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Game News Animation reel from cancelled Aliens: Crucible RPG discovered on Vimeo

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People knew what sharks looked like back in '75, but Jaws still worked. Not purely a horror film, but I think the comparison still stands.

Exactly. Fear of the unknown is a vital part of horror. But we know how humans work, that doesn't mean Silence of the Lambs didn't have effective atmosphere and tension.

This attitude is just so self-defeating.

Yes, there are many things that be the terrifying unknown besides the appearance of the monster. The scariest things are not just unknown, but unknowable. Not knowing what the alien looks like enhances the horror, but the horror derives from the alien's incomprehensible non-humanness. In other words, its fundamental...alienness. :rimshot:

Hannibal Lector and Buffalo Bill are scary because, although they have human shapes, their minds work in a way we would consider fundamentally non-human.

Other examples would be the few good vampire horror works (Dracula always looks human) and body-snatcher type horror (where the appearance is irrelevant because the monsters look human).
 

Zeus

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How to make Xenomorphs scary: Take their acid blood into account and eliminate the option of easily mowing down wave after wave of them like you're friggin' Rambo.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Even ignoring that, I'd argue that the aliens are LESS crippled as a monster in game format than in film. In a movie, you might think 'ehhh, I've seen these fuckers gunned down by the thousands, protag's just a pussy if they can't deal w/ it', while in a game it's more along the lines of 'oh fuck this thing has so many ways to kill me, it's dark, and I can only hope I see it before it sees me'. It all comes down to what situation the game puts you in, and how it presents the alien.

Okay, but tell me - wouldn't that same situation be more effective with a monster that you haven't seen gunned down by the thousands?

Even if you can make a functional horror game with an Alien, it's not an optimal choice.
 

grotsnik

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The problem with making successful horror games with the Aliens franchise is that the Aliens have been revealed... a lot. There is no mystery with them anymore. After 4 movies, countless comics and novels, countless video games - where the Alien and Alien variants have been killed multiple times, you have to tread new ground if you want to do something original. The horror with the Aliens no longer lies in the unknown...For example, the second or third time you watch Alien, it is no longer scary. My second playthrough of Amnesia was easy and scare-free.

I think that's exactly why an Alien game would probably work better as something on a smaller scale, in a single location. As you say, the surprise of the Aliens has been long lost, but their other key frightening quality is supposed to be how absurdly deadly they are, right down to their acid blood - the idea that you simply can't confront them, and unless you manage to get a metal door between you and them (or you get lucky with some kind of airlock scenario) you're almost certainly going to die once they've spotted you - because they're so relentless and fast, because they're not going to get confused and drop their aggro after you hide behind some barrels and then stand facing in the wrong direction murmuring, 'Could've sworn I heard something...' or let you kite them down a long linear passageway, chipping away at their HP.

And I think that kind of frantic, fumbling environment-based 'have to get to this control panel and lock the doors before the thing eats me' disempowerment can be incredibly scary even on repeat plays and with over-familiar enemies - at least, the werewolf chase in Bloodlines continues to make me cack myself and yell, 'Fuck, fuck, fuck!' long after the Ocean House Hotel has become far too familiar and routine to have any impact at all.

Whereas with these Aliens-inspired heavily-scripted action games, it seems like the developer is always going to be battling against the xenomorphs' natural degeneration into the generic monsters of a thousand Aliens/Starship Troopers-influenced shooters, the 'nasty thing that spawns out of an air vent or at the end of a corridor and then you mow it down with your assault rifle'. No matter how hard you work on atmospherics or limited resources, the player is too empowered and the aliens too numerous and limited to recreate the impotent and above all tactically-minded fear the characters experience in the films, the sense of '...I think it's gone - wait, where has it gone? Should somebody make a dash for the power station? Should the wounded guy stay here to try and hold it off? What exactly is our plan here?'

Instead, as a matter of course, it's 'NPC 1: I got a baad feeling about this. Motion tracker beeps automatically, in order to recreate a beat from the movies. Wave of bugs spawns in at a certain point in the level. Player massacres bugs. NPC 2: There's too many! Retreat. New objective: Retreat to X Checkpoint.' It's so horribly inorganic, and instead of trying to actively out-think an unpredictable AI opponent which can react to a changing situation, the player's following the game's orders, waiting for the next sequence to trigger so they can shoot more bugs. They have excessive power but zero agency, when it needs to be precisely the other way around.
 

felipepepe

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Yeah, the big issue is turning Aliens into frenetic shooter, with tons of aliens dying like cannon fodder at player's glorious weapons... is a shot waaay back, but Dino Crisis 1 did much of this right IMHO, with very few monsters that would roam the levels and give you a very hard time, and the lack of firepower/ammo/healing items forced you to fear them, to avoid them, to try and use the level design, like laser fields, to trap them and avoid a direct battle...

Aliens would work very well on a similar approah; the player has some objectives and the aliens are around the ship hunting them. Have some hand-place aliens and some randomly walking ones, and the player will really be scarred of walking around, with few bullets, massive fear of acid blood and the motion tracker always on. Sadly, they just don't do games like this anymore...
 

The Bishop

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And I think that kind of frantic, fumbling environment-based 'have to get to this control panel and lock the doors before the thing eats me' disempowerment can be incredibly scary even on repeat plays and with over-familiar enemies - at least, the werewolf chase in Bloodlines continues to make me cack myself and yell, 'Fuck, fuck, fuck!' long after the Ocean House Hotel has become far too familiar and routine to have any impact at all.

