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I for one don't want more Capital-A Alien, part of the premise of Alien was that space is vast and the galaxy is old, and that combination means that you can simultaneously spend a long time encountering absolutely nothing, but also at any moment stumble across anything. The scale of everything means a perpetual unknown. Having the Alien be everything everywhere all at once is an incredibly dull and disappointing idea. e: I also have no explanation for how we see David successfully land the ship at the docking port, and yet when the crew arrive on the planet it has clearly crashed some distance away from the city. The only thing I can think of is that it is one more piece of evidence for the case of 'David presents himself as a superior being genius on the surface, but is actually repeatedly a malfunctioning fuckup'. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Mar 28, 2023 |
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Mar 28, 2023 23:28
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Xenomrph posted:It reduces it because the Alien can spread farther in 200,000 years with other means than it can in 20 strictly with David, and I like the idea that, like the Jockey, it’s old enough to drink alcohol. We’ve kinda gone over this. Having the potential for more Aliens is a Good Thing. There’s a reason why the franchise walked it back before the movie even came out, and has continued to do so. Having more Aliens doesn’t mean there aren’t potentially other horrors, or lessen their impact. It’s not a zero-sum game. Lets be real, the franchise is doing this not because More Aliens is a Good Thing but because More Aliens means More Money. It's not a an artistic concern, it's a commercial one.
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Mar 29, 2023 10:08
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I thought Calvin being from birth clearly intelligent and problem-solving was a neat riff on the Alien-monster story.
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Mar 29, 2023 17:12
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The thing about Prometheus and Covenant that really works for the fictional universe is the strong implication that whenever humanity scans space and discovers an 'eden' planet, it's because a few hundred thousand years ago the Engineers were there with the black goo. Anywhere we might want to go, there are monsters.
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Mar 30, 2023 09:58
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The T-Rex thing is both in the book and isn't, in that Michael Crichton wrote that it was vision based in Jurassic Park and then wrote in The Lost World 'actually that's dumb the T-Rex is a predator of course it has great vision'. The synthesis is that the frog DNA may or may not have made certain dinosaurs at certain generations unable to see movement. e: bits of the book are scientifically inaccurate because Crichton is making stuff up for his premise and bits are inaccurate because the theme of the book is chaos theory and small mistakes/misunderstanding rapidly escalating out of control.
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Mar 30, 2023 23:23
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Oh go on then, link me to the thesis about the 'monster' in Hollywood being displaced by black goo that reshapes you ps (I totally agree this is a thing)
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Mar 31, 2023 19:39
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Are you telling us that the truth is out there?
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Apr 2, 2023 10:27
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Really they would more have survived if the armed guards on Prometheus could aim.
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Apr 4, 2023 20:28
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ScottyJSno posted:https://twitter.com/TheSpaceshipper/status/1661730337955934209?t=wULnib_0dBp6Uo07Iii59A&s=19 My instinct is that this is going to fall into the budget game trap of trying to extend a game's lifespan by building in replayability at the expense of thinning out the core experience ('the hive has launched a hunt'), but the core mechanics just aren't going to be interesting enough to sustain more than one playthrough. Horde survival games like L4D work because the interaction between your teammates and the semi-random enemy waves generates a narrative, but without a group of other people around games like this tend to have combat encounters that just blur together.
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May 29, 2023 17:47
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The great big blaring klaxon is that we are 4 days from release and nobody has done a preview, much less indicated they have review code.
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Jun 16, 2023 17:02
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I think that mandalore review that says 'its fine, has some issues and odd choices, doesn't do anything you haven't seen before elsewhere' feels like the ready synthesis of all views. Will probably pick it up on sale.
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Jun 21, 2023 14:48
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CelticPredator posted:The game kinda gets jank towards the end where you end up into another hive and then it kinda limps toward the finale whcih ends on a cliff hanger. Yeah it tries to do Alien with the final act of Aliens, which combined with the fact that gameplay wise the game runs out of new things to show you in the last hour means it doesn't land the ending in a disappointing way. And because of the weird development saga (the studio that makes total war just hired a team, then let them go afterwards?) it'll likely forever sit there as a rare AAA quality horror survival game
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Sep 6, 2023 11:00
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Ridley Scott saw that the mystery of the alien was completely gone so he made a prequel that injected a huge amount of mystery and unanswered questions into the mythos and people got mad.
