and run out of cards and they start getting discarded instead and you gradually get fewer of them. So over time, you can do fewer actions. That's a fun and interesting system. But every time you fire your gun, you don't just burn a card. No, that's paying for the shot. If you could burn the cards, and shoot as much as you want, and have the cards be successes but make it a pure card management thing that would be cool as hell. But you are limited to only two actions per turn, which stops it being just about using the cards which makes the cards less interesting.

So then you have to roll dice to hit. Simple, effective, standard board game stuff. But each shot you take reduces your aim for the next shot, so you have to change your aim dial. So more shots, more chance to miss, and that is also a cool as hell idea, but you've already got the card burning thing so you are being punished for taking the extra shots twice over. And there's no point in not shooting because if an alien grabs you then the defence is to fire your gun (also burning a card, also rolling dice, and also lowering your aim) so might as well just shoot until you fail in your own turn, removing any choice in the matter.

Burn a card, roll a dice, turn a dial to reduce aim, score a hit, pick up the model and remove a counter. Repeat. Repeat if the gun is "full auto" and allows multiple shots with one action. It's so many steps to do such a basic thing. Meanwhile someone has to be assigned to make "rest" actions just to recharge the card deck. It's systems on systems on systems when it should be about positioning and movement and player choices.

I've had situations where putting Hudson (better at melee) with a knife in a doorway stabbing aliens in the front stack to block the (literally) 25 aliens behind that front stack was a better choice than having him shoot his pulse rifle at them because he was statistically likely to only be able to kill maybe 3 of them (while weakening the card deck) and the other 20+ aliens would then murder him because it's just not possible to kill that many aliens at once. The game comes with 26 alien figures, and a whole pile of counters to stick under their bases, and I've run out of both aliens and counters in games before because the board is full and it's still churning more on to the table because "wall of xenomorphs" is how its designed.

Even with the expansion that adds some more scenarios, that scene where the alien queen hitches a ride on the landing gear of the drop ship? The scenario is exactly that, but this time there was also 50 aliens that did the same, spawning from the landing gear like they rode it up like a dangling barrel o' monkeys. No cleverness or artistry to the design, just wall of aliens enjoy spending hours of busywork making their numbers go down.

Sorry, ranting, but I hate it. But I kinda don't care as the dollies were good and I got my money's worth from them and at some point I absolutely will get to use them in other projects.

Fate of the Nostromo is a fantastic Alien game that delivers on the concept of what it does, and that one is well worth picking up. The Aliens game is only for people who are willing to assemble (and probably paint) the figures, because they aren't even pre-built but require a lot of work from expert hobbyists. Which is me, I didn't mind that, but for casuals it's another strike against picking these up. The tails alone are a *nightmare* to glue in, and I used the hot water technique to shape them for variety and because the design of the game requires that you cram a dozen of them very close together which... as they come is just not possible because the tail of the front rank stops the one behind being able to fit on their square, which affects the ones behind.

gently caress it, at some point I'll likely crack and do a full rules rewrite because the components are so nice I *WANT* to use them. I do urge people to at least watch a video and decide if it looks fun for them before picking it up, because right now it's split between people who see to really like it, and people like me who are massively disappointed.


edit: the dollies are very nice, and they do sell these separately if you want just the figures and not the game that comes with it, I will finally paint the marines soon. Honest.











"What do you mean they cut the power? They're just animals."





Thanks for sharing man, the figures looks great. Are the crates and computers etc the 3rd party extras or do they come with the base game?

Would just removing one of the actions - card burning, dice rolling, or aim dial - make the game more fun? Or would that gently caress up the balance? The aim dial seems a bit too much.

And what if you just reduce the numbers of xenos for the missions where it doesn’t make sense? Would it be way too easy? Like for that queen alien mission just make the queen a super tank rather than having all the other xenos.

killer_robot
Aug 26, 2006
Grimey Drawer

Payndz posted:

I want to see a sci-fi horror movie where the astronauts are smart, work as a team of professionals, do everything right and aren't being deliberately sabotaged, but still one by one end up as monster food because the creature is just that nasty. Helmet-removers and egg-looker-intoers need not apply.


A bit late, but would 2017's 'Life' count?

Mister Speaker
May 8, 2007

WE WILL CONTROL
ALL THAT YOU SEE
AND HEAR
Yeah, Life sounds like exactly what you're after. It was pretty good.

Parkingtigers
Feb 23, 2008
TARGET CONSUMER
LOVES EVERY FUCKING GAME EVER MADE. EVER.

