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

[EG]

Did you play the first RE?

Several times -- once just four months ago.

I don't remember any noticeable imitation in aiming.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Not to mention the game had auto-aim eg.

there's no autoaim in the first us port of re1 because the porters thought it made the game too easy.

edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_(video_game)#English_localization

 

[tuluse]

Did you play the first RE?

Several times -- once just four months ago.

I don't remember any noticeable imitation in aiming.

Well have you played any other console games? Because I can't think of another game with aiming quite like RE.

 

[villain of the story]

Not to mention the game had auto-aim eg.

there's no autoaim in the first us port of re1 because the porters thought it made the game too easy.

edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_(video_game)#English_localization

Wow.

I've played the in English game on PC and it had auto aim. I guess it was the DC version?

 

[tuluse]

That wiki article probably only applies to the PS version.

 

[Zeus]

Edit: Turns out the increased difficulty in the US release of Resident Evil (no auto-aim) wasn't an attempt to make the game more scary. Capcom of America was worried US gamers would rent and beat it in a couple of days, causing sales to plummet. So they requested a bunch of changes to make the game harder to beat.

So yeah, it was purely a business decision.

 

[felipepepe]

Well have you played any other console games? Because I can't think of another game with aiming quite like RE.

Dino Crisis! :D

And yeah, RE aiming sucked horribly, not on humanoid enemies, but on hitting motherfucking dogs, birds and anything that required lower or higher aiming...

 

[Sunsetspawn]

Would the IP holders of the Alien franchise actually let a video game do something original and maybe open up the lore, kind of like how KOTOR genuinely expanded the Star Wars universe? An Alien RPG that explored the Xeno origins and maybe the bizarre elephantine space jockeys (fuck Prometheus, it should be ignored) and their current or dead civilization. Is there a large galactic community out there and do Xenos threaten it, or have the Xenos nearly destroyed it? Oh, and fuck Alien 3, Resurrection, everything AvP, the comics, the cartoons, and that monumental heap of dogshit known as Prometheus (didn't I already say that? well fuck it twice). They can all suck a giant bag of dicks.

 

[villain of the story]

Would the IP holders of the Alien franchise actually let a video game do something original and maybe open up the lore, kind of like how KOTOR genuinely expanded the Star Wars universe?

Only if they believed in the commercial potential of it so it's not entirely impossible. They allowed Aliens Board game to be produced. With enough push and a solid pitch with enough marketing hooks, a similarly good PC game (though likely not TB) might get made. I think it's just that there isn't anyone at all worth their shit interested in and trying to push such a game. We'll see if the KS old games revival will soften the landscape of the industry enough to let such games be made in a couple years, when those games with big names start getting released but even then, such a good Alien game might never get made.

An Alien RPG that explored the Xeno origins and maybe the bizarre elephantine space jockeys (fuck Prometheus, it should be ignored)

Prometheus had a lot of really good ideas, especially on the visual side. And it had a colossal amount of shitty ideas. I still like a number of elements in there even though the film is utter shit. I personally would draw a significant number of things from Prometheus, altering them to my own preferences.

Oh, and fuck Alien 3, Resurrection, everything AvP, the comics, the cartoons, and that monumental heap of dogshit known as Prometheus (didn't I already say that? well fuck it twice). They can all suck a giant bag of dicks.

Alien 3 isn't a completely horrific film. At least it doesn't alter the entire canon as much as any of the other films does, taking place on a prison planet. In fact, I like the film. I have even seen it a few times. It's just unfortunate that it shoehorned the franchise into a really shitty corner but at the same time, it opened up a lot of new venues and new opportunities by getting rid of Ripley (even if in a rather silly way), imo. Except they had to go full derp after that.

But if we're gonna start dismissing certain films, we might as well start with Aliens. Aliens alone is a huge departure from Alien on a lot of fronts. It's an iconic film and an okay sequel but it destroys a lot of the ambiguity and mystery of Alien. It completely replaces the unsympathetic and inhumanly bureaucratic wall of indifference of "the company" with a more entrepreneurial entity, however opportunistic. So why not start there?