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Oct 28, 2023 09:48
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End of Shoelace posted:Note that Ripley 8 has the brilliant idea to crash the ship into Earth without knowing it's desolate. It's funny because it's flagged early in the film because the military doing their deep space super secret dark project at Jupiter only makes sense if Sol is no longer inhabited.
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Oct 29, 2023 21:34
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FastestGunAlive posted:Y’all with the Lame rear end argument that pops up every couple months. That game was broken as hell on launch and I definitely wasn't paying for it after it fell off game pass, but even if you completely ignore the Alien IP elements its still sitting in a unique co-op action game niche with plenty of potential. I'm glad it was successful enough for them to get money for a game two, I hope they learn to programme servers this time.
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Oct 31, 2023 08:48
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Ooh, I feel like the next 3-4 pages are going to be wild
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Nov 21, 2023 22:44
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FastestGunAlive posted:I’d buy the argument of xenos as representative of the Vietnamese if the colonialists were still alive. Then you could explore the idea of a guerilla force hiding among a civilian population (“how do we know who has a chestburster”) and the ways by which an invading military brutalizes the civilians in an attempt to defeat the guerillas though sheer might. US violence toward civilians is pretty a significant part of studying the war in Vietnam and many other pieces of media (Platoon, Full Metal Jacket) highlight it. It’s lacking in Aliens. Oh they are very much that, right down to the Marines being surprised they can operate technology and the use of tunnels to make covert approach and ambush the marines. The Xenomorphs in Aliens are absolutely Vietcong. I also think that callousness towards the value of civilian life from the US military-industrial complex is also a pretty big theme in the film if you look closely. But the whole moral of Aliens is that the Marines' racism and arrogance ends really badly for them. That's not orientalist at all. e2: I should clarify that I don't think they're literally Vietnamese people, rather the Aliens in Aliens represent the people on the other end of every colonial war the US fought in the 60/70's. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Nov 22, 2023 |
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Nov 22, 2023 08:25
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Dark Descent is also on sale. I have deep Steam Sales brain though so I am holding off to see if there is a deeper discount come christmas.
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Nov 22, 2023 19:18
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Either there's an Alien, or Ripley murdered her own crew. They don't put Ripley in prison. e: the actual answer is that Cameron didn't care that much, he wants to tell his story not wrap up loose ends from the last story. Alternatively it's been 57 years and the company execs neither know nor care what their grandparents generation of company execs were doing. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Dec 5, 2023 23:18
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Well, wishes granted, looks like we are getting the Alien: Isolation franchise survival game concept rolled out further: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UinsNBOTNyU And let me tell you, this trailer screams 'creatively and imaginatively bankrupt'.
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Dec 8, 2023 12:30
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Ooh, Dark Descent is now 38% off until... December 21st, which is when the Steam sale starts. Higher or lower do we think? (I know it's going to be pennies either way but steam sales brain)
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Dec 13, 2023 21:16
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This whole line is about whether or not Bishop would have planted the egg in the 15 seconds he has to do so off screen if he could have, right? I just don't think the film is that deep. Bishop is a good android. He's there in the film because Ripley doesn't trust anything or anyone and he's a manifestation of that trauma and she has to overcome it. As I recall the film doesn't even make anything of this particular part of Ripley's healing, she doesn't like Bishop when she meets him, this changes absolutely nothing about how the film's events play out.
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Dec 19, 2023 21:09
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She doesn't trust him but she has to trust him. Nothing in the film turns on Ripley not trusting Bishop, she doesn't reject the option of sending him for the dropship nor does her not trusting him become a point of tension with the other characters. She's upset when it looks like he bailed, but she would probably have been upset with anyone who looked like they bailed!
