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Iron Crowned
May 6, 2003

by Hand Knit

alf_pogs posted:

the precedents existing in nature are exactly why it's limiting. it renders it just another animal, not alien

I don't know of any existing animals that hatch out of an egg as a 10 legged vagina that impregnates people with little penises

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david_a
Apr 24, 2010




Megamarm
I don’t think Covenant establishes that David was the originator of the xenomorphs. He was doing some slap-dash experiments with the black goo that already had the capability of making these things. The ones in Covenant don’t even follow the rules from the first film because they emerge as a miniature adult, not a chestburster.

You could read these discrepancies as one of two things: Ridley didn’t care about the old rules and did whatever he wanted to in order to serve this story, or they’re not exactly the same creature.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

david_a posted:

I don’t think Covenant establishes that David was the originator of the xenomorphs. He was doing some slap-dash experiments with the black goo that already had the capability of making these things. The ones in Covenant don’t even follow the rules from the first film because they emerge as a miniature adult, not a chestburster.

You could read these discrepancies as one of two things: Ridley didn’t care about the old rules and did whatever he wanted to in order to serve this story, or they’re not exactly the same creature.

It's pretty established. David takes Captain Oram into a room saying "I want to show you the latest, and best, of my creations". It's implied that this latest generation of xenomorph is directly from experiments on Dr. Shaw. They are pretty much the exact same as the original facehugger egg sack. A facehugger--the first one shown in the prequel trilogy--pops out and impregnates Captain Oram. The chest-burster that pops out of Captain Oram is, as far as I can tell, supposed to be the same as the traditional chestburster/infant xenomorph, but it is black and CGI so it can articulate enough for the Jesus pose parental bonding David as learned to imprint on them. It's the same size as a normal chestburster, and it's relatively "teen"-sized by the time it's climbing all over the escape ship.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here.

It does, however, raise the question, "Which came first, the Xenomorph Queen or the egg sack?" and making it the egg sac does add some confusion of when/where does a queen get made for more eggs to get developed. He's already got a room full of eggs, but there isn't a mention of who or what laid them.

It's almost like that part of the script is a mess and was introduced in a rewrite after the original plan for the movie fell apart due to Noomi Rapace being taken off the project! (That's exactly what happened.)

Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Mar 10, 2021

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe
For me the thing that makes the most sense is that the Engineers didn't create Xenos, and also that they're probably much like us in the sense that they are also on a neverending quest to understand their own origins. It's heavily implied that they worship the xeno in some way or at least revere it, and black goo seems to be what they think of as the conduit to unlocking the power of their "gods", or the secret knowledge of creation. It comes across to me as something they don't fully understand, but have done various experiments on, some more successful than others. The abandoned planet in Prometheus fits with that theory, because it makes sense that they would want to do these experiments somewhere isolated without risk of some sort of major catastrophe.

I think that's also part of the point of the scene in Covenant where you see the Engineer ship piloted by David being welcomed by Engineerish aliens in what is clearly a Chariots of the Gods type situation. The Engineers have used the power they've unlocked from the black goo and made themselves into gods in their own right, worshipped by those who don't have the context to understand that the Engineers are just beings that have access to a higher level of technology than they do. There are no literal gods in the world of Alien, it's just pretenders all the way down and you'll only be disappointed(or worse) if you go looking for them.

Franchescanado posted:

It's pretty established. David takes Captain Oram into a room saying "I want to show you the latest, and best, of my creations". It's implied that this latest generation of xenomorph is directly from experiments on Dr. Shaw. They are pretty much the exact same as the original facehugger egg sack. A facehugger--the first one shown in the prequel trilogy--pops out and impregnates Captain Oram. The chest-burster that pops out of Captain Oram is, as far as I can tell, supposed to be the same as the traditional chestburster/infant xenomorph, but it is black and CGI so it can articulate enough for the Jesus pose parental bonding David as learned to imprint on them. It's the same size as a normal chestburster, and it's relatively "teen"-sized by the time it's climbing all over the escape ship.

