GURPS Savage Space: Revisiting the Kokatik

As I continue my renewed obsession with GURPS, time to revisit the Kokatik from last year, this time statted out for GURPS Space. The kokatik are an aquatic species that is a significant rival of the Commonwealth of worlds, and its anthropomorphed cephalopod citizens are very suspicious of land-dwelling aliens.

Kokatik exploring Gamma Polaris

The Kokatik

Located rimward, toward the edge of known space and out toward the edge of the Milky Way, the kokatik have been exploring space and slowly colonizing worlds for nearly two thousand years. They are a species of amphibious beings, coming from their gaseous waterworld once in the Kunares star system that was once designated KOI-314c by humans. The kokatik are a hearty species that has adapted very well to both temperature and pressure extremes due to their warm gassy homeworld. Because of this adaptability they are able to colonize a wider range of worlds than humans can, and often find warm gaseous worlds within 1-3 Gees to be comfortable. Despite having the appearance of some sort of batrachian, the kokatik are a distinctly unique vertebrate species of something more closely resembling a cephalopod. The hardened shells of their ancestors turned into a sort of exoskeleton, which provides a web of internal support structure for high gravity and high pressure environments.

Kokatik are a slow, methodical species. They are not aggressive though they will employ deadly force if needed to resolve an issue, and they are more than capable of it, having developed some very sophisticated weaponry and maintaining an impressive stellar navy. Early contact with the kokatik, which actually took place with some anticipation due to the discovery of abandoned research stations on Gamma Polaris, revealed that the kokatik are suspicious and concerned about other species, and slow to earn trust. After contact was formally initiated and they were invited into the Federated Commonwealth more history came out and it was revealed that the kokatik had fought an extensive interstellar war early on in their spacefaring days, against an aggressor race called that fashan, a war which they won, bombing the fashan back to the stone age and quarantining their homeworld. Needless to say, the Federation Navy took note of this capability for such total salting-the-earth destruction against a declared foe.

Kokatik come off to humans as inscrutable and mistrusting, regarding other species with a persistent sense of caution.

Kokatik Alien Profile:

Kokatik are hydrocarbon-based lifeforms, so indigenous to worlds that Terrans will also find somewhat comfortable. The kokatik are perfectly at home in underwater environments. They can breathe in water environments and have a filtration system in their gill-like lungs which can filter necessary oxygen and other gasses even from more exotic liquids, but they have a secondary set of lungs that process air when out of water as well. Kokatik are still amphibious, and must remain immersed in water or other liquid with a fair amount of oxygenation for at least 1 hour per Terran standard cycle (day). Kokatik usually wear pressure suits with filtered water systems when moving about in human territory. Kokatik are also very hearty in high pressure atmospheres and very cold environments due to the deep sea environment of their home world. This adaptive advantage has given them a unique edge, including improved survival in both the bottom of the ocean and the depths of space. Finally, kokatik come off as cold, aloof and mistrusting of others, making their interaction with humans a difficult experience.

You can make a Kokatik character with the following template:

Kokatik Racial Package (57 points)

Attribute Modifiers: IQ+1 [10]

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Move-2 [-10]

Advantages: Amphibious [10], Doesn’t Breathe (trigger: water, common, -20%)[16], Nictitating Membrane 2 [2], Pressure Support 3 [15],  Dark Vision (can see colors) [30], Temperature Tolerance 6 (cold from -25 to 90 degrees for HT 10)[6]

Disadvantages: Dependency (water immersion, very common; daily)[-15], Intolerance -3 (all aliens)[-10], Callous [-5]

Skills: Swimming HT+3 [8]

Kokatik Explorer (sample NPC, 207 points):

Ras M’Lond, Senior Scout

Ras M’lond is a Kokatik scout who works for the Kunares Exploratory Survey Fleet, which is slowly mapping out the galaxy and paying close attention to the actions of the Commonwealth. He is at once repulsed by alien races not of the Kokatik biotype and also singularly obsessed with them, albeit in a creepy stalker-with-cameras kind of way, so he made a perfect candidate for the Exploratory Survey Fleet’s astrographic mapping initiative. His stats are based on the kokatik racial package above plus the GURPS Space Explorer template.

ST 12, DX 12, IQ 13, HT 12

HP 15, Will 12, Per 13, FP 15, Basic Speed 6, Basic Move 4

Advantages: amphibious, doesn’t breath (trigger: water, common), nictitating membrane 2, pressure support 3, dark vision (can see colors), temperature tolerance 6 (cold), danger sense, G-Experience 5

Disadvantages: dependency (water immersion, daily), intolerance -3 (all aliens), callous, loner 12-, workaholic, xenohilia 6- (loves aliens even if he doesn’t trust them)

Racial Skill: Swimming 15

Primary Skills: Cartography 13, Geography (terran worlds) 13, Navigation (sea) 15, Piloting (transitional space drive) 12, Vacc Suit 12

Secondary Skills: Biology (terran worlds) 11, Survival (desert) 13, Electronics Operation (sensor) 13

Background Skills: Computer Operation 13, First Aid 13, Swimming 12, Writing 12, Beam Weapon (rifle) 12

Protection: Kokatik Expedition Suit (works as the suit in Ultratech pg. 178, but provides a water moisturization to skin when worn; a human in this suit could drown if the settings aren’t corrected); DR 5, flexible

Armament: Blaster (Electron) Rifle (Damage 6D(5) burn, sur; ACC 10+2, ROF 3, Shots 10(3), Bulk -4, Recoil 1, Range 700/2100)

Savage Space XX: The Saurian Surivandi and Insectoid H'kuut

Up next: Savage Worlds provides great templates for a variety of default aliens...so where do they fit into Savage Space??? Here are two examples...

