Alien: Isolation

[Morgoth]

A little preview, in Herrensprache.

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-its-like-to-spend-a-day-with-alien-isolation
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/08/13/alien-isolation-preview-2/
http://www.destructoid.com/alien-isolation-is-haunting-and-uncompromisingly-scary-279518.phtml
http://www.gameinformer.com/games/a...-countless-bloody-deaths-alien-isolation.aspx

Everybody likes Alien.

 

[Morgoth]

Hi-res screenshots and a new CGI trailer:
http://www.gamersyde.com/news_gc_alien_isolation_trailer_and_screens-15723_en.html

Oh mah lawd.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

So... does the main campaign now take place on the Nostromo, or did I miss something?

 

[Azrael the cat]

Prometheus was utterly retarded. They're gonna start shooting the sequel(s) this Fall with a launch date of March 2016.

I'm not sure what Ridley was thinking about greenlighting such a retarded script. I'd rather liked him handing over the franchise to someone else and focus on the Blade Runner sequel entirely.

I'd put the blame entirely upon the director. The script was a fairly interesting exploration of religion and meaning, and in particular, what makes something a god. The direction seems like he didn't really understand any of those themes. This was a problem, because we live in an era where philosophical exploration of religious concepts has dropped out of our literary language - even the religious folk are only interested in having films confirm their faith, rather than any serious thematic examination of the concepts.

To give one example - the male lead's (forgotten his name, but the main character's co-researcher) suicide. Despite being a fairly direct analogue to the various existentialist protagonists of Sartre, Camus etc (where a guy suddenly realises that the thing that he thought gave meaning/value to everything in his life either doesn't exist or doesn't really have that objective value, and subsequently despairs at the realisation that everything in his life is meaningless), many people couldn't understand why he chooses suicide. At a script level, it's both straightforward, and something that has worked in many pieces of early-20th century literature. Each of the characters 'worships' (for lack of a better word) the one thing that they think gives everything else meaning. For the female exec, it's herself but in a purely material/hedonistic sense (hence she must choose a doomed/horrible extra month in the escape pod instead of a slightly earlier death), for Guy Pierce's CEO it's immortality (he could never accept that he's had enough, like Theron pleads, as without immortality he has nothing), for the minor scientists it's their research, for Fassbender's android it's humanity (most of his dialogue, and his character generally, are about the implications of actually knowing that your god exists, especially when your god isn't perfect), Idris Elba is basically Marlowe from HoD (the humble grind of daily lives and work > ideals and gods; hence he must sacrifice himself to save earth, otherwise his life has no more value than a rock)...and for the male lead, it's the God of the Abrahamic religions.

The film's basic thesis is that godhood doesn't require benevolence or omnipotence, but incomprehensibility. The more they learn about the engineers, the less godlike they become, until the last sequence when their decision-making (specifically, that they changed their mind about Earth) is revealed as utterly incomprehensibly alien, and hence they're godlike once more. The male lead's suicide comes at the low-point for their godhood - when they've been reduced, in the eyes of the film and characters, to people with better technology (hence his sardonic line about creation being easy, and that any old bunch of idiots can do it if they have good enough tools). His suicide, at a script level, makes sense - he's discovered that there is no god, because the thing he thought was good turned out to be no better than him (in a normative sense, not in terms of power obviously), and so nothing in the universe can have meaning or value, not even his life. The script itself pays a lot of attention to this process - he's disappointed first of all, he drops his caution in a 'what's the fucking point' manner, by the time they get back to the ship he switches between anger and despair and gives voice to his mental workings (the aforementioned bit about creation), he acts like a jealous prick to the one crewmember who knows his god exists (the android) and taunts him specfically about being an android (in a way that draws attention to his own dilemma), he tries to drown his sorrows in hedonism (and, specifically, sex) and then the infection becomes apparent and he lets himself be shut outside instead of seeking treatment.

