Game News Sega and Obsidian Entertainment to work on Alien franchise

[Volourn]

"You didn't think KOTOR 2 was dark and angsty? I don't know what to say. Kreia (and to a lesser extent, Atton Rand) was like the personification of dark and angsty, not that she carried any depth, necessarily - but you would never see a NPC like that in a Bioware game."

No. It wans't dark or angsty. Hell, KOTOR1 was darker and more antsy. FFs, the 'goodguys' known as tghe Jedi fuckin' used brainwashing to get what they fuckin' want. Notjing in KOTOR2 even gets darker. And, you cna't get more 'angsty' than Romeo & Juliet or robots wnating to have sex with humans like in KOTOR1. And, nothing is more creepy than a walking carpet having sex with a 14 year old alien girlie.


"Meanwhile, in NWN 2, you had the whole juxtaposition of a "good" ending where you're crushed by rocks (OR MAYBE YOU ESCAPED!11!) "

It's 100% obvious to everyone who has any brains at all that the PC and companions DO NOT die at the end of NWN2. Moron. In fact, the ending of NWN2 is a complete rip off of HOTU.

 

[Bradylama]

I dunno. Now that I've thought about it, an Alien RPG could have a lot to offer in terms of roleplaying with a small cast of NPCs. A dialogue-heavy game with 10-15 NPCs and a slowly growing alien infestation would give the PC a lot of leeway in determining who lives, who dies, and other factors such as whether you can stop the infestation, escape, or sell out everybody to Weyland-Yutani.

The early game could emulate the first movie with a lot of mystery, and the closest thing Obsidian has done in that regard was the asteroid in KOTORII, which was an element of the game I enjoyed. Albeit the Alien game would be less action-intensive. Later on, the game could be more actioney or hide and sneak depending on the character build.

It's got a lot of potential, but what would be key is the atmosphere, pacing, and how much impact dialogue has on the in-game events.

 

[Krafter]

I love my RPGs and I love my Alien movies, but I seriously doubt this will be anything other than a console-style action RPG. Too bad, I'd love a horror RPG in which people die left and right and the end goal is simply survival. A single Alien instead of the inevitable hordes would be cool, too. Bradylama's first paragraph works for me pretty well, especially a 'Burke' option where I try and hide my true intentions, frame others, ect.

The fact that they are making a shooter and an RPG rather than combining them into one game gives me a little hope, though.

 

[denizsi]

Utter BS, moron. The whole Dog-Alien concept (should better be named Cow-Alien) was designed by HRG himself. They altered the the final design to get it to work as a puppet-on-a-string, but it IS HRG's work.

You wrote these because I said it is not Giger's work, right? Where? I don't remember, especially not anything about the dog-alien or cow-alien. He's not properly credited for any of the movies ( past the original ) and games, if he's credited at all. You can get yourself the DVDs of the series and the recent games and see for yourself.

To save you some of the hardwork though, here is a little something for your little brain behind your tick skull, and here is another one.

I hope you'll read properly from now on and think it over the next time before you cry bullshit and call someone you don't know a moron.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Utter BS, moron. The whole Dog-Alien concept (should better be named Cow-Alien) was designed by HRG himself. They altered the the final design to get it to work as a puppet-on-a-string, but it IS HRG's work.

You wrote these because I said it is not Giger's work, right? Where? I don't remember, especially not anything about the dog-alien or cow-alien. He's not properly credited for any of the movies ( past the original ) and games, if he's credited at all. You can get yourself the DVDs of the series and the recent games and see for yourself.

To save you some of the hardwork though, here is a little something for your little brain behind your tick skull, and here is another one.

I hope you'll read properly from now on and think it over the next time before you cry bullshit and call someone you don't know a moron.

Stop bs-ing me! I've probably seen the first Alien movie when you whacked off to Scooby-Doo.