 

[Brotherman Bill]

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.

Well, the thing is... Part of the Aliens identity is that whenever it's "stuck" it pulls something out of its ass to save it. Like the super acid blood that allows it to burn through it's prison, or the second mouth, or stuff like that. It cheats, simply put. That's what makes it a horror device too.

This is also why it's shit for RPGs. RPGs are all about making rules for all kinds of interactions, and one of the core things about the alien is its plot armor and ridiculous ability to cheat the system...

 

[Zeus]

This is also why it's shit for RPGs. RPGs are all about making rules for all kinds of interactions, and one of the core things about the alien is its plot armor and ridiculous ability to cheat the system...

I wouldn't mind seeing what they could come up with for an RPG. At least it wouldn't be an FPS.

Despite twenty years of trying to make fetch happen, Xenomorphs are obviously ill-suited as the enemies in first person shooters. They're so unfit for the role, game designers have to ignore the fact that they bleed acid and constantly make up new Alien types that are better suited for an action game.

"These guys are really big! These guys are blind! These guys s'plode!"

If you can't figure out how to make a stealthy, acid-bleeding rape-assassin work in your Space Marine FPS, maybe it's time to drop the license and come up with original enemies. I hear it worked for Doom.

 

[villain of the story]

There is practically little to no difference between a FPS and a TPS. They both share the same inherent problems when done in a similar manner eg. mere action games. And if you have watched that A:C tech demo video I linked to in the other thread, it is obvious it would be more like Alpha Protocol. And without the cutscenes, I imagine but that last part is mere speculation. A shit game regardless.

 

[Jasede]

Sadly, Obsidian is practically incapable of developing a game that doesn't hing on combat. Kind of like every other game developer. Except they also come up with some good stuff so we like them better. And we've known for quite some time that their Alien RPG would be just another combat RPG where you kill xenomorphs by hundreds. Perhaps not as bad as Space Siege or Diablo but still a combat heavy game. Replace Aliens with orcs or goblins and weapons with magic missiles or something and it's all the fucking same. Just pointless.

I don't really get what you're saying. This post has a ton of brofists, too, which is weird.
I have to admit that they made a lot of trash-combat heavy games. But we all also realize that the combat blows and is best forgotten. We don't love Obsidian for its garbage combat- we love them for their writing, the themes they tackle, their moods and atmospheres and narratives, that sort of thing.

But I'd still say it's wrong to say that their games "hinge" on combat. After all, its so bad and forgettable that we just breeze through it. How do they hinge on it? NWN 2? Nope, combat is so easy it might as well not be there. MotB? Again, just lots of trash-fights, albeit mercifully short. KOTOR 2? Tons of trash fights. But the combat is neither the focus nor what is good about the game. Saying that they, as a company, focus on combat a lot (as hinge implies) is flat-out wrong and I'm surprised nobody called you out on this.

 

[Sunsetspawn]

But if we're gonna start dismissing certain films, we might as well start with Aliens. Aliens alone is a huge departure from Alien on a lot of fronts. It's an iconic film and an okay sequel but it destroys a lot of the ambiguity and mystery of Alien. It completely replaces the unsympathetic and inhumanly bureaucratic wall of indifference of "the company" with a more entrepreneurial entity, however opportunistic. So why not start there?

Aliens was a different movie, and that's what a sequel should be. Alien 3 and Prometheus each tried to recapture Alien's "thing," and it bit them in the ass. And the fact is that with each movie a little bit more of the universe should be revealed. We can't keep trying to do Alien over and over and over, whether it be in film or in video game.

 

[Roguey]

But I'd still say it's wrong to say that their games "hinge" on combat. After all, its so bad and forgettable that we just breeze through it. How do they hinge on it? NWN 2? Nope, combat is so easy it might as well not be there. MotB? Again, just lots of trash-fights, albeit mercifully short. KOTOR 2? Tons of trash fights. But the combat is neither the focus nor what is good about the game. Saying that they, as a company, focus on combat a lot (as hinge implies) is flat-out wrong and I'm surprised nobody called you out on this.