David said he created them, but David isn't always right. He's not even always honest, but even when he is, he has a large ego and isn't always right. The movie makes a point of showing that he can be wrong, even though he declares things with great conviction.

The latest generation is just the latest generation of David's experiments. David hosed around with the black goo for a few years and eventually was successful in producing the formula for something akin to the classic xeno. But who's to say the Engineers haven't been using that same formula for thousands of years?

Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Mar 10, 2021

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Basebf555 posted:

For me the thing that makes the most sense is that the Engineers didn't create Xenos, and also that they're probably much like us in the sense that they are also on a neverending quest to understand their own origins. It's heavily implied that they worship the xeno in some way or at least revere it, and black goo seems to be what they think of as the conduit to unlocking the power of their "gods", or the secret knowledge of creation. It comes across to me as something they don't fully understand, but have done various experiments on, some more successful than others. The abandoned planet in Prometheus fits with that theory, because it makes sense that they would want to do these experiments somewhere isolated without risk of some sort of major catastrophe.

I think that's also part of the point of the scene in Covenant where you see the Engineer ship piloted by David being welcomed by Engineerish aliens in what is clearly a Chariots of the Gods type situation. The Engineers have used the power they've unlocked from the black goo and made themselves into gods in their own right, worshipped by those who don't have the context to understand that the Engineers are just beings that have access to a higher level of technology than they do. There are no literal gods in the world of Alien, it's just pretenders all the way down and you'll only be disappointed(or worse) if you go looking for them.


David said he created them, but David isn't always right. He's not even always honest, but even when he is, he has a large ego and isn't always right. The movie makes a point of showing that he can be wrong, even though he declares things with great conviction.

The latest generation is just the latest generation of David's experiments. David hosed around with the black goo for a few years and eventually was successful in producing the formula for something akin to the classic xeno. But who's to say the Engineers haven't been using that same formula for thousands of years?

I hadn't considered that the black goo isn't an Engineer creation, but something they've discovered and weaponized themselves. Can you point to something in the movie(s) where you got that idea?

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Franchescanado posted:

I hadn't considered that the black goo isn't an Engineer creation, but something they've discovered and weaponized themselves. Can you point to something in the movie(s) where you got that idea?

Nothing explicit. But on the other side of the coin I see no reason why we should assume they did create it. For one, they seem to worship it and treat it as sacred, which fits much more into the idea that they discovered the black goo or were gifted it by their own "gods" ala Prometheus.

I think you're falling into the same trap that Weyland and Holloway did. In their desire to have their own existence explained to them, they ascribed meaning to the Engineers that may not have been correct. I think the most satisfying scenario thematically is that the Engineers are nothing more than aliens who, much like us, have gone to extreme lengths to try to attain knowledge and power. And by doing that they became so advanced that they appear as gods to beings like humans who want to find meaning in a hostile universe. It's a cycle of searching for the knowledge of creation, unlocking enough of it to become powerful, rising to the level of a god in the eyes of lesser beings, and thereby inspiring those lesser beings to go out in the universe and find their own power through knowledge.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Basebf555 posted:

Nothing explicit. But on the other side of the coin I see no reason why we should assume they did create it. For one, they seem to worship it and treat it as sacred, which fits much more into the idea that they discovered the black goo or were gifted it by their own "gods" ala Prometheus.

I think you're falling into the same trap that Weyland and Holloway did. In their desire to have their own existence explained to them, they ascribed meaning to the Engineers that may not have been correct. I think the most satisfying scenario thematically is that the Engineers are nothing more than aliens who, much like us, have gone to extreme lengths to try to attain knowledge and power. And by doing that they became so advanced that they appear as gods to beings like humans who want to find meaning in a hostile universe. It's a cycle of searching for the knowledge of creation, unlocking enough of it to become powerful, rising to the level of a god in the eyes of lesser beings, and thereby inspiring those lesser beings to go out in the universe and find their own power through knowledge.

