I can hear the angels singing!
I'm not kidding either, that is honestly the best news I've heard about anything ever at this point. Developed by UK studio Creative Assembly, apparently most known for the Total War series (which I've not played), the fact that this game does not have the festering stink of Gearbox Studios on it means that I will very likely and quite happily be playing it, if only to see how this one fails too.
"But wait again", cries Mr. Houghton, who has apparently gotten an inside look at the game while still in development (and due to release later this year). "It's based on Alien, not Aliens!" I must admit, I am more than a little intrigued by this. While Alien was undoubtedly a major hit on the film scene back in 1979, it was really Aliens that unarguably brought the series a wider mass appeal. Really, the differences in the two films very easily spotted; Alien being more like a thriller with the main cast trapped in a confined area while a malignant force picked them off one by one. Aliens was more straight up action, in true James Cameron-style taking the fight to the alien menace by riddling it with bullets and blowing it up with every explosive device known to man.
I still hold Aliens over Alien, but I don't debate that Alien is a good movie. That all being said, it's interesting to see a shooter based on the franchise that isn't based on the second movie. "But wait again again, Madcap", Mr. Houghton is more than happy to stop me once more, "it's not a shooter. It's a survival horror game." I have to admit, my heart dropped a bit when I read that part. Colonial Marines was supposed to be partially survival horror as well, and it failed miserably. But from the looks of it, particularly the mention of a motion tracker being the only real "weapon" in the game, got me interested. No weapons? In survival horror? What a refreshing concept!
I joke, but for the Alien franchise, it really is. Every other game we're allowed to play a Marine (if we don't play one by default) with enough firepower to level a small moon, so it's rather interesting to see a protagonist who is stuck trying to survive by wits and tools alone. And just who is this protagonist, you may ask? Mr. Houghton provided that answer as well: the daughter of Ellen Ripley, Amanda. If you've ever seen the Director's Cut version of Aliens, Amanda is mentioned as having perished in the fifty seven years since Ripley went missing, but no real detail is given to her beyond that fact that she had died in the time.
At first, of course, I thought this was going to be beyond terrible. After all, when does a new sibling or child by adaptation ever go well? I, like Mr. Houghton does in his write up, feared that adding such a character would become a Star Wars prequel trilogy-esque trip in making the universe small and everything being coincidentally connected. Apparently, however, this isn't the case as Amanda is every bit the badass that her mother was (well, is, technically) and isn't remotely a...Prequel Sue? I suppose we could call it a Prequel Sue. It's a new term, roll with it.
Keeping in with the homages to the source material, the design of the game (if the one screencap provided is to be believed) is very much a modernized 70s Sci-Fi look much the same as the original move had. As Houghton puts it, "“CRT, not LCD” is the mantra." And it definitely looks like it, and it's really rather refreshing to see a design that isn't something generic.
Oh, and as for the Aliens themselves? Well, it's really only a small amount and, again, the game is a survival horror so now using a shotgun to gleefully blast them away or grenades to turn them into little bits of acid-burned flesh on the walls. According to Houghton, the AI is set up so that the Alien has no preset pattern and it's vastly unpredictable. And, of course, if it finds you, you are going to die. Lovely. Of course, we were promised an AI that could tie its shoe laces for Colonial Marines, so I'll just take your words with a grain of salt and see how it goes.
So, a new story, pure survival horror, characters that we can care about, and an AI that is not only immensely varied, but unpredictable. This sounds like everything that Colonial Marines should have been...and failed. So forgive me, Mr. Houghton, if I'm not as convinced as you are by it. Given how one of the best movies ever was shat upon so thoroughly around this time last year, I'm pretty sure you can. Aliens: Colonial Marines was supposed to be the game we deserved and the game we needed. It failed, falling far, far beyond everyone's expectations.
Will Alien: Isolation come in to fill the gaping hole left in us? Only time will tell...
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