A single use of your DVD of Alien³ (Director's Cut) would have you provided with the information, that Giger dropped out because of the altering they did to ox-alien turning it into the dog-alien. I also read a looooooooong time ago that Fincher (the only interview he gave about the movie AFAIK) chose to remove the slaughter house sequence and need a new alien birth scene and so another alien design. His words are certainly not featured on the DVD because of his fallout with Brandywine Productions.

You are correct about the Cameron thing - but (as you may have noticed) I never disagreed about that.

So, I hope you will get this behind your "TICK" skull and you may be able to get back to a Scooby rerun...

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

The alien movies weren't epic. They are not staying true to the source material!

 

[denizsi]

Stop bs-ing me! I've probably seen the first Alien movie when you whacked off to Scooby-Doo.

Now that's not the way one talks to his father, but I assume you were never told the truth, were you?

 

[Pegultagol]

This is intriguing, with so many possibilities and how Obsidian could fill out a nice little niche for themselves after their Bioware hand me down legacy. I think it will be difficult to achieve the kind of gameplay that everyone mentioned of being worthy of their attention, since this may just as well be an attempt to create an action RPG. I sincerely hope that Obsidian does not take after Mass Effect as in attempting to use its assets and engine to go about emulating the action RPG hybrid formula. I hope they rather go all out and start from ground up with their own engine conceived to emphasize the atmosphere of the game or include the licensing of Unreal 3 engine as an incentive to development. Can they do that? Will they end up resorting to Real Time with Pause for an Alien game?

Also, since this is strictly a deal with Fox 21st century, there is not even a remote chance for Giger to lend input into the overall aesthetic designs, right? Does he at least have some experience in dealing with the platform, maybe from Dark Seed development?

I hope for the best, which of course will be premature since this game will probably not come out until around this time of 2009 if it does not want to dash what little expectation anyone has in the project by setting the timetable to include only 2 years' worth of development time.

 

[Azarkon]

I dunno. Now that I've thought about it, an Alien RPG could have a lot to offer in terms of roleplaying with a small cast of NPCs. A dialogue-heavy game with 10-15 NPCs and a slowly growing alien infestation would give the PC a lot of leeway in determining who lives, who dies, and other factors such as whether you can stop the infestation, escape, or sell out everybody to Weyland-Yutani.

One thing's for sure, it'll need a good character mechanics system. I'd hate to see them go the KOTOR route with the Aliens franchise; I could understand Jedi being ubermensche heroes, but the Aliens universe is much more "realistic."

 

[doctor_kaz]

This is a really weird choice for an RPG. There hasn't been much established for the Alien "universe" besides a monster with a scary life cycle and Marines that cuss a lot. Supposedly there are some books out there too, but most of the target audience for this game probably haven't read them. I trust Obsidian, but the way that this is coming out with an FPS makes me suspicious that it's shovelware being timed with a new movie in 2009.

 

[suibhne]

I love my RPGs and I love my Alien movies, but I seriously doubt this will be anything other than a console-style action RPG.

It would make no sense for Sega to fund a full-on action game and an action-RPG to be released in the same franchise at roughly the same time. That's the only thing that gives me hope this might be an interesting project.

 

[Krafter]

Suibhne, yeah, I hope you are on to something with that. Maybe we'll get lucky and get an actual RPG out of the deal.

About it being tied in with a movie, I would only worry about that if the games were in the Alien vs Predator vein, not just plain 'ol Alien. I was under the impression that AVP2 was coming before Alien 5, but I could be wrong there. It certainly does seem like a movie is on the horizon with all this new activity, though.

 

[Surgey]

Yeah, AvP RPG would be a little awkward unless you played a Predator ("Sweet, I'm a Level 10 Alien Runner! I'll just put my first talent point into Predator Slaying... sweet, +10% damage to Predators!"). I'm glad it's just Alien.

The idea is a little strange... This feels like it just came out of nowhere, but it might be fun. I'll keep an eye on it, at the very least... it can't be that bad if it's like System Shock. Then again, it probably won't have a laser rapier. :\

 

[sheek]

There are some Alien(tm)-ish PnP RPGs which have been made. In general it means a lot of intra-party role-playing and not as much fighting or 'quest progression' as a typical RPG. Like a Cthulhu kind of game, the whole idea is that most characters will go insane and die randomly and brutally - a metaphor for how insignificant the human species is. So the game world and GM is much more powerful than the players' choices. I can't really imagine Obsidian or any other mainstream company making this work in computer format and be fun.