Oh, I don't think the Engineers are gods or anything. They're just a humanoid race that's advanced in technology. I don't think of them as searching for knowledge of creation, so much as creators for the sake of creating. The only examples of anything they "create" are biological weapons, including humans. Once they found the capabilities of creating organic lifeforms or biological weapons, their interests were in experimenting with it--much like David, who creates for the sake of creating (though he does it because he feels that right has been denied him by his creators). So the worm cobras are one weapon they created. The pollen-like embryos that are absorbed into orifices are another. Humanity was an attempt at creating a weapon from their very own DNA, but we came out small, hairy, dumb, and crazed, like mutants. Which is why the Engineer responds to the humans in Prometheus with anger and hatred, and why they want to wipe out humanity on Earth. Because we're a failed experiment at biological weapons. And it's why our species is obsessed with war, hunting, mass-produced farming that drains organic life, and destroying the planet.

It's like why we make robots or genetically alter horses and clone pets. It's not necessarily out of quest for knowledge of a higher power, but because we found out we can do it, and that process itself creates questions that can be answered by continuing the process.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Franchescanado posted:

It's pretty established. David takes Captain Oram into a room saying "I want to show you the latest, and best, of my creations". It's implied that this latest generation of xenomorph is directly from experiments on Dr. Shaw. They are pretty much the exact same as the original facehugger egg sack. A facehugger--the first one shown in the prequel trilogy--pops out and impregnates Captain Oram. The chest-burster that pops out of Captain Oram is, as far as I can tell, supposed to be the same as the traditional chestburster/infant xenomorph, but it is black and CGI so it can articulate enough for the Jesus pose parental bonding David as learned to imprint on them. It's the same size as a normal chestburster, and it's relatively "teen"-sized by the time it's climbing all over the escape ship.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here.

It does, however, raise the question, "Which came first, the Xenomorph Queen or the egg sack?" and making it the egg sac does add some confusion of when/where does a queen get made for more eggs to get developed. He's already got a room full of eggs, but there isn't a mention of who or what laid them.

It's almost like that part of the script is a mess and was introduced in a rewrite after the original plan for the movie fell apart due to Noomi Rapace being taken off the project! (That's exactly what happened.)

The Engineer mural shows a reverence for something like the Xenomorph. David is just fudging with what has already existed and is still unknown His Xenomorph still doesn't quite look like the original from Alien. It's just close. I only got the inference that he had duplicated what has already been done in the past.

If the scene was left in where Shaw's ovaries ended up making a queen, it would be closer to a true origin but still not quite so.

The goo is just the source of everything alien-like; everything it creates has the properties to some degree. And it's still unknown.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Franchescanado posted:

Oh, I don't think the Engineers are gods or anything. They're just a humanoid race that's advanced in technology. I don't think of them as searching for knowledge of creation, so much as creators for the sake of creating. The only examples of anything they "create" are biological weapons, including humans. Once they found the capabilities of creating organic lifeforms or biological weapons, their interests were in experimenting with it--much like David, who creates for the sake of creating (though he does it because he feels that right has been denied him by his creators). So the worm cobras are one weapon they created. The pollen-like embryos that are absorbed into orifices are another. Humanity was an attempt at creating a weapon from their very own DNA, but we came out small, hairy, dumb, and crazed, like mutants. Which is why the Engineer responds to the humans in Prometheus with anger and hatred, and why they want to wipe out humanity on Earth. Because we're a failed experiment at biological weapons. And it's why our species is obsessed with war, hunting, mass-produced farming that drains organic life, and destroying the planet.

It's like why we make robots or genetically alter horses and clone pets. It's not necessarily out of quest for knowledge of a higher power, but because we found out we can do it, and that process itself creates questions that can be answered by continuing the process.

Right but I think you're hitting on why it makes sense that the Engineers did not create or invent the black goo themselves. They're experimenting on it, and with different levels of success, and even sometimes major failures. They don't know everything it's capable of, and they aren't able to fully control it. And I think that's probably why they consider it sacred or treat it with religious reverence, because they respect it's power to destroy and to create. The goo does that on it's own, the "experiment" is just exposing new genetic material to the goo and seeing what comes out of it. And that's really all David was doing.