The Saurians

Surivandi - The Saurians

Surivandi are an ancient spacefaring race, having been at it for nearly two thousand years now. They are a surprisingly peaceful species, despite their reputation for skill in battle. The Suri Coalition is the rough order their society managed and which has insured their dominance over nearly two hundred worlds. The Suri Coalition remains friendly with the Federated Commonwealth.

Although it is not popular, the researcher Dr. James Weston, an exobiologist who specializes in extinct species, claims he's seen skeletal evidence of an identical species on certain Coreward Expanse worlds. These remains appear to show up abrutly in the record, and no homeworld has been found. If he is proven correct, then this would suggest that the surivandi could be, in fact, an uplifted or engineered species.

H'kuut Insectoids

H'kuut - the Insectoids

There are seventeen known sentient species of insectoids or insectoid-like beings in the galaxy. The most prominent of these species is the H'kuut, a bizarre and exotic being which cummunicated via pheremonal release and a staggeringly sophisticated senses of smell.

The H'kuut have only settled three worlds, all within the Antares system itself, their homeworld. As it turns out, the H'kuut are remarkably slow breeders by insect standards, and also appear to be largely ageless; their species appears to have no natural limit on age, beyond the basic requirements of survival.

H'kuut are excellent philosophers and scientists, and thanks to complex "speech" recognition equipment it is possible for them to participate in the Commonwealth. The H'kuut, ever obsessed with unity and a collectivism that some humans find unhealthy, has thoroughly embraced the galactic scene.

Savage Worlds XIV: Procyon V

Continuing 28 Days of Savage Space: next up, the world of Procyon V and its local denizens...

Procyon V

Procyon V was one of the earliest colonized worlds, a perfect Earth-class world with a thriving local ecosystem that was friendly to humanity. There were no truly intelligent species on Procyon V, but an emergent potential species dubbed the "Charlottes" by the first settlers were regarded as significantly more intelligent than any other nonhuman species on Earth. The charlottes were exotic quasi-crustaceans, with six startlingly flexible armored appendages attached to a long abdominal cavity and a seventh similar appendage with sensory apparati. They were extremely inquisitve and fearless of the first colonists, and while incapable of speaking, they nonetheless seemed able to learn several hundred words and simple commands with ease. Even more interesting was their ability to grasp basic tool-use, something the had exhibited no capacity for in the wild, but demonstrated a keen ability to pick up from observation. After decades of study, it was decided that the charlottes should be granted a protected status and were given special citizenship rights. People can't own charlottes, but they can gain custodial rights similar to children, and the charlottes are treated like children in many ways under the law.

Today Procyon V remains a stellar gem in the shining jewels of the core worlds, and is the location of several noteworthy locations, including the Procyon Naval Acadamy, the Worthington Shipyards where new naval ships are built, the Aegis Division's largest command center outside of Sol System and the largest offworld city on record in the form of New Paris, with a population closing in on 17 million.

charlottes

Procyon V
Gavity: normal (1.1 earth Gees)
Dominant Terrain: temperate forests
Atmosphere: normal
Population Density: dense (4.3 billion)
Dominant Government: republic (Federated Commonwealth coreworld)
Dominant Law: strict
Spaceport: extensive
Technology Level: above average (above Commonwealth) due to research facilities and laws encouraging offworld research on Procyon V
Primary City: New Paris
Primary Civilian Spaceport: Procyon Central Starport

Charlottes

Charlottes can be played as a race, but they have special limitations:

Short: charlottes stand about 1 to 1.1 meters in height. They are Size -1 and Toughness -1.

Limited Intelligence and Language Skills: Charlottes can develop the intellect of inquisitive five year-olds. They are limited to a D6 in smarts, and can never learn to speak any language, though they can understand spoken words. Charlottes have learned how to express themselves through typing, writing, and even a simple form of sign language; charlottes in the wild are limited to a curious form of sign language and "tapping" with their claws. Likewise, charlottes have a hard time grasping sophisticated concepts or mathematical skills, and should be limited in sources of knowledge for skill purposes.

Agile: Charlottes start with a D6 in agility.

Leaper (X2): what they lack on the ground charlottes make up for by being agile leapers. They can leap 4" straight up or 8" on a run-and-jump. On a strength test they can get an extra 2".

Natural Attacks: charlottes aren't aggresive but can fight if cornered or threatened. They employ all six claws in a grasping/leaping attack that deals STR+D6 damage.

Savage Space VIII: Rigel VI

Continuing 28 days of Savage Worlds in space!

Source

Rigel VI

Located in orbit around luminous Rigel A, the eccentric orbit of this earth-like planet nonetheless developed life-sustaining properties long before Earth. The Rigellian civilization which prospered when humankind was still nothing more than a distant evolutionary potential was all but erased in a cataclysmic interstellar war roughly four million years ago. In the wake of this ancient civilization a new young sapient species arose known as the modern rigellians. The refer to themselves as 'Ash, and their distinctive therapod-like characteristics are hard to adequately describe. Most humans look at them as some sort of plant-like beast with disturbing fleshlike skin, and it is hard not to feel a sense of revulsion around modern rigellians. Even more interesting is how distinctly different they look from the extinct original rigellians; so different physiologically that a new popular theory among xenobiologists is that they are not, in fact, natives to the planet and may have been an import species that thrived and evolved in the wake of the rigellian mass extinction.

Despite their importance to biologists, the 'Ash remain more curiosity than anything else; their language is primarily pheromonal, and they seem to have difficulty comprehending advanced technology.