Now, what does the director do about framing this critical character progression? He shoots it as though it's nothing more than a mechanical series of events, merely some 'stuff' happening in between the character getting infected and dying. Ridley Scott should have been well aware that modern literary education no longer addresses the classical exploration of religious concepts, as well as that few audience members are versed in French existentialism - there's no excuse for assuming that the audience would just 'read' the character's mental journey and motivations. Compare the directorial non-effort here to the way that Sartre introduces the moment at which Roquentin makes the same realisation (that nothing has objective meaning/value) in Nausea - i.e. the titular onset of nausea, with a vivid description of the character being suddenly ill and, for a few moments that seem like an eternity, not able to make out anything around him as it all gets lost in the sensation that nothing is like he thought it was. The reader doesn't need any previous familiarity with the concepts to know that this is central to the character's motivations, and to the story's themes. By framing it as just a series of events, Scott allows the audience to just superimpose their own worldview onto the character - suicide wouldn't make any sense for them, the director has done nothing to let them into the character's head, so how could they understand the character's motivations?

My suspicion that Scott didn't understand these themes was strengthened by some unhelpful directorial choices about character reactions. In particular, he has the male lead react with shock and fear at the realisation that he's infected. The character should be no longer capable of shock or fear. All sense of meaning and value is draining out of his worldview, and he's coming to the realisation that his life no longer matters to him - there's nothing he can be afraid of. The scene where he notices the infection in his eye should have been shot with his reaction being one of clinical detachment, so that he knows he should be scared and tell people, but all he can muster is 'hmm...a change. Isn't that fascinating'. Similarly, Scott films the sex scene between him and the female lead as though it's just a bog-standard sex scene - it is so lacking in any kind of thematic direction that it's clear Scott had no idea why the scene is there and included it 'just because'. It should have been filmed so as to feel sharply, weirdly, cold. Scott needed to convey that he's getting nothing out of the sex; that it's something he's doing because he's trying to drown himself with hedonism and this is something that he knows should be hedonistically meaningful to him.

Even if you only reshoot those two scenes, the effect would be remarkable. After abusing the android (which was handled rather well) and half-drunkly moping about the triviality of creation, he throws himself into sex, but finds it weirdly cold. In a long, uncomfortable scene, he's having sex as though it's the driest of mechanical tasks - he's getting nothing out of it. He sits up in bed after it's finished, not angry or upset anymore, just empty. Then straight from bed he notices something disturbingly wrong about his eye. It's quite clearly infected. His lover is heard from the next room 'Is everything okay?'. 'It's fine' he says, completely detached. Zoom in so his eye is occupying a quarter of the frame, and his expression of detached clinical interest occupies the rest of it.

I think that, by itself, would make the process from 'there are no gods' to 'suicide' much easier to follow.

Ridley Scott has done almost the same set of themes once before - in his masterpiece, Bladerunner. In that film, he absolutely nailed them, especially the idea of meeting one's flawed and unfair maker. But think how much help he gave the audience there - when the lead replicant kills his 'god', it's with power-orchestra in the backround, the light in a near-halo around them, and him literally on his knees before his 'lord', hands outstretched in a way that looks like worship even when he's gouging the guy's eyes out, and weeping uncontrollably. Maybe it's because he expected the audience to be as familiar with the concepts as he is, but Scott films Prometheus like it's a shallow action film, whilst expecting the audience to intuit the themes for themselves.

 

[Morgoth]

 

[Jaesun]

 

[Outlander]

PC vs PS4 comparison

 

[sexbad?]

PC vs PS4 comparison

They look identical, apart from the PC version having better contrast.

 

[Sodafish]

Why do they always use joypads to demo this stuff, even on PC? That horrible clunky movement triggers me.

 

[Morgoth]

Why do they always use joypads to demo this stuff, even on PC? That horrible clunky movement triggers me.

Pads are more comfortable for presentation purposes. For example, you can stand, walk around with it, and don't need a stupid table to have the keyboard situated on.

Think people. It's not that hard.