Red Rox posted:

Thanks for sharing man, the figures looks great. Are the crates and computers etc the 3rd party extras or do they come with the base game?

Would just removing one of the actions - card burning, dice rolling, or aim dial - make the game more fun? Or would that gently caress up the balance? The aim dial seems a bit too much.

And what if you just reduce the numbers of xenos for the missions where it doesn’t make sense? Would it be way too easy? Like for that queen alien mission just make the queen a super tank rather than having all the other xenos.

The problem with the game having so many overlapping systems *just* to resolve dice-chucking at aliens, is that removing any part of it affects all the rest. It would need a ton of testing. I barely have time to play boardgames as it is, and I'd realistically only get to play through the campaign once, with a nostalgia replay in a couple of years. A wholesale rewrite (which imo the game needs, though others on BGG disagree) would require 10 times as much effort and I'd burn myself out just fixing it. It would be far less effort to just go with my plan to use these dollies to replay the still awesome 1991 game. I'd also get a kick out of making a custom board for that.

The components are so nice, but the board layout does mean that because the aliens just swarm forward by the shortest route that in the tight layouts in smaller rooms you have situations where they will be in range to charge you, but you have no line of sight to shoot at them. Whole sections of the board where you can end up in a hopeless situation because of the terrain. On the Sulacco map you don't even use a quarter of the board because everyone starts facing off with a dropship full of an infinite swarm of aliens and so there's no need to fall back to the cafeteria/cryobay because why spend actions moving when there's a wall of aliens to shoot?

For the dollies, the crates and computers are a separate upgrade pack. You get tokens for them all in the base game. Reasonably cheap pack, and getting eggs and computers and sentry guns is great, though you never need 6 computers (you barely need 2 tbh) and having some modelled floor panel entry points for aliens would have been nicer but those are easy to scratch build.

Base game gets you aliens and half the marines.
The "Get Way From Her You Bitch" expansion gets you the queen and powerloader, plus Bishop and Burke (that rear end in a top hat), along with more boards.

Then separately you can buy a pack with the other half of the marines (only Ferro and Spunkmeyer are not in the game) along with their cards.
The terrain pack, to upgrade the tokens to the pieces in my pics.

If you just want the figures, you can buy all those cheaper in packs which don't include any of the components for the game. On BGG there were people buying an extra 12 pack of aliens because they ran out of models mid-game and that was just another highlight of the poor design.

gently caress, I still wanna try and fix this game at some point, it's too beautiful not to. I still lean towards making it more scenario specific fixes. The game as written just lets you grab a squad and load them up and go shoot stuff. Adding more personnel and weapon restrictions to craft a more designed experience would enhance it so much. The "campaign" just lets you then carry that stuff over, or wheel in more marines from the reserve, which breaks the balance even more. But also just to make it more fun, because Ripley shouldn't be rocking a pulse rifle in the scenes before they even find Newt, having her as a fragile civvie that needs defending makes for more interesting gameplay, if you don't have "wall of aliens" as the one and only design blueprint.

The game also has a thing where every character card has two sides. A leader side, where they are better at everything and have a unique bonus, and a "grunt" side where they are kinda basic. But you only get one leader per player and then some grunts to fill out the squad. I'm amazed they lifted the flippable player card with reduced values thing from the 1991 game and then made it so unfun to use. In the 1991 game if you got wounded you flipped to the lower stats side. There's so much potential here to have it represent wounded, or cumulative battle stress over the course of the campaign, or reduced viability due to ambush/panic such as in the reactor room scenario. When I say the game is salvageable (with a lot of work) it's because there are materials like this provided, but misused/unused and I'm seeing ways that we could craft an incredible campaign and rules rewrite out of this.

If nothing else, you've made me commit to priming my powerloader tonight because it's time I got that painted up.


edit: The real reason I lean towards specific scenario play, custom made for each setup, is from my experience with the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. I was one of their playtesters for that 20 years ago, and in the first couple of years it was a scenario based skirmish wargame and the most fun tabletop set of skirmish rules ever written. Fighting out parts of the film with custom objectives and setup was magical. By the third year they moved onto "lets sell lots of figures" points matches, where you just pick 500 point armies and smoosh them into each other. That's how the game exists today. But the beauty of a properly crafted scenario where the goal isn't just "deathmatch, but with dice" gives a narrative flow and a cinematic feel.

The missions in AGDITC are all "deathmatch towards the exit point". It could be so much more.