At roughly 900 light years from Earth, Rigel VI remained unexplored until late in the twenty-seventh century when a coalition of humans, fadelik and sedassir arrived on the deep space explorer ISS Transcendent. What they discovered was a world with evidence of serious catastrophism, remnants of four-million year old superstructures, including orbital colonies still intact at the Lagrange points, and a wildly exotic ecosystem built on an aliens that manage to have plantlike, fungal and mammalian characteristics.

Rigel today is a thriving edgeworld colony, and the hub of activity for deep space exploration, especially in the so called Corward Expanse region where the more recently extinguished galactic remnants of a vast interstellar society can be found. Xenoarchaeologists have dated the most recent extinction of this interstellar society to roughly one hundred thousand years ago, and have found evidence of a failed colony from that lost collective. A few extremists, such as Dr. Barton Ackerly, speculate that the old rigellian extinction may tie in to the more recent extinction events, and he works furiously on Rigel VI to find evidence of this.

Rigel VI Planetary Characteristics:

Gravity: Normal
Dominant Terrain: Desert
Atmosphere: Normal
Population: Average
Government: Confederacy with treaties/relations to the Federated Commonwealth
Dominant Law: Lenient
Customs: fringeworld attitude; libertarian's dream/nightmare wrapped in one
Spaceport: Small
Technology Level: Average

Savage Space V: The Fadelik

Continuing 28 days of linked science fiction ideas for Savage Worlds. Next up....the fadelik!

Fadelik

Fadelik of the Procyon System

Fadelik (fah-day-lek) are an indigenous culture to Procyon star system, a modest binary star set with a small white dwarf; the planets are remarkably stable, and Procyon IX is the homeworld. Fadelik call it "Seerkaspa," their rough equivalent to Earth in their language though the word has very old religious meaning as well.

Physically Fadelik average about 1.3-1.5 meters in height, and are distinguished by their large ears and quadruple eyes. The fadelik are otherwise surprisingly humanoid in their physiology despite adapting from herbivores in Procyon IX's remarkably dangerous ecosystem. Fadelik are quick thinkers, fast runners and as they developed a civilized technological society they learned to corral and redirect predators, never having much cultural or biological stimulus toward violence.

Fadelik were already spacefarers when the first human colonials discovered them during the expansionist period of the pre-Federation explosion of humanity across the galaxy. The fadelik were able to sell and improve on the transitional drives used in the first human FTL ships. Thanks to the rather immodest nature of the fadelik and their remarkable humanoid physiology many humans took to the species for less then honorable means. An early incident with the colonies led to an attempted slave market, which spun out into the First Colonial War when the fadelik navy all but obliterated the Chasian League, once one of the more prominent exotic governments that tried to forge a union among the colonies. The fascist league was destroyed by the fadelik and new treaties insured no lawful organizations would try to exploit the fadelik, who had demonstrated that their own Expansionist Party in power at the time was more than capable of going toe to toe with young humanity.

When the Expansionist Party went out of style the fadelik government shifted to new directions and the Explorationist Party was formed. It was less than a decade in when with fadelik support the early human Federated Commonwealth was at last forged; fadelik were a founding party of the Federation.

Today, fadelik are known for their carefree nature, startling technical skills and mastery of cybernetics. Fadelik cybernetics are designed for their extremely complex nervous system, and can quickly burn out a normal human. Fadelik themselves have embraced cybernetics and transgenic augmentation as a way of life.

Fadelik Characteristics

Adaptive Nervous System: Fadelik nervous systems are much better at processing cybernetic modifications than other species. Fadelik calculate their strain threshold as being equal to their Spirit plus their Vigor.

Lighting Quick: Fadelik gain a base Pace of 8 and a running die of D8.

Agile: Fadelik begin with a D6 in Agility.

Gracile: Fadelik are slender and their bones are, while not hollow, nonetheless quite fragile by human standards. They have -1 to toughness.

Cautious and Pacifist: Fadelik evolved from a smaller more cautious herbivore which did not like to engage in battle. As such they gain Cautious (minor) and Pacifist (minor), defending only when it's a last resort. Fadelik mindsets toward violence are "isolate and corral threats, then seal them away" rather than eliminate by force.

Exceptional Vision: the four eyes of the fadelik provide excellent visual acuity. All fadelik start with Notice of D6.

Savage Space IV: Yanoh Sutah Biomachines

This is harder than it looks! 28 days of scifi posts for Savage Worlds. Today....aliens!

Yanoh Sutah of the Deneb System

The biomachines that originated at Deneb are well known for their voracious ability to assimilate all machinery and flesh in their wake. The first encounter with the "Yanoh Sutah" as they were originally named by the Haskiren nomads was during an encounter with the early colonial cruiser ISS Hapford, not more than a century after humanity developed FTL drive. A routine survey mission revealed that the Deneb star system, long believed to be too volatile to sustain life, in fact had what appeared to be a thriving stellar society in the dominion of its Kuiper belt. No sooner did the Hapford make contact than it was attacked; the Yanoh Sutah had been clustered on the edge of the star system, creating vast colonial hives of sublight ships; capturing a FTL cruiser would be a major prize.

The Hapford escaped, narrowly avoiding destruction, but unknown to the crew it came back to it's homeport (Alpha Centauri at the time) carrying a trace of the nanovirus that was the real force behind the Yanoh Sutah. The near-total assimilation of the Alpha Centauri Orbital starport and the Hapford was staved off only by virtue of the assistance of the Haskiren who provided the necessary antivirus that they used to keep their own equipment clean of the Yanoh Sutah infestation.

To date the Yanoh Sutah is the only known manifestation of a nanovirus which is specifically designed to absorb, replicate and produce biomechanical machines. The virus is suspected to be a creation of a now dead culture, likely at Deneb, which may have attempted to devise a form of Van Neumann machine culture to assist in escaping their dying world. Unfortunately there is no obvious candidate in the Deneb system for a suitable homeworld; as an alpha-cyngi variable star it is extremely large and luminous, and the "goldilocks" zone for life is too unstable to be a likely candidate.

