Stanislao Moulinsky said:
Why it's so hard to make a damn Aliens game?
It shouldn't be rocket science.
Hassknecht said:
Well, apart from Aliens: Infestation, but I haven't played that so far.
It's mediocre, don't bother. A couple of nice ideas, great pixel art and tons of wasted potential.
Play Alien 3 SNES/Genesis instead.
I don't completely agree with you, one thing in which I think it is better than the Alien 3 SNES/Genesis game is that it doesn't become as repetitive (mind you, it is not long either) as those games tended to become after a while.
I do think that Wayforward had intended to put more into this game when I look at elements such as the levels. It would be rather strange to plan so many air shafts that lead to nowhere in the beginning.
What I do think is that this game should have developed a little longer.
There should have been more levels and I think the game would have benefited if the characters could carry two weapons or more at the same time (I don't mean the pistol) with all of them being useful in their own way. (right now, once you have the smart gun there is no more need for the other guns).
As for making a good Alien game. Just about before the release of Aliens Colonial Marines I started to look around on the forums and I have been reading opinions posts by people who give some good reasons why games like Aliens Colonial Marines seem to 'miss' the points of the movies, or why a lot of the games have been so average.
One person talked about how A:CM advertises itself as taking control of 'the ultimate badasses'; the Colonial Marines.
The thing is, in the beginning of Aliens the marines indeed portrayed themselves as an ultimate fighting force, showing of how well trained they were and weapons and gadgets they had.
And that they were far more prepared to face Ripley's monster than she and the crew of
Nostromo were.
That fantasy and self image was quickly crushed when the marines actually faced the xenomorphs, for all their technological superiority they were very quickly wiped out by the creatures, and the survivors weren't as confident and cocky any more afterwards.
In ACM you now slaughter the xenomorphs by the dozens, of course because of bad AI but also because the xenomorphs are now made so that you can kill them easily, this is a sharp contrast to the creatures we saw on the movie screen.
There is of course that deleted scene from Aliens of the first attack in which a lot of the xenomorphs seemed to run into the auto guns (perhaps helping creating this mindless warrior caste typecast), but the idea was that the xenomorphs learn and adapt new strategies to get around the problem in order to get to their targets.
This is something they should have considered for the game, perhaps less xenomorphs but xenomorphs that are smart and very difficult to defeat, an opponent you do not rush towards but try to out move in order not to be caught by it.
They would have done better if they had tried to recreate the image of the creature of Alien; rather than just a blood thirsty animal it was more of a cunning and very sadistic person who liked to toy with its prey.
Another problem is that the formula of Aliens has been done to many times; elite futuristic warriors are sent out to a colony/space station that has been overrun by an unknown alien menace that has killed the original occupants.
This scenario can be played out in many ways and there are probably still a few executions that have not been done before but only barely but it always plays out in an expected way.
People are bound to become bored of that sooner or later despite how popular the theme may be.
The focus on the creature itself is also becoming rather old, this is not the period of Alien any more, gamers now know what the xenomorph is.
You can not pretend that every time a new Aliens based game comes out that it is all new to the player.
Another poster suggested that it might be better to use the creature more as part of the background, it would still play a role in a campaign or a story but it would no longer be the main element any more.
This also goes for scenarios in which the Weyland-Yutani Corporations or any other human faction/organization is after the creature in order to weaponize them.
Those stories have been done to much, writers should try to do a different script.
I would love to see an attempt being done of recreating elements of one of my most favorite Alien comics; Aliens Apocalypse - The Destroying Angels.
The xenomorphs played a role in this story but they were not the focus of it nor revolved a large part of the story about defeating them, rather they served to help the story run along.
Of course this comic had plenty of flaws I would like to see being done in a different way but still I think it is one of the better stories that has been done with the license.