It's like experiments that scientists do in real life, the vast majority of the time we're working with the basic building blocks of nature that we ourselves didn't create, but we want to have a higher understanding of how they work and how we can use them.

Kvlt!
May 19, 2012



Speaking of sci fi ive been binging Star Trek Deep Space Nine and theres an episode where the crew gets trapped on a planet where two sides are at war but whenever they die they come back to life, so the war is focused on making the enemy suffer as much as possible rather than killing the enemy. I thought that would be such an interesting concept to stretch into a horror movie. Directed by Rob Zombie of course.

Origami Dali
Jan 7, 2005

Get ready to fuck!
You fucker's fucker!
You fucker!
I binged DS9 last year and don't remember that at all, which ep was it?

Kvlt!
May 19, 2012



Origami Dali posted:

I binged DS9 last year and don't remember that at all, which ep was it?

Season One, Episode 12, "Battle Lines"

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Darko posted:

The Engineer mural shows a reverence for something like the Xenomorph. David is just fudging with what has already existed and is still unknown His Xenomorph still doesn't quite look like the original from Alien. It's just close. I only got the inference that he had duplicated what has already been done in the past.

If the scene was left in where Shaw's ovaries ended up making a queen, it would be closer to a true origin but still not quite so.

The goo is just the source of everything alien-like; everything it creates has the properties to some degree. And it's still unknown.

Basebf555 posted:

Right but I think you're hitting on why it makes sense that the Engineers did not create or invent the black goo themselves. They're experimenting on it, and with different levels of success, and even sometimes major failures. They don't know everything it's capable of, and they aren't able to fully control it. And I think that's probably why they consider it sacred or treat it with religious reverence, because they respect it's power to destroy and to create. The goo does that on it's own, the "experiment" is just exposing new genetic material to the goo and seeing what comes out of it. And that's really all David was doing.

It's like experiments that scientists do in real life, the vast majority of the time we're working with the basic building blocks of nature that we ourselves didn't create, but we want to have a higher understanding of how they work and how we can use them.

These points make sense, and it hadn't occurred to me that the black goo was itself a discovery and not a creation.

So then what is the opening of Prometheus saying? An Engineer is left behind on a planet while the others leave. It drinks the black goo, which disintegrates the Engineer while mutating its DNA, and contaminating the nearby water supply with dangerous parasitic organic life. Is this an act of self-sacrifice? Is this a religious rite? Is it suicide? Is it a suicide attack, like the equivalent of a suicide bomber deploying biological warfare on a new planet? Visually it's fascinating, and it hints at story elements to come, but I don't really know what it's saying or doing.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Franchescanado posted:

So then what is the opening of Prometheus saying? An Engineer is left behind on a planet while the others leave. It drinks the black goo, which disintegrates the Engineer while mutating its DNA, and contaminating the nearby water supply with dangerous parasitic organic life. Is this an act of self-sacrifice? Is this a religious rite? Is it suicide? Is it a suicide attack, like the equivalent of a suicide bomber deploying biological warfare on a new planet? Visually it's fascinating, and it hints at story elements to come, but I don't really know what it's saying or doing.

It's certainly one of the more interesting scenes in the two films.

My interpretation is that the scene shows the Engineers attempting(and succeeding, if we're to assume it's Earth) to use their own DNA to create new life, which is something they clearly treat as a religious or ritual act. So I do see it as an act of self-sacrifice, as if they believe that you have to give life to create new life, or that the goo itself will look on the sacrifice and accept or reject it like a god would. There's just a lot of scenes that indicate the way the Engineers see the black goo, and for me it doesn't fit with how you'd look at a simple invention that one of your scientists cooked up in the lab one day.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Franchescanado posted:

These points make sense, and it hadn't occurred to me that the black goo was itself a discovery and not a creation.

So then what is the opening of Prometheus saying? An Engineer is left behind on a planet while the others leave. It drinks the black goo, which disintegrates the Engineer while mutating its DNA, and contaminating the nearby water supply with dangerous parasitic organic life. Is this an act of self-sacrifice? Is this a religious rite? Is it suicide? Is it a suicide attack, like the equivalent of a suicide bomber deploying biological warfare on a new planet? Visually it's fascinating, and it hints at story elements to come, but I don't really know what it's saying or doing.