A second hypothesis is that the Yanoh Sutah arrived at Deneb by slower than light means, and in fact became trapped there, looking for resources on the fringe of the Deneb system to resume their journey when the Hapford conveniently came along. The fact that the Haskiren claim to have encountered this virus on other worlds, and that it actually destroyed their own homeworld generations ago, supports this hypothesis over the Deneb origin theory.

Yanoh Sutah Biomachine Hivemaster (legendary wild card)

The hub of a Yanoh Sutah infestation manifests in the form of a "hivemaster" which is usually very large and designed to produce more biomachines. They are nonetheless formidable entities, being akin to factories and warriors.
Agility D6, Smarts D6, Spirit D8, Strength D12, Vigor D12
Charisma 0, Pace 5", Parry 2, Toughness 19
Hindrances: Size +3, Major Vow (to Hive Expansion), Weakness: Haskiren antivirus
Edges: Immune to Poison and Disease, Regeneration, No Vital Organs,
Skills: Fighting D8, Intimidation D10, Notice D6, Repair D10
Weapons and Armor:
Defensive Claws (STR+D6 and 4 AP; damage dealt means Vigor check at -2 for 1 week or suffer Yanoh Sutah viral infection)
Dermal Plating (+8 armor)

The Yanoh Sutah Virus:

Someone injured by a Yanoh Sutah must make an immediate vigor check at -2. If they fail, they become fatigued. Each day they continue to make checks for one week; each failure reduces Toughness by 1 until they hit 0 at which time the person is now a biomachine of the hive. Being injected with the Haskiran antivirus gives them a +2 on checks, and the first success clears the virus out.

Yanoh Sutah Victims (drones):

A human or other alien who is subsumed into the biomachine hive gains the following traits:

No Free Will: though they can make individual decisions as needed, the hive mind prevents any action that works against the interest of the hive.

Stat Modifications: Drop Spirit to D4. Raise Strength and Agility by two steps.

Defensive Claws: gain these claws (STR+D6 and 4 AP) which inject the virus on a strike that deals damage.

Dermal Plating: gain dermal plating at a +4 for armor protection.

Techno Obsession: Yanoh Sutah victims will voraciously pursue those they believe to have previously undiscovered scientific knowledge, usually to the exclusion of all else, including their well-being.

The Many Days of Horror! - Aliens:CM Stasis Interrupted

Aliens: Colonial Marines DLC - Stasis Interrupted

By now it's pretty much a meme in its own right, the notion that Gearbox willfully and intentionally defrauded people by releasing Aliens: Colonial Marines as a shambling mess of a game. Some of you may recall that I actually got to play it on day of release (and finished it the same day) so I actually rather enjoyed the game, having A: not been led to have any preconceived notions of what to expect (hell, I remember reading it had been cancelled), B: not being in game journalism I did not feel butt-hurt that I had seen a demo at a convention that made me feel all special inside (yes, I think the press going on about that demo is a bit whiny; I've actually seen the demo and it's pretty much what the PC version looked like), and C: I was really expecting the game to be bad fun, and I got exactly what I expected (and I don't think 2011's AvP was any better, either).

Anyway, the last DLC content pack was released for A:CM called Stasis Interrupted. In a nutshell, it's okay. The purpose of this pack is to fill the quota for those with season pass subscriptions, and to do so with some actual single player content. As an expansion to the main campaign goes it fills in some of the convoluted backstory of the game, looking first at a woman who was part of the colonists kidnapped for use by Weyland Yutani, then another colonist who is an ex marine, and last a scientist for W-Y who decides he's had enough of assisting evil mad science and manifests a conscience. Amidst all the action Corporal Hicks is an important guest, as the DLC fills in how he survived his (previously canon) death in Alien 3.

Is the DLC worth it? Without discussing specifics, the short version is: if you paid for it already, and enjoyed A:CM enough to find all the gnashing of teeth about the game to be amusing, then sure, you might like it. But there are a few warnings to consider, first:

Glitches? I played the PC version, which appears to be the "not buggy" version, or at least if it is buggy I seem to be really lucky. As near as I can tell people who talk about lame AI and weird glitches all seem to be playing console versions of the game. I experienced to glitches or unusually weird AI during my play-through except for once when one of the bull aliens got hung up on some scenery.

Crazy Plot Filling? The DLC fills in some of the gaping plot holes and unanswered questions of the main game. Parts of it are quite fun (the opening stuff with Lisbeth actually feels scary, for example) and other parts appear to be aiding the retcon by virtue of a comedy of errors (such as how a corpse ends up in Hicks' stasis tube in time for Alien 3). If you try to piece together the plot, it gets more than a little loony. They really could have come up with something better than this by not trying to tie the whole game into the second and third films with a deliberate retcon just so they could get the voice actor for Hicks back. I mean....why not retcon Newt, too? Hell, let's just retcon Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection! I would be down with that.

If there's one giant mech-loader sized hole in some of the plot reasoning for the entire game (and it's dramatically highlighted by the DLC, which focuses in some cut scenes on Ripley's suicide-by-molten metal) it's that Alien 3 ended with Mr. Weyland out of luck on a source of an alien queen. They had some DNA samples of Ripley which magically contained alien samples as well, and that was it. Cut to Alien: Resurrection which was all about scientists literally centuries in the future after the first three films trying to recreate both Ripley and the alien species from this old evidence.

If all the above was the impetus of the film, then why do we. going by the DLC timeline as presented, see that Weyland had several xenomorph queens either in captivity or at least somewhere he could capture them with enough resources and time? We actually see Ripley perish in a cut-scene shortly before Hicks and Levy make a big escape and encounter no less than two queens before the DLC's conclusion. Why the devil was Weyland even bothering with Ripley, then?

