Aliens: Colonial Marines - WTF Happened!?!

    Quote from FrieChamp

    Finally footage from the Aliens games - YESSSS!!! Oh and Lee3dee: Didn't know you were working on it, good job

    I'm sure he would have told us before if it weren't for the fact that he values his job.. and life

    I'm actually looking forward to this Aliens game more than anything else Gearbox is doing (which says a lot) because Aliens is one of those primal movies from the last 20 to 30 years that has inspired so much other work in both films and games. I haven't read up on the game that much but I am assuming it won't have the characters from the movie, which would be a bummer but there might not be a practical way around that. Under that assumption, I very much hope (and expect) the marines/humans will have personality and have me get attached to them before chestbursters explode out of them causing me to shed a tear mid-level...

    Don't let me down Zilla!

    All the screenshots have a funny/interesting look to them which I can't really decide if I like or not. There is something about the textures and shaders which makes things look kinda wierd. Some of the aliens seem to have metal skin. The engine also seems to be have a really effective smoothing technique as the models look really high poly and anti-aliased. But again, I am not really sure exactly what it is and I have always also had the same feeling about the looks of the BIA games.

    Quote from Zacker

    All the screenshots have a funny/interesting look to them which I can't really decide if I like or not. There is something about the textures and shaders which makes things look kinda wierd. Some of the aliens seem to have metal skin. The engine also seems to be have a really effective smoothing technique as the models look really high poly and anti-aliased. But again, I am not really sure exactly what it is and I have always also had the same feeling about the looks of the BIA games.

    I share that, I find it awesome, but I cant help noticing the entire absence of specular when looking at the screenshots. Sure there is spec around, but most of the environment almost seems like it is a clay render.

    http://medialib.computerandvideogames.c ... 193847.jpg

    The only thing that has specular are the glass tubes, and the facehugger. Everything else is shaded (and colored) exactly the same. It all looks a bit soft and gentile, while, given the theme, I would expect a very harsh, strongly contrasted look, with enough metal and shiny stuff around to make it all look even colder and more sci fi'ish.

    Great besides that

    I think these screenshots may not do the game justice, but that is 100% speculation on my part.

    I also agree that the aliens don't actually look that scary in these screens. But I think that may have to do with the aliens' skin textures/rendering. They do have this metallicy-clay-y feel, but isn't that sort of accurate to what we've seen from the movies?

    Go back and watch ALIEN and ALIENS and notice that the lighting makes the aliens look creepier and disgustinger..er. That has a lot to do with how scary they appear, plus in the movies they are in motion which is generally a scarier experience than a screenshot that we can pause on and make sense of. The aliens also have the "molecular acid" for blood, which makes their goo and saliva and whatever that gunk is seem potentially very dangerous, which increases level of terror they might draw from the viewer. The screen in this shot 193849 from http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=184091 (the one with the alien closing in on you) doesn't have that dirty, goo-ey, acidy feel so a mere screenshot doensn't feel that scary. But how realistic is it to give us that acidy-gooey feel? That may be very, very hard to look right in a video game, but I leave it for the artists here to debate.

    Tangentially, do you remember the first good AVP game? The concept and darkness made the fast moving aliens scarier than monsters in other games. Screenshots won't ever do it justice, and in these screens some of the aliens are very well lit and it simply makes them more understandable which makes them less scary.

    A final few rambling thoughts:

    1) Taking a +20 year old mega-archetype of film and gaming that has been diluted somewhat by lower quality films/games and reimagining it into game form is no easy task. There will be nitpickers coming out god damned walls (pun intended) to analyze everything Gearbox releases. I appluad them for it, but they have their work cut out for them given the subject matter.

    2) Part of the awesomeness of the ALIENS film imho is James Horner's musical score, which is actually very similar to his Star Trek II score he did less than a year apart. Listen to the soundtrack and hear how awesome it is and what it did for the mood of the film. Given how much of the Aliens story appears to be in this game judging by the screens, I can't picture this game without Horner's awesome score. Any word on that? This is a whole can of worms that could really help the game...

    3) ...and further on the story/narrative/plot of this game....It really really really really really really seems like Gearbox wants us to play the experience of the colonial marines from the ALIENS film (and not get an aliens experience from other other films in the franchise) down to some very specific, memorable moments.

    - inside the complex in general

    - medial with the dead/alive facehuggers

    - welding doors shut

    - being totally outnumbered by nasties

    - sentry guns

    - dropship

    - the vehicle thingy Ripley drives when they escape first defeat in the reactor core thingy (what was that vehicle's name?)

    - ...

    4) Finally, what about the characters? Did I or someone else mention this already? Part of what made ALIENS awesome is how commanding Ripley becomes, how much of a douche-turned-"you want some of this? F*** YOU!"-badass-for-10-seconds Hudson becomes before the aliens grab him, how much you genuinly mistake Vasquez for a man, how worried you are about Gorman's 38/2 simiulated-to-combat drop ratio, how the Sarge gave you that sinking feeling when he replies with "all at incinerators" and how you actually cheared for the alien who got Burke. All that is part of the awesomeness of aliens. What's this game gonna have?

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