The ship was entirely different than the normal Engineer ships and they were robed, so I think it was basically a religious kind of "seeding life on a planet" (which may or may not be Earth) situation. If we take it as-planned, however he took the goo, broke his body down and seeded the planet with life; evolution happened and it created people in the end, the Engineers came back and saw we sucked and were going to weaponize goo us like David did in Covenant, but screwed up somehow and didn't do it.

The Engineers are always searching for...something in the end and we just didn't match up to what they wanted.

Darko fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Mar 10, 2021

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer
Oh see, I didn't think it was Earth at all, just some other planet that the Engineers were loving with, as is their wont.

Religious zealots creating a destructive force in the name of some higher power or scheme makes sense.

Space Cadet Omoly
Jan 15, 2014

~Groovy~


flashy_mcflash posted:

Looks like Them, this new Amazon series is a sneaky (or not so sneaky if you look at the poster) prequel to Jordan Peele's Us.

I dunno, I think a prequel to Us could work if it's about the scientists who made the clones doing other weird poo poo. Like every episode is just "I made a dog that can float and vomit dark matter!" or "This dude has no face and can travel through mirrors, he's the future of package delivery!" eventually the series ends when the higher ups see the bullshit they've been wasting money on and their funding is cut and all their experiments are released into the wild.

feedmyleg
Dec 25, 2004

Space Cadet Omoly posted:

I dunno, I think a prequel to Us could work if it's about the scientists who made the clones doing other weird poo poo. Like every episode is just "I made a dog that can float and vomit dark matter!" or "This dude has no face and can travel through mirrors, he's the future of package delivery!" eventually the series ends when the higher ups see the bullshit they've been wasting money on and their funding is cut and all their experiments are released into the wild.

A sci-fi/horror Better Off Ted would be amazing.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Space Cadet Omoly posted:

I dunno, I think a prequel to Us could work if it's about the scientists who made the clones doing other weird poo poo. Like every episode is just "I made a dog that can float and vomit dark matter!" or "This dude has no face and can travel through mirrors, he's the future of package delivery!" eventually the series ends when the higher ups see the bullshit they've been wasting money on and their funding is cut and all their experiments are released into the wild.

This is sorta like the videogame Control. Except they just discover these strange anomalies and try to study/quarantine them instead of creating them.

Space Cadet Omoly
Jan 15, 2014

~Groovy~


Franchescanado posted:

This is sorta like the videogame Control. Except they just discover these strange anomalies and try to study/quarantine them instead of creating them.

See, that's a reasonable thing to do. If there's a refrigerator that can kill people then of course you're going to want to put it in a safe place.

The situation I'm envisioning is more of a Resident Evil type deal where the scientists are creating the monsters for no real reason just because they can. Imagine if this SNL skit was a series: https://youtu.be/NIGR0kcd-bE
Just a complete and hilarious disregard for the laws of man and God in a way that benefits no one.

Karloff
Mar 21, 2013

Being off the edge of the map and taking a peak behind the dark curtain was always the appeal of Alien to me. There is an idea that the first story ever told was a horror story, when one caveman said to another "do not go beyond the valley, you do not know what is out there". Alien is just a modern evocation of that concept, it's power is in that primal terror of the unknown. So, explaining the back story can't help but cheapen that feel HOWEVER I do think the Alien prequels are going for a different concept, and are enjoyable in their own right. I feel strongly that one can and should view some films in a vacuum. If I watch Alien I will happily ignore any explanation provided by the prequels as the lack of explanation is what makes it eerie, and when I watch the prequels I'll ignore the original Alienasit doesn't really add anything to them - I don't really consider them a part of the same series in my dumb head canon. And that is how I reconcile the two.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Franchescanado posted:

These points make sense, and it hadn't occurred to me that the black goo was itself a discovery and not a creation.