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Dec 19, 2023 22:58
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Finished Dark Descent, some thoughts: Gameplay wise: it's clear there were several versions of the game concept going through development split between one based on hero/story characters and one based on xcom style random soldiers because there's missions still in there that only make sense for the former. You also get the sense that they really really wanted to make a roguelike mode but just couldn't get it to work because everything about the mechanics are basically built for that. Story wise: it very much has too much backstory. There are basically two stories running in parallel throughout the game; one of them gets told properly, the other has 90% of it crammed into the last mission in an incomplete and unsatisfying way that isn't sequel bait so much as 'the guy who wrote this liked it and refused to cut it'. Overall a fun B-tier game worth it on sale. Tindalos have good ideas and I hope they get to make more games where they get to develop them further.
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Dec 30, 2023 13:31
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Yeah this is just weird stacking of conspiracy and stupid maleficence onto W-Y when on it's face the story of Alien is that the Nostromo stumbles on the signal by random chance and then events play out because the company has a stack of secret standing instructions that say "the nuance of the situation doesn't matter at all because we absolutely do not value our employees at all, go get that money". The point of the story is that there's no calculation being made and no grand plan, the company straight up does not care.
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Jan 5, 2024 00:56
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Xenomrph posted:Believe what you want lmao Some advice if you haven't worked this out: 1. Buy pouches on everyone. Most important upgrade, doubling the number of medikits and tech supplies you can carry means you always have the option to heal up or pop pills to lower stress without creating resource risk. 2. Drop motion trackers everywhere. Not for tracking, the noisemaker effect is a get out of jail free card from being spotted. You have infinite numbers of these so just spam them while maintaining a CP bank. 3. The shotgun interrupts special attacks. 4. For weird reasons the gunner with the smartgun has the highest DPS in the game. Don't make the mistake of 'upgrading' them. Also I rewatched the relevant bit in Alien - it is left a bit ambiguous because the directive is a bit specific but it is also 'for science officer eyes only' which would make no sense if Ash was put onto the ship specifically for the detour to the beacon. The closest we get to an explanation is Ash saying "there is an explanation for this you know" but then he gets distracted by a porn mag before he can tell us.
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Jan 5, 2024 11:00
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Xenomrph posted:Re: #4, what do you mean? Re4; someone put together a dps table. Smartgun has the highest effective dps of any weapon (likely accuracy buff stacking) so you want to leave your gunners with their class specific weapon and don't give them plasma rifles when you get to them. Because they are in fact, not good. On 2: You had to do this on the first planet map? Just click on the tracker on the map.
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Jan 5, 2024 14:14
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I suppose my last tip is that one of the big flaws with the game imo is that it likes to throw you a cutscene and then straight into a fight. That in itself isn't a problem - the defence phases and boss fights are generally good pacing. The problem is that there is a tendency for SUDDENLY ALIENS spawning right in your face with no option to do anything about it. You have infinite time because nothing changes as long as you aren't being hunted and the big fight moments are all well telegraphed (they literally went back and added quicksaves because everyone complained so much), make yourself a drink and read a book or something for a few minutes to make sure all your CP have recharged before triggering them.
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Jan 5, 2024 16:25
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Dark Descent is a marine dipping in and out of a doorway sniping eggs with a silenced rifle.
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Jan 5, 2024 18:57
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josh04 posted:pls post about Aliens and not each other I see you are new to this thread
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Jan 5, 2024 22:33
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It's all a bit silly because the Alien is in all films just a big warrior ant with nothing actually special about it. Oh it doesn't have human concerns like remorse or morality? So it's like literally all animals then? e: I say 'all films' except the Prometheus ones because Ridley Scott actually made the Alien special and interesting there.
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Jan 6, 2024 00:39
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Also if you don't nuke the colony and all the aliens then someone can go back for them. Particularly if that someone is Burke and all the marines have had a cryopod accident.