I guess you could assume that a baby queen was his goal....raise her in captivity from the get-go, do what the scientists would do a couple centuries later in the fourth film. Still....the subtext and implication of Alien 3 was that the alien queen Ripley took out with her was it, end of the line. Of course, I'm complaining about this in a game that went through hoops to resurrect Corporal Hicks, but....well....never mind.

Anyway, I had fun playing the DLC but suggest that only those who like me played through the campaign and enjoyed it...whether your enjoyment is thanks to lowered expectations, an appreciation for the old school aesthetics and design features, or just because your a hardcore Alien franchise junkie and don't care if the game has issues, you're going to play it...if you meet  one of these criteria (or more than one, as I do!) then Stasis Interrupted will give you about 3-4 more hours of entertainment. Everyone else, move along, nothing to see here.

C+ 

The Final Aliens Post: A Decent Critique

Ben Kuchera of the Penny Arcade Report has an interesting article on why he feels Aliens: Colonial Marines failed as a game sequel to the movies, and why making a game out of the films is so difficult, if not impossible. It's a good read and I am inclined to agree with much of it in principle, even if I am far less harsh in my experience with the game, having found myself not even noticing or being bothered by so many of the features that apparently drove Ben and others nuts. The alien behavior, for example....I did not notice or was not bothered by poor AI during the play. Was it there? I guess, maybe. Truth is, I was enjoying the ride and was not bothered that the game experience wasn't a precise emulation of the style and feel of the movie in that way....I pretty much just assumed that we were dealing with a story about a group of more experienced, less cocky and more well-informed marines who weren't as foolhardy as the ones from the movie. Unlike Ben, I guess I entered the game not expecting it to be an emulation of the Aliens film, but its own thing, spinning off from it, and using the medium of video games to do what it could to give us an experience in that universe.

That said, I bet the guys behind Dead Space could have nailed it.

Anyway, read his commentary, I think it's an interesting perspective and carries through with the previous games, although I am less inclined to agree that throwing predators into the mix has been a very useful story tool....and in fact feel that the AvP games and movies have largely been let downs to both franchises.

The Eternally Mutating Alien

This is still bugging me. It might help if some sort of explanation was forthcoming in the Alien-verse (Prometheus-verse?) but I think the rationale may change from one film to the next, or dictated purely by the whim of the FX artist or video game art/design lead. So I present a collage of alien heads over time, as they have mutated from one movie to the next:



The alien as he looked in the original movie...also the "stalker" type in A:CM



The alien look from Aliens, Alien 3 and the warrior type in A:CM




The Protoalien of Prometheus. I loved Prometheus, but after months of reflecting on the movie I have to say, I really wish that they get a good screenwriter for the next script, one who likes a challenge in creating a bridge movie that explains WTF was going on in Prometheus and how it all leads directly to Alien.

I mean.....is this alien what comes out of an engineer, or is just a literal protoype, a stepping stone for the genetic virus toward the final master race model?

So many unanswered questions that are floating around, but not, I suspect, because of any master storyline, instead because they were making it all up as they went along. I really wish they'd sprung for a novelization. Never did a movie need a movie-tie-in novel so badly as Prometheus.



AvP: Requiem alien warrior. Note that his bony skull is not quite as pronounced as the earlier pic (two up). But it's all good as the AvP aliens are from an alternate reality, the one which contains the mustache twirling Spock.



The dog alien of Alien 3. Not entirely sure what made this one unique other than that was "born" more physically developed than other aliens usually are.



The painfully stupid human-alien hybrid of Alien: Resurrection. If we assume it's a product of the alien gene-stealing element and not a product of the insane and incompetent mad scientists that also cloned Ripley, then it ruins my theory (below) that the aliens might steal the most useful genes in host organisms.



The equally stupid albeit slightly scarier Predalien. Noteworthy for bypassing the egg-face hugger-hatchling snake process, going right to a new "vomit up alien embryos right into the host" process instead. This is the only instance we see of aliens hatching more than one progeny from a single host, which is another curiosity of the species....you'd think they would be capable of generating multiple hatchlings from a single face-hugger implantation. My theory is they are, but not in humans (not enough room or "resources" in the host to sustain more than one baby alien at a time).

If the predalien supports the gene-stealing theory, then it does in fact make one wonder what sort of reproductive processes predators are supposed to have.



The Alien Queen in Aliens. Pretty spry for her time. Still, I never did understand the xenomorph development stage very well. I mean it's easy enough to explain: think army ants who need to capture other bugs that they then expose to hatching larvae, and those larvae sink into the hosts to plant a second larvae, which then hatches. Sure, I get that....but only one larvae per host? That's a population that is limited in expansion by the number of other species around it. Very bad survival trait, if you don't mind my saying so.



The Alien Queen in AvP. A terrifying tyrannosaurus Rex in the guise of an alien. Apparently not able to survive the crushing depths of the ocean, even if she is more than capable of escaping orbit. She was, however, able to survive for untold millennia in Predator cryostasis, apparently. Speaking of which, the Alien vs. Predator films don't even fit in well with the canon Predator universe. Keeping aliens for some rite-of-passage event on Earth is directly comparable to a big game hunter who keeps a private kennel full of lethal asps inside a petting zoo.

I saw this last one happen in real life. It was actually messier.