So then what is the opening of Prometheus saying? An Engineer is left behind on a planet while the others leave. It drinks the black goo, which disintegrates the Engineer while mutating its DNA, and contaminating the nearby water supply with dangerous parasitic organic life. Is this an act of self-sacrifice? Is this a religious rite? Is it suicide? Is it a suicide attack, like the equivalent of a suicide bomber deploying biological warfare on a new planet? Visually it's fascinating, and it hints at story elements to come, but I don't really know what it's saying or doing.

Even the idea that the sacrifice was left behind on the planet is an assumption.

The character is just as plausibly sacrificing himself to the seed-shaped UFO, which he perceives as an unknowable god. I consider that the most elegant answer to the question.

SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Mar 10, 2021

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Even the idea that the sacrifice was left behind on the planet is an assumption.

The character is just as plausibly sacrificing himself to the seed-shaped UFO, which he perceives as an unknowable god. I consider that the most elegant answer to the question.

Yeah, that's also equally as plausible; I think you said that in the Alien thread before. That unknown UFO is outside the realm of anything we've seen in the series.

If I didnt personally read scripts/see storyboards that influenced how I saw that sequence, there's no reason I wouldn't naturally see it as likely.

gey muckle mowser
Aug 5, 2003

Do you know anything about...
witches?



Buglord

Franchescanado posted:

This is sorta like the videogame Control. Except they just discover these strange anomalies and try to study/quarantine them instead of creating them.

man I loved Control. I never did any of the DLC and I think I'm gonna play through the whole thing again on PS5 soon

Speaking of video games: does anyone have recommendations for horror games? I used to think I didn't like them but really it's more than I don't like most survival horror (e.g. Resident Evil). I know everyone seems to love RE4 but I've tried it several times and always get frustrated early on because I have terrible aim. The RE2 Remake demo didn't do anything for me for the same reason. Playing Layers of Fear right now and it's pretty good, so games like that where it's more about exploring and atmosphere than it is combat. Stuff that isn't strictly a horror game but has a horror-ish vibe (Bloodborne, Control) is cool too.

Space Cadet Omoly
Jan 15, 2014

~Groovy~


gey muckle mowser posted:

man I loved Control. I never did any of the DLC and I think I'm gonna play through the whole thing again on PS5 soon

Speaking of video games: does anyone have recommendations for horror games? I used to think I didn't like them but really it's more than I don't like most survival horror (e.g. Resident Evil). I know everyone seems to love RE4 but I've tried it several times and always get frustrated early on because I have terrible aim. The RE2 Remake demo didn't do anything for me for the same reason. Playing Layers of Fear right now and it's pretty good, so games like that where it's more about exploring and atmosphere than it is combat. Stuff that isn't strictly a horror game but has a horror-ish vibe (Bloodborne, Control) is cool too.

'Inside' is a game that might be right be your ally.

I also really like Lakeview Cabin Collection and Lakeview valley.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Even the idea that the sacrifice was left behind on the planet is an assumption.

The character is just as plausibly sacrificing himself to the seed-shaped UFO, which he perceives as an unknowable god. I consider that the most elegant answer to the question.

That's another interesting take on it.

gey muckle mowser posted:

man I loved Control. I never did any of the DLC and I think I'm gonna play through the whole thing again on PS5 soon

Speaking of video games: does anyone have recommendations for horror games? I used to think I didn't like them but really it's more than I don't like most survival horror (e.g. Resident Evil). I know everyone seems to love RE4 but I've tried it several times and always get frustrated early on because I have terrible aim. The RE2 Remake demo didn't do anything for me for the same reason. Playing Layers of Fear right now and it's pretty good, so games like that where it's more about exploring and atmosphere than it is combat. Stuff that isn't strictly a horror game but has a horror-ish vibe (Bloodborne, Control) is cool too.

You should definitely jump into the Control DLC. The haptic feedbacks are fantastic and nuanced (each gun gets different trigger resistances and vibration), and the HDR, improved sound design, and the graphical improvements are amazing. It's probably my favorite use of haptic feedbacks besides Astro's Playroom, although nothing's come close to Astro's Playroom yet.