Parkingtigers fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Apr 22, 2023

Red Rox
Aug 24, 2004

Motel Midnight off the hook
Ha yeah during the pandemic lockdown my son and I played through a whole bunch of Star Wars Imperial Assault - painting the miniatures was half the fun and helped keep me chill during a global crisis.

Parkingtigers
Feb 23, 2008
TARGET CONSUMER
LOVES EVERY FUCKING GAME EVER MADE. EVER.

Red Rox posted:

Ha yeah during the pandemic lockdown my son and I played through a whole bunch of Star Wars Imperial Assault - painting the miniatures was half the fun and helped keep me chill during a global crisis.

Now that's a game that's good as hell, and very well designed in all ways. Knowing that exists, in as good a form as it is, makes the Aliens game much more frustrating. Comparable components, but the rules... *sigh*

Icon Of Sin
Dec 26, 2008



Parkingtigers posted:

Now that's a game that's good as hell, and very well designed in all ways. Knowing that exists, in as good a form as it is, makes the Aliens game much more frustrating. Comparable components, but the rules... *sigh*

That was FFG at their peak with Star Wars. They also had a Doom 2016 board game that was a ton of fun, but it only ever had the one release and never got any expansions.

There’s a hybrid system sometime between IA, Doom, and Another Glorious Day. They’re all iterations on the same basic dungeon crawler, hell I even used IA models in Doom. Boba Fett was my Doom Slayer :getin:

Negostrike
Aug 15, 2015


I love the 4 movies goddamnit

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




This looks somewhat Alien-adjacent. It's a chapter from Bram Stoker's Dracula,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR2uDt3z0S0

Parkingtigers
Feb 23, 2008
TARGET CONSUMER
LOVES EVERY FUCKING GAME EVER MADE. EVER.

Negostrike posted:

I love the 4 movies goddamnit

Alien
Aliens
Predator
Prey

Yup, 4 loving awesome movies.

Kosmo Gallion
Sep 13, 2013
I've just bought a mega drive classic compilation for the PS4. First game I put on was my old favourite Streets of Rage II. I completely forgot there's a level where you have to fight your way through a Xenomorph hive complete with exploding Face Hugger eggs.

The Zombie Guy
Oct 25, 2008

Alien: Isolation

SilvergunSuperman
Aug 7, 2010

Kosmo Gallion posted:

I've just bought a mega drive classic compilation for the PS4. First game I put on was my old favourite Streets of Rage II. I completely forgot there's a level where you have to fight your way through a Xenomorph hive complete with exploding Face Hugger eggs.

Wait what really?

E: NM I only played the first one

madeintaipei
Jul 13, 2012

Kosmo Gallion posted:

I've just bought a mega drive classic compilation for the PS4. First game I put on was my old favourite Streets of Rage II. I completely forgot there's a level where you have to fight your way through a Xenomorph hive complete with exploding Face Hugger eggs.

I would do strange and horrible things for an AvP arcade cabinet.

Mumpy Puffinz
Aug 11, 2008
Nap Ghost

The Zombie Guy posted:

Alien: Isolation



:unsmith:

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

The Zombie Guy posted:

Alien: Isolation



... OK, I'm seriously wondering if any horror comedies have used this one, because it seems like a gimme on reflection really.

Beachcomber
May 21, 2007

Another day in paradise.


Slippery Tilde

MadDogMike posted:

... OK, I'm seriously wondering if any horror comedies have used this one, because it seems like a gimme on reflection really.

A Silent but Deadly Place

Mumpy Puffinz
Aug 11, 2008
Nap Ghost

Beachcomber posted:

A Silent but Deadly Place

HiroProtagonist
May 7, 2007

The Zombie Guy posted:

Alien: Isolation



FunAnalFacts

Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"
Aliens: AGDITC is odd because there is a huge buy in to play the game because you have to painstaking assemble the models and then the rules of the game are meh, not complex enough to warrant the effort but fiddly enough to prevent the game from being a fun fast paced romp through the movie.

At least you can use the models and play whatever ruleset you want with them. Recreate the 90s board game, make your own version of Space Hulk, etc.

Red Rox
Aug 24, 2004

Motel Midnight off the hook
Are the models even that much more detailed?

Parkingtigers
Feb 23, 2008
TARGET CONSUMER
LOVES EVERY FUCKING GAME EVER MADE. EVER.

Red Rox posted:

Are the models even that much more detailed?

