Er...just in case, I didn't introduce the article as a news flash but I thought it would add some insight to the discussion.

 

In Doom 3's case, once played, you can expect exactly where you the threats come from but, in the Cradle level, the threats try to approach you from your blind spots controlled by AI. The detailed game experience may vary but the level is designed to be "scary" or stimulate our common reptilian instincts. Designers try to exploit our senses, using every single tool available to them in order to realize live game world. They use even in-world writings to add gloomy feel of Victorian Lunatic Asylum. I think this is similar to what Ridley Scott did in film-making.

So I was playing through Mass Effect, and came upon the section of that game that was most obviously influenced by the Alien series - that is, Noveria and the Peak 15 xenobiology lab. And it got me thinking.

 

I don't know what Bioware was going for exactly, scares or scary ambience but they failed miserably for a number of reasons. For one, the rachni are no substitute for xenomorphs. The rachni are giant bugs, the xenomorphs are things that are made more alien (no pun intended) by their humanoid traits. Of course, that's no concern for Obs at all, they've got the real deal.

 

But even then, Peak 15 was not scary or even tense. I think this is mainly due to those factors which I have brought up elsewhere in this forum. For one, in Mass Effect you are never unprepared, never in a position where you might be caught off-guard or helpless. You have unlimited ammunition and innate powers and your party members can't die or even be affected in the long term by anything. You can't really be ambushed because you always have radar.

 

Another reason it didn't work is because from the outset ME made it a point to drum it into you that you are a badass who can take on anything and as such it would've been dissonant to make the rachni any kind of actual threat when there are giant robots out there for you to dismantle.

 

When my mom went to go see Aliens in the theater, she had been pregnant with me for 9 months. She hoped that the movie would scare me out of her. She was disappointed. The way she put it, she was expecting from Aliens what she had expected from Alien but didn't get, that is, armed-to-the-teeth soldiers fighting aliens. The original Alien was scary because it was about ordinary people being faced with something totally beyond their imaginings and capabilities and losing control in the process, which when you get down to it is the heart of the very concept of horror. From Aliens forward, the object of fear in the series became less and less about the aliens themselves and more to do with human error in the face of them. Had they been smarter about it, the marines in Aliens could've had a fighting chance. Had Spunkmeyer kept the landing ramp up while on the surface, the surviving members of the team could've nuked the site from orbit and that'd be that. It didn't matter how smart the crew of the Nostromo was, they were doomed.

 

Obsidian could go either way with their game, but I do hope they go with the route the original movie took. Above all, the players need to feel under pressure, not prepared, desperate, and when they make it to some sort of safety they have to have a nagging feeling in the back of their minds that they only think they're safe. I can't see this working any other way.

Edited November 26, 200718 yr by Pop

I think one of the things in our favor is that we have a lot more time with the player than a movie has with a viewer. Tone has the potential to shift more easily because we have more time and space in which to do it.

I think one of the things in our favor is that we have a lot more time with the player than a movie has with a viewer. Tone has the potential to shift more easily because we have more time and space in which to do it.

 

Interesting point.

I think one of the things in our favor is that we have a lot more time with the player than a movie has with a viewer. Tone has the potential to shift more easily because we have more time and space in which to do it.

Fair point, but I personally would prefer a more "immersive" kind of game, where you hit the ground running and don't let up. I don't think establishing mood on a mission-by-mission basis would compare to all-foreboding-all-the-time format. Tension tension tension. They have to feel it in their guts.

 

One thing we ought to consider is being open to the idea of failure, which in itself is far from endemic to RPGs. Not total failure, per se, but damaging setbacks. I was thinking back to the sequence in Aliens where the marines are first exploring Hadley's Hope. It's about as perfect a scene for creating tension as you're ever going to find. Put the PC in Ripley's position, at a command post. All you have for information coming in is audio, and your buddies are out there. You could set it up like a text RPG, guiding your party members through an area. Provided you did it right, it could pay off in spades.

 

I was thinking, how great would it be were it actually easy for the PC to screw himself? Of course, most people would probably reload, but we can't concern ourselves with that. The Aliens series has always had an abundance of bad decisions that looked good at the time, and little mistakes that snowball into deadly ones. I think Obs ought to try and make the game be a lot smarter than the PC.

Edited November 26, 200718 yr by Pop

One thing I hope the game has is LIKABLE CHARACTERS! I emphasize this because it is what made Alien & Aliens work. Alien 3 failed miserably, not just because it killed off main characters from Aliens at the get-go, but because it was a prison colony full of murderers and rapists that, as a viewer, I couldn't have cared less for. I was rooting for the alien.

 

I would love to see a cast of likable characters in Aliens RPG whose fates depend on your actions. Something along the lines of you needing the help of others, but your decisions may lead to their deaths, like in Alien when they had to decide who entered the ventilation system to flush it out.

Edited November 26, 200718 yr by GreasyDogMeat

Just saw Beowulf 3D at the Arclight in Hollywood. Nonsensical movie, but awesome effects. Make it a 3D game. That'll make it scary enough for people. Put of pair of those red'n blue glasses in the gamebox.

 

Or wait.. it's prolly gonna be $120 then..

 

 

J.

Would 3D work in computer games? I suppose it must, if it works on TVs. I wonder why we don't see more of it. You'd think it would be very popular.

Would 3D work in computer games? I suppose it must, if it works on TVs. I wonder why we don't see more of it. You'd think it would be very popular.

 

A friend of mine has 3d spectacles for his PC. expensive, though.

Because if you spent more than a few hours playing a game like that you would likely either go insane or into convusions.

All the more reason to have games like that!

I disagree with the comments that AvP 2 wasn't scary. AvP 2 was scary as hell... in multiplayer.

A friend of mine has 3d spectacles for his PC. expensive, though.

I was thinking of the old TV 3D, where it was just cheap flimsy coloured glasses that you got free in the Radio Times, and the broadcasters did something to the picture - blurry edges with funny colours, if you didn't have the glasses on - so the glasses would make it look 3D. Surely modern graphics cards would have no trouble with that? You could select '3D mode' on the options screen and the card would render the picture so that through the glasses 3D worked. Or something like that.

I remember those! I'm guessing you could. There's probably some spotty fellah working out how to do it automatically right now.

Makes aliens jumping at your head a lot scarier.

 

*imagines someone trying to shake off an invisible alien in front of his computer screen*

Edited December 1, 200718 yr by WILL THE ALMIGHTY