You should probably try Resident Evil 7, since that's very different than the other games in the series, and considered the scariest. The Outlast series is a playable found footage movie. Until Dawn is a good snowy spooky wendigo story, and there are a lot of different ways the story can go (any character can die or survive). Alien Isolation. The upcoming Returnal looks pretty good, and looks like Dark Souls meets Prometheus, but that's definitely gonna be combat-oriented. (edit) Soma is also supposed to be very good! And Uncanny Valley, although that's more of an adventure game.

A lot of these are currently on sale on PS store until 3/17.

Space Cadet Omoly posted:

'Inside' is a game that might be right be your ally.

I also really like Lakeview Cabin Collection and Lakeview valley.

Inside and Limbo, yeah, are pretty spooky side-scrollers, kinda like the early Oddworld games. In this vein, Little Nightmares as well.

Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Mar 10, 2021

AKZ
Nov 5, 2009

gey muckle mowser posted:

Speaking of video games

The Evil Within series shows its age a bit, but I liked playing through it a year or two ago.

Vince MechMahon
Jan 1, 2008



Dark Souls is the way all lore should be presented. Give the audience a bunch of interesting ideas and 75% of how those ideas connect. Let them fill in the remaining 25%. There is a correct answer, but never tell anyone what it is.

Space Cadet Omoly
Jan 15, 2014

~Groovy~


Franchescanado posted:

That's another interesting take on it.


You should definitely jump into the Control DLC. The haptic feedbacks are fantastic and nuanced (each gun gets different trigger resistances and vibration), and the HDR, improved sound design, and the graphical improvements are amazing. It's probably my favorite use of haptic feedbacks besides Astro's Playroom, although nothing's come close to Astro's Playroom yet.

You should probably try Resident Evil 7, since that's very different than the other games in the series, and considered the scariest. The Outlast series is a playable found footage movie. Until Dawn is a good snowy spooky wendigo story, and there are a lot of different ways the story can go (any character can die or survive). Alien Isolation. The upcoming Returnal looks pretty good, and looks like Dark Souls meets Prometheus, but that's definitely gonna be combat-oriented. (edit) Soma is also supposed to be very good! And Uncanny Valley, although that's more of an adventure game.

A lot of these are currently on sale on PS store until 3/17.


Inside and Limbo, yeah, are pretty spooky side-scrollers, kinda like the early Oddworld games. In this vein, Little Nightmares as well.

Seconding the recommendations for Little Nightmares, Until Dawn, and Resident Evil 7 (especially if you didn't like Resident evil 4, they're very different in play style).

Also, Resident Evil 8 is on the way and it looks great so if you try and like 7 you'll have more fun coming very soon.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Space Cadet Omoly posted:

Seconding the recommendations for Little Nightmares, Until Dawn, and Resident Evil 7 (especially if you didn't like Resident evil 4, they're very different in play style).

Also, Resident Evil 8 is on the way and it looks great so if you try and like 7 you'll have more fun coming very soon.

Resident Evil 7 and Until Dawn are both free through PS Plus for PS5 owners, so you should absolutely just jump into both and try.

Until Dawn features pre-Mr. Robot Rami Malek and horror favorite Larry Fessenden, who also wrote the story.

Resident Evil 8 looks awesome.

gey muckle mowser
Aug 5, 2003

Do you know anything about...
witches?



Buglord

Franchescanado posted:

You should definitely jump into the Control DLC. The haptic feedbacks are fantastic and nuanced (each gun gets different trigger resistances and vibration), and the HDR, improved sound design, and the graphical improvements are amazing. It's probably my favorite use of haptic feedbacks besides Astro's Playroom, although nothing's come close to Astro's Playroom yet.

You should probably try Resident Evil 7, since that's very different than the other games in the series, and considered the scariest. The Outlast series is a playable found footage movie. Until Dawn is a good snowy spooky wendigo story, and there are a lot of different ways the story can go (any character can die or survive). Alien Isolation. The upcoming Returnal looks pretty good, and looks like Dark Souls meets Prometheus, but that's definitely gonna be combat-oriented. (edit) Soma is also supposed to be very good! And Uncanny Valley, although that's more of an adventure game.

