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Dreadwroth posted:I always loved the alternate cut of Alien where the Xeno dosen't really kill them, just drags em off to be turned into cocoons, it really makes it seem even more weird and alien than the stupid ant hive crap in Aliens makes them out to be. TomViolence posted:While I'm conflicted on which cut of the film I like better (the original theatrical cut just seems more condensed and focused to me) that scene where Ripley finds Dallas in that half-mutated state is really, really creepy. The lighting and sound is so dream-like and surreal, like she's stepped into another world. Still quite fresh in my mind, too, since the sci-fi channel had both Alien (Director's Cut) and Aliens on the weekend after I started this LP. Ripley's one of my favourite horror protagonists of all time because she's sensible enough to just go "welp," burn everything and blow up the drat ship there and then. It's funny you both mention that, because in the EU of Aliens (Something like twelve books, last I recall, of varying quality, and a few comic runs, mostly based on said books), they do actually try and explain this. The Dark Horse Aliens Special takes the same line: Essentially, any single Drone Xenomorph has the capability, like certain frogs, to change its gender as required. A Drone won't suddenly turn into a Praetorian (Different gene-set), but it can become a Queen, if there are no Queens around. And all Drones are pretty much programmed (In the "programmed instincts" sense, although, since it's based on a Giger design, just "Programmed" probably works as well.  ) to mainly try and capture. It'll kill if it's even slightly threatened, but anything else, it'll stab with its tail (Paralyzing them, leaving them comatose), and cocoon up with that goo for implantation, either by a Queen (If there's one around) or it later (When it, after a period of months, *becomes* a Queen)Personally, I'm a bigger fan of the Director's Cut of both movies, and I agree that half the reason I love Ripley is that she's the goddamn sensible one in that group.  "Welp, it's infested. Nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure." "Buuuut the mooooooneeeeeey!!"  "But we can kiiiiill them!" [SLAP] "No, you can't. Nuke. It. From Orbit."Comrade Koba posted:While we're on the subject, are there any other games based on the setting worth getting? I remember playing an old AvP game (early 2000's?) that was pretty fun. Is the 2010 one worth getting? Also, what's the reason that Colonial Marines game got such horrible reviews? The first two AvPs are mostly worth it (Although in AvP 1, everything is pretty fast, and that's not all the old engine in a new system), while the 2010 one seemed a bit dull and formulaic (Not helped by the fact that everyone bugs you on your sodding objective when you're looking for logs and ammo (In the marine missions, at least)), but was mostly okay. As to Colonial Marines, it was a buggy piece of poo poo that retconned it so that Hicks was somehow alive (and the DLC didn't explain it very well), where aliens would get stuck on geometry (Look up "dancing alien colonial marines"), and the writing, in general, was pretty cringeworthy in a lot of places. To the point where you'd know exactly when bad things would start happening, because some moron said "We're gonna be okay now, right?" Every. Sodding. Time. The sound design wasn't great, the visuals were only decent after a patch... And it somehow managed to make every single reference to the larger universe of Aliens a kick in the balls. EDIT: Ahhh, now that was a clever callback! Think back to Aliens, and you'll realise there's something different between Alien and Aliens. Alien, there's a distress beacon that leads them to the Pilot's Ship. Aliens, the only reason anyone knows it's there is because Burke sent someone there to check Ripley's story. That's resolved because the salvagers turned the beacon off between films... Now, however, they've got a different and more interesting problem - The other Ripley knows about it, and apparently died of old age back on Earth. I wonder how they're going to resolve that? I'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark and say it isn't gonna be pretty.
JamieTheD fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Mar 28, 2015 |
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Mar 28, 2015 15:03
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TomViolence posted:While I'm conflicted on which cut of the film I like better (the original theatrical cut just seems more condensed and focused to me) that scene where Ripley finds Dallas in that half-mutated state is really, really creepy. The lighting and sound is so dream-like and surreal, like she's stepped into another world. Still quite fresh in my mind, too, since the sci-fi channel had both Alien (Director's Cut) and Aliens on the weekend after I started this LP. Ripley's one of my favourite horror protagonists of all time because she's sensible enough to just go "welp," burn everything and blow up the drat ship there and then. Most of the protagonists in Alien are smart people who are doing the best they can with limited resources and a terrible situation, and that's one of the reasons I like the series. Even in Aliens, Gorman makes mistakes because he's an inexperienced officer, not an idiot, and by the last stand he's gotten a hold of himself and shaped up some. The protagonists mostly not being idiots makes the Xenos that much more dangerous-seeming, since generally otherwise competent and clever people are still running for their lives from them. Also, AVP2 is hard to get because there's some copyright wankery keeping it from being offered digitally, but it's a fantastic game. The Marine campaign is scary in that Aliens way, and the Alien campaign lets you play as the one thing that went wrong and caused the entire situation that led to the Marines being called in. It's really neat to play as both the rescuer and the reason people need rescuing. The Predator story mostly doesn't need to be there and isn't as fun. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Mar 28, 2015 |
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Mar 28, 2015 15:14
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JamieTheD posted:Look up "dancing alien colonial marines" I think I've watched this 10 times in a row now. Still funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J8SzBhjqaQ, for anyone who hasn't seen it.