There seems to be a suggested theme in the movies that the aliens steal DNA or adopt characteristics of their host species. This is never elaborated on (no scientist type seems to step up and mention this) but is rather simply assumed*. It's a good example of artistic expression trumping a good story, I feel. Now, taking into account the reveal in Prometheus (that the aliens may be a genetic third or fourth generation byproduct of a hyper-mutating genetic virus of some sort) it does raise interesting questions, such as "if they can adopt species characteristics that are useful, then why don't they borrow...say....bigger brains for more intelligence, or better adaptive/reasoning skills?" For that matter, why don't the aliens simply adopt a better reproductive system?

I suppose the answer will be revealed in a future Prometheus sequel, but I would imagine the real answer is: they are actually stuck with a limited range of adaptive traits. Specifically, they are bred for war and genocidal extermination, and the engineers created the virus to breed monsters of a destructive nature, so the virus seeks out traits that are calculated to be the most damaging to a target species. Maybe? It's all speculation at this point. A byproduct, in truth, of nearly forty years' worth of different film makers and script writers dipping their hand in the pot.

Here, let me confuse you (source unknown...wish I knew who did this)

*Except, of course, in Alien: Resurrection where it's sort of the whole impetus of the movie, to the point where they are cloning Ripley from some ill-defined source of her DNA (attained magically) to extract alien DNA from her clones. Oh that movie makes my head hurt. I think the novels imply as much, too....but for the most part 95% of the Alien tie-in novels have been little more than poorly-conceived paid fanfic. Um, IMO. There are some exceptions, though.

Aliens: Colonial Marines - The Contrasting Reviews (aka am I just a pushover?)

I was reading the PC Gamer review of Aliens: Colonial Marines (here) and have to admit, I agree with many points he raises. However, despite agreeing with many things, there's an interesting slant in the review that is obviously weighted toward the negative, which makes it hard for me to appreciate how the reviewer can look at the same issue I may have encountered, but where he sees "crap" I had fun, instead. I guess....with all the accusations of shillery in the video game journalism business,* when an opportunity arises to slam something, they must take it with all the gusto they can? When a game displays a flaw/feature that, while not debilitating or even problematic necessarily, is nonetheless possible to spin as negative then it must absolutely be so, lest the reviewer be called out as the shill we all suspect he/she is? I have no idea.

On the other hand, am I just so jaded as a game player (and not a pro reviewer by an stretch) that I automatically engage with a game on its preset level of expectation? I knew A:CM wasn't going to be another Mass Effect, but in the Aliens universe....even though I would love to see such a game, of course....so I instead played it with a contrast to other, similar titles (Crysis 2, Halo 4, Aliens vs. Predator) and in that context I found it rather enjoyable....more so, in fact, than I have any of the aforementioned titles, even though I also enjoyed (or am in the process of enjoying) each of them. Hell, I actually felt compelled to play A:CM all the way through, in one sitting. I didn't grab up Halo 4 to finish it....nope. A:CM was good enough to keep me going to the end.

So....in short, I think my review of the single player campaign still stands. I enjoyed it, I did not find it as trite or hollow as, say, the PCG review....and among its peers I found it perfectly acceptable. Could it have been more? Of course. But such was not the game they designed, or advertised it as. In the scope of "today's first person shooters featuring space marines and aliens," it was a pretty fun ride....and for an older "casual" gamer like myself who's interests lie in relaxed engagement first and "proving my geek cred" a distant second, this was about exactly what I needed to play this week.



EDIT:
The more I read the frothing mad rage reviews about this game, the more amusing it gets. If only I hadn't actually played the game and found it fun, then I might be able to participate in the witch hunt of a triple-A title that didn't quite meet expectations.





*And I know that by implying they slant a review negatively just to avoid accusations I am putting them in a double bind no-win scenario. Life as a journalist is tough.

Aliens: Colonial Marines Review (single player campaign)

Aliens: Colonial Marines released Tuesday morning (shortly after 1 AM my time in fact) and despite some Steam hiccups it was working in time for me to jump into it today. As it happens I've been sick, thanks to moving over the weekend in some very chill air, I think....sneezing and coughing uncontrollably at times! And yet, somehow, I not only managed to play Aliens: Colonial Marines, but thanks to today's relatively low standard for campaign length I even managed to finish it.

This sort of thing never happens to me. Traditionally I buy a game, play it for a bit, decide I would like to set aside a decent weekend to finishing it, then never get around to actually doing so. A year or two later I realize I've got this great (sometimes) neglected game still on the HDD and I finally tackle it. So buying a game and finishing it immediately after release feels really...weird.

This review is for the PC version. I snagged it plus the season pass for about $50 on Green Man Gaming after applying some decent discounts and credit I had over there.

Raptr says I spent 10 hours on A:CM today, and I am inclined to believe it. The single player campaign is a direct sequel (as in, immediately following) Aliens and Alien 3. It addresses the way things wound up by the end of those two movies, more or less, and probes some interesting questions about what was going on away from the prison planet Fury 161 (Alien 3) as well as the condition of LV 426 and Hadley's Hope after the reactor explosion in the terraformer at the end of Aliens. It specifically sets out to address the following questions (which I will not provide the answers to, so no spoilers, as such):

1. We see Michael Weyland and his mercs moving in on Ripley at the end of Alien 3. What else were they up to while in the neighborhood?

2. What happened to the Sulaco? For that matter, is everything that we thought we knew about the Sulaco correct?

3. Was Hadley's Hope destroyed by the terraformer explosion?

4. What about the alien vessel? The engineer vessel (called the "origin" vessel here) was only really touched upon in the Extended Cut of Aliens and the novelization....so is it still sitting out there, full of eggs?



A:CM takes place 17 weeks after the LV 426 skirmish and three more weeks after the events in Alien 3. It focuses on your character, Winter, a marine who's part of the crew of the military vessel Sephora, sent to respond to the Sulaco's distress signal. They find the Sulaco where they least expect it (back in orbit around LV-426) and crawling with both xenomorphs and Weyland-Yutani mercenaries. A brutal firefight ensues, as the marines are caught off-guard by both the xenomorphs and the mercs. Eventually we get to see LV 426, Hadley's Hope, and more (including the promethean vessel) as the game cascades along at a cinematic breakneck pace.