I've bought a bunch of boardgames with paintable soft plastic figures recently (Princess Bride, The Warriors, War of the Ring) and the quality of the Aliens figures is higher. Hard plastic, the assembly allowing for better posing, but honestly they would be better if they had half-assed it so it could be gotten to the table quicker. Fate of the Nostromo has lovely models (including an alien) and you don't have to spend an entire weekend putting them all together.

But that aside, the quality for thousand-yard-stare model painting veterans really makes them gorgeous models.

I originally wrote gorgeous playing pieces but the tails for the aliens extend back to cover the square behind them, where you're trying to put more models, so they actually suck as playing pieces. Having to glue in two sets of arms, and a tail (oh god, gluing in the tails is so hard) only to have them not fit on the board tiles you designed them for...

Amphigory
Feb 6, 2005




mllaneza posted:

This looks somewhat Alien-adjacent. It's a chapter from Bram Stoker's Dracula,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR2uDt3z0S0

You're not wrong. Strong Alien vibes from this. Looks great

Android Apocalypse
Apr 28, 2009

The future is
AUTOMATED
and you are
OBSOLETE

Illegal Hen
Last week The Ringer's The Rewatchables podcast episode was on Alien. Good way to kill 2 hours.

Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

mllaneza posted:

This looks somewhat Alien-adjacent. It's a chapter from Bram Stoker's Dracula,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR2uDt3z0S0

Neat, that was easily the best part of the novel.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸
Is the an audio described version of Alien (any cut) available?

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Splicer posted:

Is the an audio described version of Alien (any cut) available?

What do you mean?

SidneyIsTheKiller
Jul 16, 2019

I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...
I'm pretty sure they're referring to a descriptive audio track that adds narration for visually impaired folks. Can't say I've seen (or, uh, heard) one for Alien, unfortunately.

Edit: No idea how comprehensive this list is, but looks like we only have Covenant and AVP: Requiem. Oh and Prometheus. https://adp.acb.org/masterad.html

SidneyIsTheKiller fucked around with this message at 11:41 on Apr 25, 2023

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

SidneyIsTheKiller posted:

I'm pretty sure they're referring to a descriptive audio track that adds narration for visually impaired folks. Can't say I've seen (or, uh, heard) one for Alien, unfortunately.

Edit: No idea how comprehensive this list is, but looks like we only have Covenant and AVP: Requiem. Oh and Prometheus. https://adp.acb.org/masterad.html

The first time I ever saw this was for The Expanse and it's a really cool idea.

SidneyIsTheKiller
Jul 16, 2019

I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter
in my grandmother's journal.

She wrote very detailed descriptions of her experiences...
They're actually fairly common these days, usually included as one of the language options on media discs. All the Star Wars blu-rays feature them, for instance.

They can be pretty interesting to watch/listen to for their own sake. You can tell whoever produces these has developed a pretty well thought-out set of standards/best practices for how to describe a sequence. For instance, there's a scene in Lights Out (or whichever thriller that was where they're locked in with a crazy blind guy (apropos now that I think about it)) where this dude jizzes in someone's house and I was curious to hear if the narrator actually says "this guy is masturbating and now he's ejaculating all over the floor." But they're careful not to make any unnecessary inferences, so it simply describes the guy's facial expression and then the drops of white fluid, because that is in fact all we see.

The one for Frozen casts a kind grandmotherly-sounding voice as the narrator, giving the impression of someone reading a storybook. :)

Gnome de plume
Sep 5, 2006

Hell.
Fucking.
Yes.

Joe Chill posted:

Neat, that was easily the best part of the novel.

But this movie isn't about Dracula rushing around trying to fool Johnathan into thinking he has a full set of castle staff while he's staying there

Prurient Squid
Jul 21, 2008

Tiddy cat Buddha improving your day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPX7e9QieLU

Icon Of Sin
Dec 26, 2008



Happy Aliens day, y’all :)

Radical 90s Wizard
Aug 5, 2008

~SS-18 burning bright,
Bathe me in your cleansing light~

Joe Chill posted:

Neat, that was easily the best part of the novel.

Wait do they actually go into what happened on the ship in the book? I haven't read it in years, but I thought it just washed up as a ghost ship, and maybe a body lashed to the wheel?

Movie looks interesting anyway

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Gnome de plume
Sep 5, 2006

Hell.
Fucking.
Yes.
there's a series of logs written over the course of the voyage followed by a newspaper article of the ship's arrival

there's also a mailing list called Dracula Daily that sends out each journal entry on a daily basis that runs each year

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