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Mar 28, 2015 16:29
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This bit where we play through the second discovery of the Derelict is really well done. They managed to get across the terrifying sense of scale to the place: each of those wedges has a bunch of facehugger eggs in it. How many wedges are there? Take a look at how the wall curves, just slightly. It's a bigass circular room. That thing could poo poo out Xenomorphs forever .
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Mar 28, 2015 17:46
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My god, it never ceases to amaze me how old, crappy and dated A:CM looks for a supposedly modern game. I think AvP2 had better visuals and it's ancient by comparison. Graphics, of course, aren't everything but colonic marines had fuckall else going for it either so I might as well focus on that.
TomViolence fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Mar 28, 2015 |
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Mar 28, 2015 18:26
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TomViolence posted:P.S. I've revised any plans concerning widescreen in light of my utter incompetence at playing the game in a slimmed down window coupled with a desire to keep a consistent aspect ratio throughout the LP. Apologies to anybody that had their heart set on it, but I'd be squinting through a letterbox for much of the game and failing even more than usual as a result. No worries. It takes a bit of getting used to, but as long as you're watching the video in 720p, the quality and size of the screen is easy enough to watch. Go with what you're comfortable with, it's not as though the game isn't damned pretty even in a different resolution.
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Mar 28, 2015 21:02
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Just finished recording the session that's gonna be part 5. My heartrate hasn't returned to normal yet. Got a whopping two hours of footage, half of it being gently caress-ups, deaths, excessive backtracking due to getting lost and duplicate recordings thanks to me fat-fingering the video capture button in a blind panic and screwing up a whole take. It's gonna be a bitch to edit together, but you guys need to see how much of a brutal dick the alien was this time. Holy poo poo, I'm still cruising the adrenaline high.
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Mar 29, 2015 00:02
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As someone who's played through about three times and watched every playthrough I can tolerate, I think I can safely say I cannot get tired of this game, and am happy you are doing it justice. (Even if my crazy gamer OCD flares up every time you miss something, but that's my problem, not yours). I remember that our mutual phallus-headed friend does become a little miffed in the following parts of this game, so it will be interesting and entertaining to watch you play through on Nightmare. So I will be looking forward to it! 
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Mar 29, 2015 01:20
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Is that thumping in the walls just random noise designed to scare you are actually the alien clonking around in the vents? It was pretty constant this video.
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Mar 29, 2015 10:45
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Arglebargle III posted:Is that thumping in the walls just random noise designed to scare you are actually the alien clonking around in the vents? It was pretty constant this video. It's designed to be pretty ambiguous and you can never really be sure, but certainly the majority of it throughout part 4 was just environmental sound. Aside from his short, scripted swoops down from the vents the alien kept very quiet indeed, though I've never been able to establish when exactly he's away for a coffee break. I kind of don't want to know, either, as feeling safe would undercut quite a lot of the game's appeal for me. Even when the alien's definitely away getting a manicure Sevastopol manages to evoke him at every turn. Elements of his sound profile have been incorporated into the sounds of vent covers, doors, steam pipes, the transit system and all sorts of other environmental details to make the player jump out of their skin. Similarly, a lot of the station's architecture was built by some sadistic design committee that decided to make every pipe fitting and electrical conduit resemble its head.
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Mar 29, 2015 13:45
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TomViolence posted:Similarly, a lot of the station's architecture was built by some sadistic design committee that decided to make every pipe fitting and electrical conduit resemble its head. It's a libertarian space station, of course there are dicks everywhere.
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Mar 29, 2015 15:19
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I don't know if you can get him to pop out there, short of firing your gun like a maniac. It's definitely possible to prevent him from appearing at all. I used a flare to distract the three guys milling about and he never even came down to kill them.