 

[Trash]

Well, they seem genuinly enthousiastic about this one. Am tempted but there is one thing holding me back. Well, actually two. Pre-ordering shit is stupid and CA has fucked me over repeatedly by releasing totally hyped up bugfests. I'll wait. Although I'm defenitely going to be watching this one from now on.

That pc gamer preview btw. Fucking hell. Summed up with 'we need an awesome button or else this will suck.'

It’s that feeling of relentlessness which worries me though. While I already have little doubt that Alien: Isolation is going to deliver pretty spectacularly on the sensation of being alone, faced with an implacable enemy, I’m less clear on whether that’s actually going to be a fun experience to have. I respect the decision not to make this a shootybang game, but there’s a reason most stealth and survival horror games—I’m thinking specifically of Splinter Cell, Dead Space and Manhunt—give you the chance to turn the table on your aggressors. I think players need to feel powerful at some point, if nothing else to blow off steam after the stress of being constantly chased. Without that, what are the enjoyable bits actually going to be?

This is why we can't have good things.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

There's an Alien: Isolation comic from the San Diego Comic-Con, it sheds some light on the setting:

The Sevastopol is a space station located in the Zeta Reticulii region, meant to house 5000 people and features accomodations for families, research facilities and commerce. Sounds like DS9 on steroids.

Part of the workforce are "Working Joe" class androids, all identical-looking. (Nice way for CA to save on graphical work.) They seem to have malfunctioned somehow and are killing civilians.

There's a marshal force on station. They're no colonial marines, but they're armed. Yet they seem incapable of dealing with one xeno, even when working in teams. If there is just one xeno, that is.

Part of the comic shows the marshals failing abysmally at taking down the xeno, with only their boss left alive at the end. Another part of the comic shows a facehuggered man, which suggests there being more than one xeno.

 

[SuicideBunny]

A little preview, in Herrensprache.

i like the enthusiastic voice when he says how you can use the noisemaker to have the xeno deal with pesky survivors.

 

[Duraframe300]

Prometheus was utterly retarded. They're gonna start shooting the sequel(s) this Fall with a launch date of March 2016.

I'm not sure what Ridley was thinking about greenlighting such a retarded script. I'd rather liked him handing over the franchise to someone else and focus on the Blade Runner sequel entirely.

I'd put the blame entirely upon the director. The script was a fairly interesting exploration of religion and meaning, and in particular, what makes something a god. The direction seems like he didn't really understand any of those themes.

Yeah, no.

Sorry, I can't believe that remotly even with your write-up.

For one simple reason.

According to you Ridley Scott suddenly forgot everything he did before while the writer of fucking LOST and Cowboys vs Aliens turns out to be some master genius of theming.

Sorry, thats a lot more unbelievable to me.

 

[Lyric Suite]

interesting exploration of religion and meaning

lol wat?

The script was fucking shit. That was the problem. That is always the problem with modern Hollywood films. A lot of modern directors are very skilled in making good looking pictures but the writers are fucking shit. Wasn't there some kind of writer crisis a while back? Writers not getting paid as much as anybody else, or something like that. Maybe there's actually something going on here that we don't know. Its possible that good talent has been driven away and all we are left with now are the n00bs or suck ups.

 

[Aldebaran]

I really wish they had went with the more chaotic and realistic dialogue from Alien. Other than that, I am somehow still cautiously optimistic about this game. As far as I know, they haven't managed to fuck this up with pulse rifle shoot-em-up segments.

Just like in Blade Runner, it is Ridley Scott's inability to clean up his script (or he simply didn't really know what he wanted) that leads to some interesting ambiguity.

Was the Xeno raping Lambert? We don't know, and I suspect neither did Ridley Scott.

Why was the Xeno "sleeping" in the closet? No answer from Ridley either.

Does the Xeno reproduce by forming a cocoon as in the alternative cut, or else? Again Ridley couldn't decide.