If you removed the combat and all combat-related mechanics from Obsidian games, they wouldn't even be games anymore. Therefore their games hinge on combat.

 

[Infinitron]

If you removed the combat and all combat-related mechanics from RPGs, they wouldn't even be games anymore. Therefore RPGs hinge on combat.

:combatfag:

 

[Roguey]

If you removed the combat and all combat-related mechanics from RPGs, they wouldn't even be games anymore. Therefore RPGs hinge on combat.

:combatfag:

Gameplay is about overcoming challenges. Adventure games are games because they test your thinking skills. Action games are games because they test your fine motor skills. A thing where you just walk around, talk to people, and put points into your "use this skill on object/person" abilities don't do either, it's just an interactive story.

 

[Infinitron]

If you removed the combat and all combat-related mechanics from RPGs, they wouldn't even be games anymore. Therefore RPGs hinge on combat.

:combatfag:

Gameplay is about overcoming challenges. Adventure games are games because they test your thinking skills. Action games are games because they test your fine motor skills. A thing where you just walk around, talk to people, and put points into your "use this skill on object/person" abilities don't do either, it's just an interactive story.

I'm not disagreeing with you.

 

[villain of the story]

Sadly, Obsidian is practically incapable of developing a game that doesn't hing on combat. Kind of like every other game developer. Except they also come up with some good stuff so we like them better. And we've known for quite some time that their Alien RPG would be just another combat RPG where you kill xenomorphs by hundreds. Perhaps not as bad as Space Siege or Diablo but still a combat heavy game. Replace Aliens with orcs or goblins and weapons with magic missiles or something and it's all the fucking same. Just pointless.

I don't really get what you're saying. This post has a ton of brofists, too, which is weird.
I have to admit that they made a lot of trash-combat heavy games. But we all also realize that the combat blows and is best forgotten. We don't love Obsidian for its garbage combat- we love them for their writing, the themes they tackle, their moods and atmospheres and narratives, that sort of thing.

Hence "Except they also come up with some good stuff so we like them better"

But I'd still say it's wrong to say that their games "hinge" on combat. After all, its so bad and forgettable that we just breeze through it. How do they hinge on it? NWN 2? Nope, combat is so easy it might as well not be there. MotB? Again, just lots of trash-fights, albeit mercifully short. KOTOR 2? Tons of trash fights. But the combat is neither the focus nor what is good about the game. Saying that they, as a company, focus on combat a lot (as hinge implies) is flat-out wrong and I'm surprised nobody called you out on this.

Then why do they add banal shit boring combat with broken systems with *cough*SmartAssSawyerPedantry*cough* ? Because otherwise their games wouldn't sell. All the good things about their games are not enough to advance the storylines.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

But if we're gonna start dismissing certain films, we might as well start with Aliens. Aliens alone is a huge departure from Alien on a lot of fronts. It's an iconic film and an okay sequel but it destroys a lot of the ambiguity and mystery of Alien. It completely replaces the unsympathetic and inhumanly bureaucratic wall of indifference of "the company" with a more entrepreneurial entity, however opportunistic. So why not start there?

Aliens was a different movie, and that's what a sequel should be. Alien 3 and Prometheus each tried to recapture Alien's "thing," and it bit them in the ass. And the fact is that with each movie a little bit more of the universe should be revealed. We can't keep trying to do Alien over and over and over, whether it be in film or in video game.

Alien 3 definitely drew more from Alien than Aliens, but Prometheus seemed to be trying to go down a more philosophical route than either Alien or Aliens. And I don't think its fair to blame the problems with Alien 3 on the decision to draw on the original, since it had a notoriously troubled production when it took a new direction right before filiming started, with the new director having very little time for pre-production.

 

[Zeus]

The sad thing is, some of those early Alien 3 concepts were insane.

"What if this Alien had been encountered somewhere in the distant past on Earth? People would have thought of it as some kind of devil. Then, what if you had like a sort of powerful sect on Earth (in the future of the Alien movies) who reject all technology beyond a certain date. So the ruling forces say to the sect, 'Okay, you wanna live this way? We have an old satellite - huge thing. We'll tow it into outer space and you can just live there on your own.' They just give them a place to live where they know inevitably they're gonna die.