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Mar 29, 2015 15:39
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Buck Turgidson posted:I don't know if you can get him to pop out there, short of firing your gun like a maniac. It's definitely possible to prevent him from appearing at all. I used a flare to distract the three guys milling about and he never even came down to kill them. I've seen an LP of that section where the Alien came in while the guy was hiding under one of the beds and it killed all three of the people in that room. It had been right on the guys rear end though for the entire sequence, so that probably had something to do with it. The run we saw the OP do was a very stitched together "best of", he can be an incredible rear end in a top hat through that whole sequence. He can and will camp the door that you have to put the code into. One thing I forgot to mention about your jaunt through medical, OP, you blew through the morgue really quickly and it seemed like you were worried that the alien would show up in a place where there weren't any hiding spots. I've never seen him show up in that area. His only point of ingress is the vent that is initially locked, and then once it's unlocked it's your only point of egress, so he's never anywhere near it.
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Mar 29, 2015 18:56
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RickVoid posted:One thing I forgot to mention about your jaunt through medical, OP, you blew through the morgue really quickly and it seemed like you were worried that the alien would show up in a place where there weren't any hiding spots. I've never seen him show up in that area. His only point of ingress is the vent that is initially locked, and then once it's unlocked it's your only point of egress, so he's never anywhere near it.
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Mar 29, 2015 20:10
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RickVoid posted:One thing I forgot to mention about your jaunt through medical, OP, you blew through the morgue really quickly and it seemed like you were worried that the alien would show up in a place where there weren't any hiding spots. I've never seen him show up in that area. His only point of ingress is the vent that is initially locked, and then once it's unlocked it's your only point of egress, so he's never anywhere near it. I genuinely didn't know that. Ha, makes sense that I'd blast through the one area where I'm safe at lightning speed. I think I had bad memories of my first playthrough where I was still licking wounds from getting brutally rogered in the first medical area so much so that I could barely hold it together in the morgue. The ominous noises of the alien scrabbling around upstairs really cements him as an ever-present threat. I've pretty much flown through the game on both runs purely riding on the seat of my (poo poo-filled) pants, so it's a great learning experience. Once I've done nightmare all the way through, I think I'll treat myself to a scrublord novice run to 100% the game. Won't be LPing that run, though, as it would be exhaustively long and quite boring, in stark contrast to this terrifying balls to the wall rollercoaster I'm experiencing just now. SNEAKY EDIT Inferior posted:He does show up in the Morgue, but only if you really dawdle, I think. He killed me in the little corridor there once on my initial playthrough. I spent most of my time hiding in cupboards the first time I played. Ah, so I probably do have a few repressed memories of dying in that morgue after all. Certainly on my first run I stalled at the coolant cylinder puzzle for quite a while. To trigger the objective you need to try (and fail) to initialise the coolant on the computer - after which the cylinders become interactable - and I think I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out what was wrong. Also, gently caress cupboards so very, very much. Especially on nightmare, where they introduce a new breath-holding mechanic that I for some reason can't get the hang of. I dunno whether you have to wait for the prompts or just lean back and hold breath pre-emptively. Whatever the case, I gently caress up horribly everytime, get heard, seen and killed. TomViolence fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Mar 29, 2015 |
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Mar 29, 2015 20:18
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Arglebargle III posted:Is that thumping in the walls just random noise designed to scare you are actually the alien clonking around in the vents? It was pretty constant this video. I seem to recall Creative Assembly went on record that the Alien functions like so: When it enters the vents (not YOUR vents, ITS vents) it goes to a non-rendered wireframe and travels around very quickly using a kind of 'vent map' that is never rendered nor shown to the player. Any sound of it thumping around in there is entirely its fault, not scripted 'ooh spooky' noises, unless of course it's scripted to go through that area at that time to keep near you.
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Mar 29, 2015 20:28
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Fridurmus posted:I seem to recall Creative Assembly went on record that the Alien functions like so:  That just made the game more horrifying. Thank you.
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Mar 29, 2015 22:04
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Fridurmus posted:I seem to recall Creative Assembly went on record that the Alien functions like so: That's kind of reassuring, actually. To know that you aren't losing your mind, and you're not being bullshitted - the thing you are afraid of IS there, and it WILL follow you.
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Mar 29, 2015 22:14
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Fridurmus posted:I seem to recall Creative Assembly went on record that the Alien functions like so: That's a lot better than the alternative of the teleporting monster that you see a lot in horror movies. He makes so much noise walking around the corridors I thought he had to make noise in the vents too.