If this had been a real movie sequel, it would have been fantastic (and might have made one overlook the blemish of Alien: Resurrection). As it stands, this is supposedly an official sequel, which is good...there's a lot here to appreciate as a fan of the Alien universe. I can't go into specifics without spoiling it, but at least one familiar face pops up that I didn't anticipate, and of course Lance Henrickson reprises his role as Michael Weyland from Aliens 3 as well as another Bishop model (or two).

In terms of game play A:CM handled well although it's built using some variant of the Unreal 3 engine that felt a little funky to me; not as "tight" as some other Unreal 3-powered games I've played. The game, while largely linear in design, had some very wide-open spots and level design that felt less restricting than is normal for shooters these days. If you're used to Call of Duty style rail design, this game will feel oddly open. Do not expect a Borderlands-like experience, however. Even if you are leveling your marine and equipping level-earned weapon mods, it is fairly unintrusive and does not betray the core conceit of a good shooter (that skill and a decent weapon are all-powerful).

Graphically it looked good, but not state of the art; it looked (and felt) like a great release for 2008-2009, but maybe not quite up to current graphic expectations. When you notice the character models you'll see what I mean. If this game had been released at the same time as Bioshock, it would have looked amazing. Now....eh.

Was it scary? Well, I did find some spots that were a bit nerve wracking but to be honest I've found other games (like Rage, for example) to be more nerve-wracking than this. I played the campaign on middle-of-the-road soldier mode, however, so maybe more difficult settings are a bit more harrowing. Just keep in mind, this is a direct sequel in tone and flavor to Aliens, and is not meant to model the original Alien. In this regard it does a fantastic job. This is also a negative, in so far as you can only provide so much depth to a story focused entirely on the colonial marines. Space marines just aren't that good at nuanced depth. But the story is there, and it is worth checking out.

I have one gripe: why do the alien heads seem to change more and more with every new iteration? There are a few different types of alien in this game, and there seems to be an underlying explanation (which is fine), but the core alien seems to have mutated quite a bit from the original Alien xenomorph (with a long smooth skull). I know, they're closer to the actual look of the aliens as seen in Aliens and Alien 3, but still.....ah well, just a curious gripe. We're not talking "oddly different" on any level comparable to the proto-xenomorph at the end of Prometheus, for example. But, to contrast, take a look at the aliens in, say, AvP and notice how different the heads seem to look from one depiction to another over time.

EDIT: I take it back. The weird types of xenomorphs in the game were interesting, but the more I think about it the less sure I am that a good explanation for their existence is provided.* There's an acid spitter, for example, that I was thinking might have been a product of Weyland-Yutani's tampering, but best I can tell no actual assertion of such was provided. A big four-legged brute shows up, too....but what was its function, and was it due to tampering (as I was thinking) or a natural form? There's also a level where you encounter strangely diseased aliens that are slinking off to die. It's an eerie and interesting level, but they never provide an actual explanation for the condition of these particular aliens (that I can recall). I sort of assumed they were deformed or dying from radiation exposure due to the reactor explosion....but I could be wrong.

Anyway....

Bottom line: great shooter (A+), good story (A), okay graphics (B+) worth the time of any fan of shooters and the Aliens film to check out. A:CM is a solid A. Don't let jaded critics fool you! It's better than they make it sound.




*Technically there is an explanation, as follows: a video game of this nature must have a skirmisher you can shoot as it runs at you, a spitter/shooter that you pick off at a distance, a brute you must dodge when it charges, and so forth. The alien types are here because someone in the design team thought these were inviolate archetypes and they must shoehorn them in, regardless of whether they are really needed or not. Please, game designers, stop doing this. Please.

Prometheus

Caught the midnight show...I opted for a straight digital affair, eschewing the 3D glasses. Having seen Avengers both with and without 3D, I felt that the 3D looks a bit too unreal...anyone else experience it like I seem to, in which the 3D seems to mess with the "field of vision" too much, creating a sense that everything is sort of unreal and toylike? Well, while the 3D effect is certainly interesting, I was going to have none of that to distract me with Prometheus.


There's no way to talk about Prometheus easily without spoilers, so I am going to proclaim that this movie is certainly worth seeing and is the best entry in the franchise since Aliens.

Now to announce this:

SPOILER ALERT AHEAD!!!!!!!

There, you have been warned. Okay, my observations about Prometheus. Also, a lot of questions. Lots and lots. This film is all about answering questions we've had since 1979 with a hundred more questions.

1. Ambitious movie, far over-extended its reach. I don't mind it leaving unanswered questions, but by the closing credits there were more unanswered questions than there were evil alien microbes running around on LV223.

2. I'm trying to figure out if the prometheans (alias the jockeys, pilots, or engineers in the movie) at the start were seeding earth in some incredibly ancient period, or if the film was implying that everything we know about paleontology is completely wrong. They glossed over the archeological observations so briefly that they didn't really raise any odd questions there (one can just assume that the prometheans were visiting earth until quite recently) but I couldn't really determine if they were implying that the seeding of life on Earth was a relatively recent phenomenon or not. I am leaning toward, "this happened sometime at the dawn of life's manifestation," or possibly that the seeding (and maybe even later re-seedings) tie into the five major extinction events in our geologic history....but then, these are the sort of unanswered and possibly unanswerable questions the film likes to raise. If you assume that the prometheans made life hundreds of millions of years ago, that makes them a positively ancient species, and it suggests that the modern militant prometheans who have weaponized life are a new phenomenon...or maybe not....the significance of the opening scene, with a pure, unaltered promethean giving himself over to the elixir of creation to seed Earth with his sacrifice is fairly significant, and implies a very ancient, godlike civilization with some rather unique rituals and processes. Plus, the ship in that opening scene was decidedly not like the later u-shaped warships found on LV223 (and later on LV426 in Alien).