"The sect agree, but they believe in having an environment that looks archaic. Within that environment - a huge, round satellite about a mile in diameter - you have maybe 16 floors, each one about 100 metres high. It's layered like an ant's nest, or bee's nest, and each layer has been largely clad with huge areas of sculpted wood. They can grow wheat there, and even have windmills and orchards. In a way it's like a monastery. The satellite [named 'Arceon'] has a range of technologies that allow it to survive in outer space: it has a means of dealing with gravity, and a means of dealing with air, and it has a low surface atmosphere. It looks like a meteorite on the outer surface." This was what has since been called the 'Wooden Planet' vision.

http://www.empireonline.com/features/alien-3-tale-of-the-wooden-planet/

 

[Azrael the cat]

Would the IP holders of the Alien franchise actually let a video game do something original and maybe open up the lore, kind of like how KOTOR genuinely expanded the Star Wars universe?

Only if they believed in the commercial potential of it so it's not entirely impossible. They allowed Aliens Board game to be produced. With enough push and a solid pitch with enough marketing hooks, a similarly good PC game (though likely not TB) might get made. I think it's just that there isn't anyone at all worth their shit interested in and trying to push such a game. We'll see if the KS old games revival will soften the landscape of the industry enough to let such games be made in a couple years, when those games with big names start getting released but even then, such a good Alien game might never get made.

An Alien RPG that explored the Xeno origins and maybe the bizarre elephantine space jockeys (fuck Prometheus, it should be ignored)

Prometheus had a lot of really good ideas, especially on the visual side. And it had a colossal amount of shitty ideas. I still like a number of elements in there even though the film is utter shit. I personally would draw a significant number of things from Prometheus, altering them to my own preferences.

Oh, and fuck Alien 3, Resurrection, everything AvP, the comics, the cartoons, and that monumental heap of dogshit known as Prometheus (didn't I already say that? well fuck it twice). They can all suck a giant bag of dicks.

Alien 3 isn't a completely horrific film. At least it doesn't alter the entire canon as much as any of the other films does, taking place on a prison planet. In fact, I like the film. I have even seen it a few times. It's just unfortunate that it shoehorned the franchise into a really shitty corner but at the same time, it opened up a lot of new venues and new opportunities by getting rid of Ripley (even if in a rather silly way), imo. Except they had to go full derp after that.

But if we're gonna start dismissing certain films, we might as well start with Aliens. Aliens alone is a huge departure from Alien on a lot of fronts. It's an iconic film and an okay sequel but it destroys a lot of the ambiguity and mystery of Alien. It completely replaces the unsympathetic and inhumanly bureaucratic wall of indifference of "the company" with a more entrepreneurial entity, however opportunistic. So why not start there?

The last thing that any addition to the franchise - game or otherwise - should expand upon is the aliens themselves. Fanboys would love that shit, but it's a ticket to creative disaster as it's simply an exercise in transforming the mysterious to the mundane. Gibson had it right - if you're going to expand on something, it needs to be the human end of it. How much did the corporation know? What was Burke trying to do (assuming that he, or whoever he's taking orders from, has a better plan than 'herp derp breed aliens on earth until they overrun the place')? There's room there for playing with different genres and world-building without doing to Aliens what the star wars extended franchise did to the force (i.e. suck all the mystery out of it to appease fan-boys who think lore = good writing).

 

[Jasede]

I'd rather buy Obsidian games if they didn't have combat. They should make visual novels with sound and C&C and stats. Why not?

 

[Jaesun]

They would probably make millions (like Telltale did with Walking Dead).

 

[villain of the story]

I'd rather buy Obsidian games if they didn't have combat. They should make visual novels with sound and C&C and stats. Why not?

Agreed.

They would probably make millions (like Telltale did with Walking Dead).

Not so sure about that. They have quite the ego regarding their RPG backgrounds. Imagine Sawyer quitting derping forever about game systems while delivering shit broken games. Yeah, impossible.