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Mar 30, 2015 02:35
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If Tom was using the motion tracker you could actually see the alien zooming through the overhead vents to change position. It goes fast up there.
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Mar 30, 2015 03:16
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Sindai posted:If Tom was using the motion tracker you could actually see the alien zooming through the overhead vents to change position. It goes fast up there. That's pretty neat. They do a great job of selling just how lethal and fast that thing is.
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Mar 30, 2015 03:22
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I've only watched half of the first video, and it's convinced me to get this. Nice work! I couldn't see any posts about it, but Alien: Isolation is currently 75% off on Steam (and the Season Pass 50% off) for the next ten hours or so.
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Mar 30, 2015 07:49
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Arglebargle III posted:That's a lot better than the alternative of the teleporting monster that you see a lot in horror movies. He makes so much noise walking around the corridors I thought he had to make noise in the vents too. But the alien does teleport? I mean, the vent crawling is a thinly disguised teleportation mechanic in the first place, but on occasion the Alien will just zip between random points as dictated by scripting with no regard for time to space.
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Mar 30, 2015 10:32
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steinrokkan posted:DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS v  v
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Mar 30, 2015 13:10
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thx, hadnt noticed before
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Mar 30, 2015 13:35
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So, since the only thing I own that could possibly play this game is a PS3, how well does that version work? Does anyone have any experience with it? Regarding the films, I gotta say I'm fairly fond of the Director's Cut of the first one, and I am a HUGE fan of the Director's Cut of the second. The scene about Ripley's daughter is really good for character development, but my favorite is the scene with the auto-turrets. They just. Keep. Coming.
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Mar 30, 2015 16:01
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azren posted:So, since the only thing I own that could possibly play this game is a PS3, how well does that version work? Does anyone have any experience with it? No direct experience myself, but Digital Foundry did a comparison and it suggests visuals in general are a downgrade as expected but frame rate is the bigger issue, dropping to sub-20fps occasionally. The core game is still the same though, they didn't cut anything like with Shadow of Mordor.
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Mar 30, 2015 17:10
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azren posted:So, since the only thing I own that could possibly play this game is a PS3, how well does that version work? Does anyone have any experience with it? Yeah, the whole Amanda thing in the director's cut nicely sets the stage for Ripley's surrogate relationship with Newt and the other additional scenes add a lot without being overindulgent. I wonder how Alien: Isolation's plot is supposed to fit in with Amanda supposedly dying ignorant of her mother's fate at age 57, if it is at all? I'm hopeful Creative Assembly'll get pestered to do a sequel if enough people buy this game - even if it's on steam at 75% off. Although making lightning strike twice and getting two good games out of the concept might be pushing things...
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Mar 30, 2015 17:31
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TomViolence posted:Yeah, the whole Amanda thing in the director's cut nicely sets the stage for Ripley's surrogate relationship with Newt and the other additional scenes add a lot without being overindulgent. I wonder how Alien: Isolation's plot is supposed to fit in with Amanda supposedly dying ignorant of her mother's fate at age 57, if it is at all? I'm hopeful Creative Assembly'll get pestered to do a sequel if enough people buy this game - even if it's on steam at 75% off. Although making lightning strike twice and getting two good games out of the concept might be pushing things... It's established in canon that Amanda Ripley died a senior citizen before her mother returned from super deep crygoenic sleep, but that occurs literally decades after this game takes place. I don't have total knowledge of how the game ends, but I don't believe it screws with the current canon.
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Mar 30, 2015 18:57
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Well, Amanda can't really learn anything about her mum's whereabouts, now can she? Message is dead, and Ripley herself is still drifting in space.
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Mar 30, 2015 20:52
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Iceclaw posted:Well, Amanda can't really learn anything about her mum's whereabouts, now can she? Message is dead, and Ripley herself is still drifting in space. That assumes that a wiped/corrupted black box was the only thing related to the Nostromo that reached Sevastopol.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:07
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Between the, uh, narrative account given to us from Marcus and the Steam sale, I picked this up and played the first half of the first level before I had to get to work. This game is already fantastic, great sound design and brilliant architecture. I haven't even met an enemy yet and I'm immersed. Thank you for LPing this game! I never would have thought there was enough to the premise to play out a full AAA game, I'm glad to be proven wrong.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:16
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chitoryu12 posted:It's established in canon that Amanda Ripley died a senior citizen before her mother returned from super deep crygoenic sleep, but that occurs literally decades after this game takes place. I don't have total knowledge of how the game ends, but I don't believe it screws with the current canon. It's established that a WY rep told Ripley that. Whether or not it's actually true is another thing.