 

[FrancoTAU]

Well, the FPS game AvP2 had a pretty awesome atmosphere and nifty story. They didn't really have much lore to work off with either. With Obsidian at the helm, i'm not really worried about the story and NPCs being dull. I just hope its not rushed out the door with bugs and shitty PC port.

 

[kingcomrade]

ZERG RUSH11

I've only seen the first Alien, Alien Ressurection, and Alien vs. Predator. The last two were pretty dumb. I liked how the first Alien wasn't cookie cutter when it comes to horror. Nowadays horror movies are all the same. Children singing children songs then suddenly something JUMPS OUT and then there's a scene where something really gory and graphic happens just because. I don't think I've gone to see any horror movies in a long time since you can tell they never get any better than they are in the previews.

In the original Alien I remember thinking there was much less of the ZOMG JUMP OUT type stuff. It showed the Alien before it attacked, most of the time. Very different from today, is what I'm saying.

 

[Lurkar]

Horror movies suck because they're massed produced. It's a lot easier to just paint walls with gore then to come up with actual suspense. Same thing with the OH SHIT HOLY FUCK IT JUST JUMPED AT ME crap - it's a hell of a lot easier to make then to actually come up with a decent goddamn villain.

Worst part?

The second they make an antagonist who doesn't suck, they force ten fucking sequels and hey, what do you know, now he DOES suck.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Edit: But, the first alien movie.

The first one was awesome because the emphasis wasn't on "Oh no, guys, some evil thing is killing us," the emphasis was on this idea of being completely stranded, alone, with an alien killer. What made the aliens so scary in the first movie, is that they were actually alien - it's where Giger's artwork came in handy. In most sci-fi movies, the aliens suck, because they took some stereotypical kid nightmare and added a tube to it's head, or some bullshit like that. The point I'm trying to make as I meander about is - the first alien was original, and it was scary as fuck. And, like I said - it was actually alien, it was inhuman, it was impossible to comprehend. It wasn't bad, it just existed outside of what we could believe in. And this creature was stalking you, and you KNOW it was stalking you, and you couldn't run from it because you had no place to go, and you couldn't hide from it.

The movie had suspense. You saw the alien coming, so it could actually build you up, to better give the feeling of being prey.

 

[Jasede]

Horror movies suck because they're massed produced. It's a lot easier to just paint walls with gore then to come up with actual suspense. Same thing with the OH SHIT HOLY FUCK IT JUST JUMPED AT ME crap - it's a hell of a lot easier to make then to actually come up with a decent goddamn villain.

And that, my friend, is why Robbing The Cradle of Thief: Deadly Shadows is the best horror-level ever. It doesn't have gore. It doesn't have monsters jumping at you out of windows. Oh no. It's much, much more horrible than that. Also, System Shock 2. While that game does use shock-moments, it still maintains a perpetual atmosphere of sheer horror and loneliness, much like Alien. Only you, the humming of the engines, and the distant whirr of some hostile cyborgs... corpses lining your way; no signs of life, except for twisted mutants that try to kill you while saying "I am sooooorrry...."

And the Alien alien was damn sexy! :wink:

 

[Rosh]

Expect KoTOR, with a friendly face hugger companion who OMG *shock* turns on you!

Pffft...nothing so simple, please. Expect some quality from Obsidian, okay? After all, they are "experienced" and the story of KoTOR 2: The Shit Lords was nothing but top notch!

Sarcasm aside, I wonder if they are going for munchkinism replacing anything decent story/setting-wise again, which will likely give the PC a predalian armed with a +7 Plasma Canon that can be modified into a +25 Plasma Canon, as long as you walk in and out of the spaceship enough times so the cut scene will occur.