Game News More Aliens RPG: A gameplay video appears!

[Jaesun]

Aliens isn't a horror movie, Aliens is an action movie about a squad of soldiers. Alien was the horror movie.

 

[Severian Silk]

The game looked OK to me, though turn-based/isometric would have sealed the deal.

:sniff:

(IIRC I thought there was an old screenshot that showed the squad from an overhead perspective. That's what I was expecting.)

 

[tuluse]

Aliens was an action-horror hybrid. Like Deus Ex.

Spoiler

 

[St. Toxic]

Shoulder mounted third person for the most immersive combat ever.

 

[ghostdog]

IMO the best way to approach such a game (especially when it's Obsidian we're talking about) would be to make a survival horror game, with minimal combat face to face with the xenomorphs, utilising mainly your surroundings and trying to escape. There is room for RPG mechanics in such a game, even if it would not be combat heavy.

 

[RK47]

Shd've gone DS3 style.

Alien Siege

 

[Cyberarmy]

Shd've gone DS3 style.

Alien Siege

We have already got a horrible game on that department.
Space Siege....

 

[RK47]

i pretended i was playing contra RPG.

 

[Infinitron]

Sawyer being Sawyer: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/428353906754471150

 

[abnaxus]

Shd've gone DS3 style.

Alien Siege

We have already got a horrible game on that department.
Space Siege....

Space Siege actually had C&C that changed gameplay ("I want to be a robot!"), while in DS3 and Alpha Protolol it just amounted to useless story fluff.

 

[Cyberarmy]

i pretended i was playing contra RPG.

Forum noobie question, how do i brofist this?!?
But it think Alien Breed would be better

abnaxus
They have done several right things in Space Siege but generally it was a horrible game, just like a pretty Alien Shooter clone.

 

[MurkyShadow]

man, that would have been much better with incubation style tb combat.
or at least less bad...

An Alien game in the style of Incubation would be working quiet well I'd imagine. There where many battles in Incubation, where
you had to prioritize, getting that extra chest could cost you lives, the wrong loadout, decision in skills, weapon overheating, ammo.
I remember the atmosphere as tense, most of the time. The sequences in between worked well.

With all that kickstarter craze, why isn't there an Incubation kickstarter? I'd pledge for that.
But please, don't make it like that pseudo tactical console X-Com remake.

 

[RK47]

i pretended i was playing contra RPG.

Forum noobie question, how do i brofist this?!?
But it think Alien Breed would be better

abnaxus
They have done several right things in Space Siege but generally it was a horrible game, just like a pretty Alien Shooter clone.

you need to make donation on the top right hand corner button.

 

[Roguey]

Ditto AP – any good found in the game is there despite the Sega mandated bullshit.

Mills and Avellone have said that Sega only forced those mandates on them because they fucked it up entirely on their own first. The sorry state of both Aliens and AP proved that Obsidian could not handle and did not deserve autonomy at that given point in time.

Space Siege actually had C&C that changed gameplay ("I want to be a robot!"), while in DS3 and Alpha Protolol it just amounted to useless story fluff.

There were two boss fights where a decision you made could make it harder/easier (and change the loot drop for the end Archon fight) and different decisions would give you different/more stat bonuses.

There were going to be different options in the swamp and the cave but they were cut for time.

 

[Jedi Exile]

It looks fine. Certainly not worse than Alpha Protocol, and AP was playable.

 

[Gozma]

I remember thinking an Aliens RPG would necessarily be terrible when they announced it, looks as bad as I thought. Mass Effect cannot be crossbred with Alien action-horror. However now I can see how it could have been good.

Single character action survival-horror, you are on some colony that gallantly ignores whatever dumbshit comic book/toy extended universe continuity, with generic Alien steamy corridor set design; alien infestation starts due to whatever. The whole plot is just to escape. You have no possible way to survive direct conflict with a single alien for most of the game, and at best it requires a highly inefficient use of resources for no returns. Standard Aliens corporate intrigues and double-crosses, Aliens-style space marines, escape sequences, etc. form the substrate for RPGish NPC interaction and gameplay (e.g. winnable fights that produce more stuff than they cost). Basically the aliens are the force pushing the game along, not fucking mobs to be harvested. Maybe you could do some class (as in socio-economic) stuff to mirror the first movie. License is serviced, game is not doomed to be shitty from the drawing board, tell Feargus you are just ripping off Bioshock or something so he doesn't go into AAA torpor

Too bad

 

[Jaesun]

Single character action survival-horror, you are on some colony that gallantly ignores whatever dumbshit comic book/toy extended universe continuity, with generic Alien steamy corridor set design; alien infestation starts due to whatever. The whole plot is just to escape. You have no possible way to survive direct conflict with a single alien for most of the game, and at best it requires a highly inefficient use of resources for no returns.

I would back the shit out of any game like this if it was on Kickstarter (and a sci-fi/Space setting).

 

[Crispy]

Nothing says "horror" like all the aliens standing there patiently waiting their turn till the player is ready to do something.

That's why RTwP would've been best IMO. You think you've got everything under control when paused as you're giving out your various commands -- This guy needs to reload, this guy needs to fire his flamethrower in this arc, this guy's turning to check the rear for movement, etc. -- and as soon as you unpause the speed at which the xenos are coming at you becomes a frightening reality.