3. If the human DNA is identical to jockey/promethean DNA, or close enough to call it a day, then that implies that the ultimate goal of the seeding of Earth was to end up with humans. This suggests that DNA is more programmable and far-reaching over time, I imagine. Which means, probably, that all the junk DNA in our strands could also include "alien directional programming" placed there by the prometheans/engineers (the seed of life goo we see a lot of in this film). Either that, or there's something even weirder going on. Maybe the substance of life mimics/extracts a path for life from its host, thus the reason the engineers sacrificed someone, to "seed" the path?

3. Is LV426 in the same system as LV223? Are they both moons of the ringed world? It is not at all clear that there's any relation to the two other than similar cataloging convention, best as I can tell. LV426 could be in an entirely different solar system. I'll be catching this movie again, see if I can spot any evidence that it implies this is the same plantary system for both moons. Come to think of it, I don't recall it ever being established that LV 426 was described as a moon in the past. Time to rewatch the series.

4. The "thing" at the end (okay, the alien-like fellow, if you're reading this without having seen the film, shame on you). Not quite an alien as we know it, but awfully similar. Implying, I guess, that the "substance of life" (the weaponized bioweapons the prometheans were stockpiling) creates all sorts of weird stuff, but when it works with prometheans as a host it comes out sorta Giger-like alien looking? The mural in the "tomb" as the one scientist describes it has an alienesque image....which leads one to wonder, had the prometheans realized that all life they have seeded eventually becomes like them and creates new life, which in turn leads to this one final, destructive form? Am I reading too much into it? Is this why the promethean doesn't like the android? Is the substance of life, the weaponized biostuff somehow programmed to create the ultimate destructive lifeform, and it sort of gavitates toward the alien-physiology? Is it that all these lifeforms we see are related to an alien ecology that the prometheans have extracted the weaponized biostuff from? Too many damned questions!

5. I appreciated that the android was unabashedly amoral and determined with no effort to cover it up. We all knew he would be, and it was nice that the film didn't beat around the bush about it.

6. Why did the head explode and what was up with that anyway?

7. What did the android hope to accomplish by contaminating David's drink? Was he hoping the doctor would have sex with Shaw, and that that led to the impregnating alien? What made him think that would even work? Was he able to analyze the bioweapon stuff and see it for what it was? Did he think it would lead to the birth of a promethean, or was he just screwing with them? Why was he so nonplussed about her efforts to remove it? Why wasn't anyone all that concerned during that entire sequence? Was it really simply that the people of Weyland were that reverential to their geriatric boss? Why was Wyland played by a younger man in an old man's mask? Why not just get a old man to play the role? Why the hell would a high-tech auto surgical machine that was inside the special self-contained compartment of the Charlize Theron's hidey hole not be programmed for surgical procedures on women?

8. Obviously many more films can be made now about revisiting LV223, unless there's some suggestion that Weyland hid his actions and destination from everyoneback on Earth....but that still leaves the fact that the two archeologists uncovered and published (did they? I would postulate they did) data on the astronomical observations of countless unrelated cultures over a wide period of time.

9. Is Blade Runner part of this universe? I would suggest that there is absolutely nothing at this point that excludes Blade Runner from the Prometheus/Alien universe, and that it kinds fits well, barring that 2013 date everything takes place in.

10. So I wonder what did actually kill the prometheans in the base? The bodies suggest a lot of crazy stuff going on, experiments out of control, all that. Did the head explode because it was contaminated with the biomatter, or the bioweapon was mutating it, but not in the self-sacrificing way we saw at the opening scene? No one dies of a chest-bursting event until the very end, barring the fact that Shaw sort of had an event, but it was a more transormational stage. The proto-alien that pops out of the promethean could bust through the promethean's transhuman exoskeleton, pretty tough cookie.

11. Hmmm, I just realized that if the prometheans are visiting Earth over many thousands of years, and they are telling primitive humans about the star cluster in question that is where LV223 is, then they were technically laying a trap for humanity. That, or they thought originally that they were offering them a positional location, for when humanity advanced to the stars, to come meet them. But how does that jive with the Captain's very astute observation that LV223 felt like a munitions stockpile for biowarfare weapons, and the subsequent revelation that it was clearly designed to dispatch ships to inhabited worlds to seed them with the bioweapon? Does this mean its something of a trick? Are the prometheans really creating worlds to destroy, or destroying and remaking their creations if they are dissatisfied with the results? Are they in a period of cultural decline, or have they had a social revolution where the old creator culture was wiped out and the militants remain, snuffing out the countless seeded worlds as they find them? Does this explain why by the time of Alien the idea of inhabited worlds that don't need terraforming is a rare proposition? Too. Damned. Many. Questions!!!!

12. One gripe; wish we'd seen a bit more at the end of Shaw and the Head figuring out how to pilot the ship before taking off, just for fun.

Okay, I'm exhausted from asking questions that this movie offers no answers for. I do like that it was willing to lay out so many conundrums and leave no resolution to them, though.* That was definitely in keeping with the spirit of the original Alien. Those who have dismissed this film for its inability to tie everything up in a neat bow are rather missing the point of this kind of movie. A tight film gives you closure. An expansive film leaves the door wife open. Prometheus kicks the door down and burns it.



*Except for the dumb questions, like why the android spiked David's drink, or the deluxe surgical machine wasn't programmed to operate on women. WTF.