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Mar 30, 2015 23:04
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Aliens canon is that Ellen Ripley drifts through interstellar space for 57 years. Amanda looks about 10 years old in Ellen's picture of her, presumably taken sometime before the Nostromo's 3-year cruise. Considering that Amanda is probably around 30 in Alien: Isolation, that would make the events of Alien: Isolation take place about 40 years before the events of Aliens. Plenty of time for Amanda to reach the end of middle age and die some years before Ellen is rescued, sometime in Amanda's mid 60s. Come to think of it this sounds like a time dilation plot point that James Cameron dropped somewhere during his scriptwriting process in favor of a more easily understandable scenario in which everyone's clocks are synchronized. drat I was just guessing but some Aliens wiki says that's just about exactly right. Amanda is born 2111, age 10 when Ellen Ripley leaves Earth, 13 when the Nostromo is declared overdue, is 27 at the time of Alien: Isolation in 2137 and dies almost exactly 40 years later at age 66 in 2177, two years before Ellen Ripley is discovered. Aliens takes place 2179. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 06:29
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tarbrush posted:It's established that a WY rep told Ripley that. Whether or not it's actually true is another thing. I believe Ripley read about her daughter's fate in an iPad-like device, so more than likely it's true (or close enough that it doesn't really matter). Since Ripley didn't arrive almost a century later from cryosleep, the game has plenty of time to play with and still be canon.
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Mar 31, 2015 06:38
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steinrokkan posted:But the alien does teleport? I mean, the vent crawling is a thinly disguised teleportation mechanic in the first place, but on occasion the Alien will just zip between random points as dictated by scripting with no regard for time to space. It only teleports very rarely! The developers move it into certain areas so that you won't be in, say, Systech Spire while it's dicking around in Habitation, but its only properly major instances of teleportation are related largely to odd scripting in Medical. I suspect that this is because Medical is the first section of the game where you're properly being hunted, meaning the developers wanted you to feel the pressure of the Alien on your back, but it does go a little far sometimes. That's most notable in the way it behaves when you reach certain objectives, again largely in Medical, often suddenly deciding that it needs to be just outside of the objective room as you pick up whatever item or piece of information you needed. It's not enough for me personally to say it drags the game down, and again, the biggest takeaway is that when you hear it in the vents it's actually in the vents, but your mileage may vary.
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Mar 31, 2015 09:20
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Dariusknight posted:I believe Ripley read about her daughter's fate in an iPad-like device, so more than likely it's true (or close enough that it doesn't really matter). Since Ripley didn't arrive almost a century later from cryosleep, the game has plenty of time to play with and still be canon. It's a deleted scene, but yeah. She's handed a datapad with a photo of her elderly daughter and is told that she died (I think of cancer) 2 years beforehand, with her body cremated and leaving no children.
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Mar 31, 2015 20:17
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chitoryu12 posted:It's a deleted scene, but yeah. She's handed a datapad with a photo of her elderly daughter and is told that she died (I think of cancer) 2 years beforehand, with her body cremated and leaving no children. Body cremated and leaving no children sounds almost too convenient, doesn't it? Obviously, I guess it's more convenient from a screenwriting perspective than anything, but it leaves the door open for all kinds of  theorising.
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Mar 31, 2015 21:58
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chitoryu12 posted:It's a deleted scene, but yeah. She's handed a datapad with a photo of her elderly daughter and is told that she died (I think of cancer) 2 years beforehand, with her body cremated and leaving no children. How... convenient  OT: Looking forward to seeing this game LP'ed with subtitles. Haven't gotten around to playing this, myself, since the guy I usually play games like this or Amnesia with is kinda occupied, but from the little I played, it seems that seeing this game LP'ed won't spoil the experience too much, since this games is all about that atmosphere. The plot's OK, presented well and perfectly serviceable, but nothing to write home about IMHO.
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Mar 31, 2015 22:00
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TomViolence posted:Body cremated and leaving no children sounds almost too convenient, doesn't it? Obviously, I guess it's more convenient from a screenwriting perspective than anything, but it leaves the door open for all kinds of James Cameron had almost two years to write the screenplay since Fox waffled on the idea of an Alien sequel. I still think it's a time dilation thing that he removed at some point in the writing process. He was working on Terminator at the time he was writing the first draft of the screenplay for Aliens so time travel would have been on his mind.
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Apr 1, 2015 02:57
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