...

Instead, as a matter of course, it's 'NPC 1: I got a baad feeling about this. Motion tracker beeps automatically, in order to recreate a beat from the movies. Wave of bugs spawns in at a certain point in the level. Player massacres bugs. NPC 2: There's too many! Retreat. New objective: Retreat to X Checkpoint.' It's so horribly inorganic, and instead of trying to actively out-think an unpredictable AI opponent which can react to a changing situation, the player's following the game's orders, waiting for the next sequence to trigger so they can shoot more bugs. They have excessive power but zero agency, when it needs to be precisely the other way around.
Powerlessness, vulnerability are indeed great for conveying fear. Having to make difficult decisions in life or death situations can be quite terrifying as well. But the thing is, other than fear those can also cause frustration. You need to be treating your player as a mature person to expect him to overcome that frustration and being able to appreciate the experience of overcoming it. And that's so not modern game design.
 
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Obsidian's at least looks less awful than most of what's been done with the xenomorphs,

54874_AliensRPG-ConceptArt-01_normal.jpg


Nope.

Makes me wonder: how much health would that obvious alien boss have, how much damage and firepower would it take to kill it? How much circling and running around while shooting and buffing/debuffing? Does that sound like it would be a quality alien game to any of you lamenting the abortion of Alien: Crucible?
 
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Many classic horror games gave you clumsy controls on purpose to emulate that feeling. But I thought we didn't like CINEMATIC games on the Codex.

This is pure bullshit. On purpose? God. That is almost like saying that early RPGs (pre 90s) looked bad on purpose to stimulate your imagination. FFS.
 

felipepepe

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True, Aliens already have massive xenomorphs, that Obsidian wanted to make and even bigger & tankier definetly shows were they were going....
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
It was called Aliens: Crucible, not Alien: Crucible. That should tell you everything you need to know.
 

SuicideBunny

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Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
Does that sound like it would be a quality alien game to any of you lamenting the abortion of Alien: Crucible?
tbh, yes.
i couldn't care less about alien(s) lore (even more so after prometheus), but am starved for rpgs of at-least obsidian level of quality.
 

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Many classic horror games gave you clumsy controls on purpose to emulate that feeling. But I thought we didn't like CINEMATIC games on the Codex.

This is pure bullshit. On purpose? God. That is almost like saying that early RPGs (pre 90s) looked bad on purpose to stimulate your imagination. FFS.
Yeah a game like Fatal Frame has very slow movement on purpose.
 

Seerix

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I played trough the A:CM few days ago. Even that pre-alpha footage was more fun and interesting than that piece of shit fps. :roll:

EDIT:


It all comes down to what situation the game puts you in, and how it presents the alien.

Meaning, at the very least not like this:
i212wUcwcU0eE.gif


Oh that part of the game was awesome. This alien type is some exploding retardo alien that only reacts to movement and your whole purpose trough the level is to get trough all of them(really boring and easy as they immediately forgot where you are if you stand still) and push designated levers to activate some machinery to freak out groups of those aliens so they attack it and explode. :lol:
 

Sannom

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As you say, the surprise of the Aliens has been long lost, but their other key frightening quality is supposed to be how absurdly deadly they are, right down to their acid blood - the idea that you simply can't confront them, and unless you manage to get a metal door between you and them (or you get lucky with some kind of airlock scenario) you're almost certainly going to die once they've spotted you - because they're so relentless and fast
That's a problem I have had with the franchise ever since I actually saw the movies a few months ago : where does that reputation come from? A lone man (arguably, a big one) manages to wrestle the thing for a few seconds in the first movie and the xenomorph uses a sucker-punch to get him out of his face. If the poor guy had had a companion with just a little bit more nerves, there would have been three survivors instead of just the one.
 

SuicideBunny

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Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
Many classic horror games gave you clumsy controls on purpose to emulate that feeling. But I thought we didn't like CINEMATIC games on the Codex.

This is pure bullshit. On purpose? God. That is almost like saying that early RPGs (pre 90s) looked bad on purpose to stimulate your imagination. FFS.
Yeah a game like Fatal Frame has very slow movement on purpose.
resident evil has purposefully shitty controls too, as does rule of rose (although they did go overboard with the shit controls in that one).
 
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Many classic horror games gave you clumsy controls on purpose to emulate that feeling. But I thought we didn't like CINEMATIC games on the Codex.

This is pure bullshit. On purpose? God. That is almost like saying that early RPGs (pre 90s) looked bad on purpose to stimulate your imagination. FFS.
Yeah a game like Fatal Frame has very slow movement on purpose.

Slow but not clumsy. Clumsy is when control scheme is basically retarded that it's a challenge to control your character to begin with.
 
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And I must add that RE was only occasionally clumsy. It could have been better but you get over the fuck with it within your first 10 minutes and there are only a few encounters where controls can fuck you up for real.
 
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Not to mention aiming with the weird cameras angles took some time to get used to.

Not to mention the game had auto-aim eg. if there were enemies in your room and you aimed, your character automatically turned towards the closest threat. You had to be a big dumb ass to screw up with controls in that game.

But yes, it certainly took some getting used to.
 

SuicideBunny

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Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
Slow but not clumsy. Clumsy is when control scheme is basically retarded that it's a challenge to control your character to begin with.
go play rule of rose. the controls are intentionally so bad and clumsy that it almost ruins the awesome story.
 

EG

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tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Did you play the first RE?
 

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