A lot of these are currently on sale on PS store until 3/17.


Inside and Limbo, yeah, are pretty spooky side-scrollers, kinda like the early Oddworld games. In this vein, Little Nightmares as well.

oh yeah I have played Until Dawn and I enjoyed it. I have RE7 because it's one of the PS4 games you get for free in the PS Plus collection so I'll give that a try.

I tried Alien Isolation but didn't get far, I think I just got distracted with something else because I remember liking it. I'll try that again too.

Thanks all!

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer
I've been meaning to replay Until Dawn. I did my best to get everyone to survive, but I hosed up and I think two or three characters died.

Uncle Boogeyman
Jul 22, 2007

gey muckle mowser posted:

man I loved Control. I never did any of the DLC and I think I'm gonna play through the whole thing again on PS5 soon

Speaking of video games: does anyone have recommendations for horror games? I used to think I didn't like them but really it's more than I don't like most survival horror (e.g. Resident Evil). I know everyone seems to love RE4 but I've tried it several times and always get frustrated early on because I have terrible aim. The RE2 Remake demo didn't do anything for me for the same reason. Playing Layers of Fear right now and it's pretty good, so games like that where it's more about exploring and atmosphere than it is combat. Stuff that isn't strictly a horror game but has a horror-ish vibe (Bloodborne, Control) is cool too.

If you're looking for horror-vibe-but-not-survival-horror, and you like platformers, this might be an obvious one but I played through Super Castlevania IV a few Octobers ago and it was very fun.

If you want some throwback survival horror that does not require you to have good aim, Clocktower loving owns (I played the SNES version, there's a PS1 version too but I don't know the differences). It's basically a pseudo-adaptation of Dario Argento's Phenomena.

For some indie stuff, a while back I played Paratopic, which is a really cool Lynchian horror game that is 100% vibe and has a killer soundtrack, and Faith, which is a very creepy exorcism horror game done in an Atari throwback style.

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

Engineers being buff gray dudes instead of monstrous Space Jockeys is the worst decision in cinema history.

Space Cadet Omoly
Jan 15, 2014

~Groovy~


Franchescanado posted:

I've been meaning to replay Until Dawn. I did my best to get everyone to survive, but I hosed up and I think two or three characters died.

Until Dawn really holds up as a horror story and it bums me out that the other Dark Picture Stories aren't nearly as good. They both feature twists that make the stories they're trying to tell less interesting, no one wants rational explanations for horror! Just let the spooky stuff be spooky!

Phy
Jun 27, 2008



Fun Shoe

Franchescanado posted:

Alien Isolation

Ooh yeah good call. I never played it but I watched a goon's LP a couple of times, it's very much in the vein of the first movie, you're on a space station that looks like it was built by General Motors in the 1970s and you're being hunted by just one xenomorph. (The station is also full of raging libertarians and killer androids, and is slowly falling into a gas giant. It's a good time!)

I think it had a couple bits on the Nostromo as dlc including the self-destruct escape sequence... Don't remember if you had to pick up Jonesy.

Iron Crowned
May 6, 2003

by Hand Knit

Franchescanado posted:

I've been meaning to replay Until Dawn. I did my best to get everyone to survive, but I hosed up and I think two or three characters died.

The one time I played it, I only had one survivor, he was Matthew.

I should probably give it another go

Space Cadet Omoly
Jan 15, 2014

~Groovy~


Iron Crowned posted:

The one time I played it, I only had one survivor, he was Matthew.

I should probably give it another go

Mathew is the hardest character to keep alive so it's pretty impressive that you managed to do that while killing everyone without even trying.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer
I know for-sure that Christopher and Josh died in my playthrough. I think someone else died too. But I remember feeling pretty good about only three people dying.

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Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer

FreudianSlippers posted:

Engineers being buff gray dudes instead of monstrous Space Jockeys is the worst decision in cinema history.

Bingo. Giant mysterious alien ending up being handsome squidward was one of the dumbest design ideas I've seen in a long time.

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