Etc and etc. All the ambiguity coupled with Giger's design and O'bannon's story (which is very Lovecraftian seeing that O'Bannon was very much a Lovecraft fan) created the masterpiece that is Alien. It simply can't be replicated in vidya game form.

I don't think it is fair to assign the ambiguity to having been caused by ineptitude. The mystery is not a weakness, but a great strength which ties in to the overall theme of Alien. Every directorial decision in the movie seems to have been hand picked to extend the mystique of the Alien as long as possible. Scott definitely knew what he was doing, and he definitely knew about the rape of Lambert. You don't film a scene like this and then forget about it (no matter how hard you might want to):

Also, someone made the decision to have Lambert's pants missing after the highly suggestive Alien attack, and I doubt the director would not be in the know about it.

My final hope is that they never use the term Xenomorph in the game. Of all the mistakes made and missteps taken in the series, giving the Alien a name was the worst one. Especially a scientific sounding name. One you attach a label to something it is diminished to the realm of the knowable and cemented there forever. Just another animal.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

My final hope is that they never use the term Xenomorph in the game. Of all the mistakes made and missteps taken in the series, giving the Alien a name was the worst one. Especially a scientific sounding name. One you attach a label to something it is diminished to the realm of the knowable and cemented there forever. Just another animal.

For the record, the scientific name for the xeno is Linguafoeda Acheronsis. Clever people might deduce why it's highly unlikely that it'll appear in Alien: Isolation.

 

[Machocruz]

PC vs PS4 comparison

The PS4 version looks like it was left out in the sun too long

 

[Curious_Tongue]

The script was a fairly interesting exploration of religion and meaning, and in particular, what makes something a god.

No, it wasn't.

 

[Gregz]

Every directorial decision in the movie seems to have been hand picked to extend the mystique of the Alien as long as possible.

...

My final hope is that they never use the term Xenomorph in the game. Of all the mistakes made and missteps taken in the series, giving the Alien a name was the worst one. Especially a scientific sounding name. One you attach a label to something it is diminished to the realm of the knowable and cemented there forever. Just another animal.

In fairness I don't think Cameron meant to 'name' it, that was a mistake made by audiences and bad fanfic writers. The military is all about taxonomy, acronyms, and terse functional language. They didn't know what 'it' was, so as per protocol some analysts read/watched Ripley's report, and placed 'it' in a sub-type to help define the mission parameters. That's how I see it anyway.

xeno - meaning foreign or other
morph - meaning shape

 

[Ebonsword]

Every directorial decision in the movie seems to have been hand picked to extend the mystique of the Alien as long as possible.

...

My final hope is that they never use the term Xenomorph in the game. Of all the mistakes made and missteps taken in the series, giving the Alien a name was the worst one. Especially a scientific sounding name. One you attach a label to something it is diminished to the realm of the knowable and cemented there forever. Just another animal.

In fairness I don't think Cameron meant to 'name' it, that was a mistake made by audiences and bad fanfic writers. The military is all about taxonomy, acronyms, and terse functional language. They didn't know what 'it' was, so as per protocol some analysts read/watched Ripley's report, and placed 'it' in a sub-type to help define the mission parameters. That's how I see it anyway.

xeno - meaning foreign or other
morph - meaning shape

Agreed. I always thought that "xenomorph" was like "UFO"--it's just a generic term they used for alien species they didn't really know anything about.

 

[Jaesun]

What are they supposed to call it? Xenomorph IS the correct term. I though it worked well.

 

[Behelit]

A little preview, in Herrensprache.

i like the enthusiastic voice when he says how you can use the noisemaker to have the xeno deal with pesky survivors.

Fascinating! I am surprised you have weapons. I know one will be unable to kill the Alien however using them as a deterrent is pretty cool. I think it lends well to the theme of the Alien being an unstoppable force from the deep cosmos. It can be delayed and distracted but not eradicated. There better be ammo/weapon scarcity and volume. What I mean by volume is that you can't simply holster a damn flamethrower.

 

[Morgoth]

Commentary-free: