SubJeff on 8/1/2014 at 22:56
Quote Posted by catbarf
Yeah, but as far as
games go the bar is not set very high. The number of games written by good writers (and then developed by a team that doesn't ruin the writing in other ways) is pretty limited.
Doesn't mean people shouldn't try. This is a very bad attitude to it don't you think cat? Striving for better is always best.
Fwiw The Last Of Us has great writing, as far as I've got in it anyway.
DDL on 9/1/2014 at 10:30
Writing for games is probably pretty different to writing actual static works of fiction. Depending on the game (how open-ended etc) the degree to which it's different may vary, but still.
It's a delicate balance between "taking away all the player's agency in exchange for producing an awesome story", and "allowing large amounts of player freedom (while accepting that many players may be mouth-breathing cretins) in exchange for a less cohesive story".
Or something.
Anyway, basically I'd say that ability to write amazing novels does not necessarily correlate with ability to write amazing games.
EDIT: Fuck knows where Abnett stands on that spectrum, mind you: I've read a few of his 40K novels and they were entertaining airport-fiction style stuff, but hey, it's 40K, what d'you expect?
nicked on 9/1/2014 at 13:28
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
You mean from little baby ribcage eater to fully grown golem in a few hours without eating anything? (including its own molted skin, which many animals use for nourishment?) Absolutely ludicrous. Doesn't seem to affect the awesomeness of the movie.
I love that, it adds to the mystique. I'm sure you could extrapolate that the alien is a partially synthetic bio-weapon so perhaps it consumed part of the ship to grow, or something, but really, the fact that it is just so non-sensically
alien and doesn't follow much that logically we would expect from a living organism is part of why it works so well, and why Cameron's space bees just weren't as scary.
Vivian on 9/1/2014 at 13:29
Exxxactly
faetal on 9/1/2014 at 13:41
I have always preferred the first Alien film to any other in the series by a considerable margin. I've been mainly surrounded by people who seem to think that the second film was the best in the series. While I do love Aliens a lot for what it is, it just doesn't have the horror aspect of the first film.
One thing which always bugged me in Aliens is when they realise that firing the AP bullets near the reactor coolant might turn the place into a giant nuclear bomb, Gorman isn't a little more explicit about why they need to refrain from firing weapons, jsut says "no rifles peeps" and leaves it at that. Likewise, no one questions Vasquez and Drake point their smart guns everywhere with fingers on trigger (also the way the magazine fits to those guns, means they'd show externally and ought to have been noticed on inspection by Apone after he wondered why they are still pointing their guns at stuff. Of course, that's me being an atrocious pedant and I realise that had my suggestions been taken on board, the film might not have been quite so good.
DDL on 9/1/2014 at 13:55
Yes! God that annoyed me. Possibly it's trying to ram home the idea that he's a shitty nublet commander.
Also, if puncturing coolant tanks is a problem, I can't see that "setting them on fire" is really that much better, but hey.
That and the fact that reactors don't go all NUKEASPLODE anyway.
SubJeff on 9/1/2014 at 14:48
Quote Posted by faetal
I have always preferred the first Alien film to any other in the series by a considerable margin. I've been mainly surrounded by people who seem to think that the second film was the best in the series.
This exactly the same case for me. Exactly.
Quote Posted by nicked
I love that, it adds to the mystique. I'm sure you could extrapolate that the alien is a partially synthetic bio-weapon so perhaps it consumed part of the ship to grow, or something, but really, the fact that it is just so non-sensically
alienYou know, I never thought of it this way. I guess I've been tainted by the sequels to think of them as bugs that fit into some sort of understandable biological Earthlike system.
icemann on 9/1/2014 at 14:59
Aliens clicked more for me, and fitted in perfectly with the action-craze that was so MASSIVE in the 80s. Plus being a HUGE Terminator 1 fan having Michael Biehn in it + the numerous other stars on the marine side just added to it all. The whole sending of marines into a infested colony and all that happened. Just love it. Inspired so many childhood dreams of being a space marine and the video games and mods that came out (early on Aliens Doom and much later AvP), it all just added to that for me.
On a side note I to this day prefer Terminator 1 over 2 unlike the majority of people I guess for many of the reasons that some people prefer Alien 1 over Aliens. It's FAR more like a horror movie with action elements (just as Alien 1 though much less so in its case) with the Terminator being so damn menacing and seemingly invincible. And with bits like the club and police station scenes I just love that movie to death. Unlike Alien 1 however it gets into it nearly from the get go.
Alien 1 on the other hand is quite slow moving (as was very common in horror movies released around that time period) and takes a fair while before things really get interesting. The acting is all top notch and once the Alien (in its fully developed form) shows up it all gets really good. Especially from its first proper kill onwards. Aliens in comparison grabs you from the get go whilst retaining much of the grimness of the first movie.
One thing that always annoyed me about the franchise after Aliens was that, that was the only movie where the marines kicked ass. They might have all died in the end but they still kicked ass. The marines in ALL the other movies sucked majorly and lost to the Aliens with barely a shot fired. None of the weapons and vehicles in Aliens featured in any of the other movies also.
Chimpy Chompy on 9/1/2014 at 15:00
I'm happy to not try and declare either of first two films superior. Each is a top-notch example of a different genre. And, now I think about it, the different life cycles suit the respective genres better as well. Alien ramps up the body horror, Aliens gives us a Final Boss Fight.
icemann on 9/1/2014 at 15:04
A movie in which a planet wide infestation occurs would be awesome, but we'll likely never get to see one of those.