They're just too fast.

 

[Arkadin]

The only scary xenos I've ever encountered in a game.

 

[Crispy]

Aliens xenos don't wield laser pistols, plasma rifles, or hurl grenades. So turn-based for X-Com still retained that tension but it wouldn't work in this case.

 

[Crispy]

I really would have loved an ISO RTwP Aliens RPG. I can envision right now trying to assess one's situation while paused by rotating the camera around your squad, a la something like Sins of a Solar Empire, with a pack of xenos bearing down on your position. Some on the deck, some on the walls, some on the ceiling, with those ones being transparent for the purposes of clarity while rotating the camera in a closed corridor situation, their running/skittering animation frozen in place but still portraying their unnatural speed, certain effects like explosions or even rounds mid-flight visible and perfectly preserved while also paused.

And once you hit the spacebar again, dreading doing so, everything resumes perfectly, and smoothly, and terrifyingly. You let things play out for just a second or two, and then you hit pause again just as they're on top of you. Jones has *almost* released that frag grenade but they're already within the safe detonation perimeter so it may have been too late anyway. Lucas has one right on top of him -- he's a lost cause. Sanchez is in perfect position to spray three of them, but they're close enough that he's going to take an acid bath in doing so. Good think Mack is ready with his medpack already equipped otherwise we'd be down yet another man in no time.

And where's McCaffery? Where's McCaffery??

All of this is subtlely yet exquisitely balanced out and controlled by hard-earned stat increases as you survive each encounter and complete each mission, all weapons are conservatively improvable, slightly better armor is available later on, etc. Crew replenishment is handled exactly like it was in Jagged Alliance. Disembarking is handled from the big-wheel just like it was in X-Com and everything in the game other than permanent installations is destructible to some degree. Some of the missions involve very deep penetration into many-layered facilities, effectively cutting you off from reinforcements and any benefits afforded by communication with the drop ship. There would be permadeath.

How glorious it could've been. I should have gone into video game design.

 

[Lockkaliber]

I remember thinking an Aliens RPG would necessarily be terrible when they announced it, looks as bad as I thought. Mass Effect cannot be crossbred with Alien action-horror. However now I can see how it could have been good.

Single character action survival-horror, you are on some colony that gallantly ignores whatever dumbshit comic book/toy extended universe continuity, with generic Alien steamy corridor set design; alien infestation starts due to whatever. The whole plot is just to escape. You have no possible way to survive direct conflict with a single alien for most of the game, and at best it requires a highly inefficient use of resources for no returns. Standard Aliens corporate intrigues and double-crosses, Aliens-style space marines, escape sequences, etc. form the substrate for RPGish NPC interaction and gameplay (e.g. winnable fights that produce more stuff than they cost). Basically the aliens are the force pushing the game along, not fucking mobs to be harvested. Maybe you could do some class (as in socio-economic) stuff to mirror the first movie. License is serviced, game is not doomed to be shitty from the drawing board, tell Feargus you are just ripping off Bioshock or something so he doesn't go into AAA torpor

Too bad

Cool ideas Gozma, your ideas got me thinking about a survival horror kind of game but with a level/game world design like in Super Metroid, where you have to find certain items to be able to unlock certain parts of the game world. Like you get taken by the aliens to their lair and plastered to the wall by their smegma, but somehow survive and manage to get down. You are on the bottom level of a giant power plant-ish complex, like in Aliens and have to escape. Could work with some cool c&c as well, ensuring that there are several ways to play through the game, and several parts of the map you won't go through in your first play through.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

The only scary xenos I've ever encountered in a game.

Is it a total team kill in next 2 turns?

Aliens xenos don't wield laser pistols, plasma rifles, or hurl grenades. So turn-based for X-Com still retained that tension but it wouldn't work in this case.

Dude. The most horrifying race in X-Com 1 is meelee only.

I really would have loved an ISO RTwP Aliens RPG. I can envision right now trying to assess one's situation while paused by rotating the camera around your squad, a la something like Sins of a Solar Empire, with a pack of xenos bearing down on your position. Some on the deck, some on the walls, some on the ceiling, with those ones being transparent for the purposes of clarity while rotating the camera in a closed corridor situation, their running/skittering animation frozen in place but still portraying their unnatural speed, certain effects like explosions or even rounds mid-flight visible and perfectly preserved while also paused.

X-Com 3. It gives you too much control over soldiers and too fast ability to react with orders.

 

[EG]

I really would have loved an ISO RTwP Aliens RPG. I can envision right now trying to assess one's situation while paused by rotating the camera around your squad, a la something like Sins of a Solar Empire, with a pack of xenos bearing down on your position. Some on the deck, some on the walls, some on the ceiling, with those ones being transparent for the purposes of clarity while rotating the camera in a closed corridor situation, their running/skittering animation frozen in place but still portraying their unnatural speed, certain effects like explosions or even rounds mid-flight visible and perfectly preserved while also paused.

X-Com 3. It gives you too much control over soldiers and too fast ability to react with orders.

So fast, dodging RPGs is a breeze.

Until the Cult of Sirus takes down their own building with you in it.

 

[Crispy]

I didn't intend to describe X-Com: EU. I've never played that game. Is it worth a try?