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Jan 7, 2024 01:45
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Yeah the read of Aliens is: 1. Burke either believes Ripley's story or is willing to take a punt on it being true when nobody else is. 2. Burke sends secret message to the colonists to check out the coordinates Ripley has given. 3. Colony goes silent. Nobody knows why. 4. Burke panics and from this point he's scrambling. He can't explain why he thinks this needs a military response because that would mean explaining what he's done and probably going to prison. This is why the Sulaco is understaffed - it's not a big conspiracy by W-Y to make sure the rescue mission is vulnerable to failure, it's because the level of response that Burke is able to muster is on the 'ugh, fine send someone to keep the Company happy' level using only his own pull.
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Jan 7, 2024 22:54
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Said it before, Scott saw that the mystery of the Alien was all gone so he replaced it with a far bigger mystery and all fandom did was complain that he left everything unexplained.
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Jan 16, 2024 09:38
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Slashrat posted:This seems like what the EU might be starting to lean toward as well. And yet even then the story breaks around the fact that it's the alien-as-monster they care about and not the ancient-rear end alien city they are excavating underground full of ancient-rear end tech.
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Jan 19, 2024 21:21
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Watched Aliens on Disney+ this evening because it's been 10 odd years so why not, some refreshed thoughts on the main director's cut scene additions and what I prefer: Ripley's daughter: In. Not quite enough time spent in Act 1 establishing what Ripley has lost so the impact of finding Newt isn't quite there. Seeing the Colonists: Out. Adds nothing to the narrative, takes away from the Burke reveal later on, slows down Act 1 of the film far too much. The automated turrets: In. In theatrical I don't think enough time is spent establishing the efforts the Marines go to fortify the ops centre, which builds up hope they'll be able to hold out. The rest of the changes I could take or leave, they're minor stuff. Other things I noticed: the first run into the refinery is a masterpiece of 80's sci-fi action. No option to throw CGI aliens everywhere so Cameron has to use quick cuts and the narrow lens of the in-universe shoulder cameras to create the sense of this frantic firefight when actually you see very little. Films should have more of this. I consider Bishop as a bit of a failed character - it's interesting that when they arrive at Ops he goes straight to dissecting the Alien specimens with Ash-like focus, but then he completely disappears for the next 30 minutes, only reappearing briefly to volunteer to disappear again for another 30 minutes or so. It's difficult to remember he's in the film for much of it, much less hold any tension over whether he is/isn't going to betray Ripley at some point.
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Jan 20, 2024 20:12
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Further Aliens thoughts: SMG is absolutely right that the plot falls apart after the gang retreat from the atmospheric processor. Ripley works out what Burke did and then for hours tells nobody. She walks into a conversation between Burke and Gorman that clearly looks like it some Interesting Things were said but this is never followed up on. After they've spent ages securing the Ops complex Bishop notices the emergency venting and tells them they have a couple of hours before the thing explodes, at which point he admits that he could have just gone out and remote piloted the second dropship down this whole time. Only after Ripley learns that they're on a 2 hour clock to get off the ground before the processor becomes a nuclear bomb does she decide that it would be a good time to take a nap. It feels a bit like the list of things that needed to happen in that Act were there from the start, but the sequencing is determined by the fact that Burke can't be outed as the villain to the group until the aliens are about to attack, and the aliens can't attack until we are in the final 30 minutes before explosion and the film is going to become a real-time action sequence. So Cameron relies on momentum to get you through.
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Jan 22, 2024 20:59
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The only reason they are spending time securing the Ops centre is because they think they don't have a way off the planet. That's the primary problem. When they start urgently troubleshooting the imminent explosion Bishop literally goes "there's an outpost satellite uplink but I checked earlier and the cabling is out. Oh go out there myself and manually control the dish? Yeah I guess I could do that". If they just go straight from the refinery to the uplink then the dropship comes down and they are away before nightfall and the last third of the film just doesn't happen.
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Jan 22, 2024 22:01
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:No, Alchenar's correct. Yeah it's very important that the film only reveals the existence of the colony transmitter after they need a Plan B because it is so obviously the preferable option if you are given a moment to think about it.
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Jan 28, 2024 11:44
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'Your creation made it's own creations and you find them a horrifying abomination' in a run-theme through both films.
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Jan 28, 2024 17:29
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