WOW!
1 year has passed already!
Work has been insane for the past year. Things are now almost back to normal and it’s high time to revive this poor blog.
Gearbox just announced the title of their Aliens-based FPS:
Aliens: Colonial Marines
This is sure to be a sign and a nod to me and every fan out there.
Stay tuned for more content soon.
I previous explained the importance of Cooperative Online Gameplay.
The opportunity to share a dramatic or epic fiction with one or several human players is mesmerizing. Indeed, a big part of role playing is interacting with other players. Building relationships. Trust. Respect. Friendship. Fear. Disdain. Hostility. The ingredients of verisimilitude.
Yet, why stop there?
Most games require the player to assume the role of a protagonist. Generally, an instrument of Good. From there, it’s all forward. The protagonist is always in control.
When was the last time a game forced you to withdraw under overwhelming force, with no hope at all?
When confronted with a swarm of xenomorphs, there is no way a single Marine could survive.
Yet, most modern games linearly force the protagonist through such a series of impossible situations. Yes, you may experience setbacks, you may have to retrace your steps, but you are expected to progress forward and eventually you will progress forward. That’s the intent of the game designer.
In other words, the entire game world revolves around you and no AI-controlled entity will ever truly surprise you.
So, I would like to introduce a concept that extends, goes beyond Cooperative Online Gameplay:
Coopetitive Online Gameplay
In essence, this mode is very similar to Cooperative Online Gameplay, with one major difference: Players are not forced to play “good guys” or “bad guys” and players do not necessarily know who is playing antagonists and protagonists.
OK, this sounds very abstract. I will use an example to clarify what it all means…
Imagine:
You and 3 of your friends agree on a time and date when you will play Gearbox’ Alien-based FPS.
You are going to play the game in Coopetitive Online Mode. You and your 3 friends will play from 4 different locations.
As you set up the game, you are asked what type of character you would like to play, in general terms.
Then, the game assigns you a role.
Let’s say you have been assigned the role of a Colonial Marine. In Seattle, your friend was assigned the role of a Weyland-Yutani Bioweapon Specialist. In San Francisco, one of your friends will play a Science Officer. In Los Angeles, a Pilot.
Thereon, gameplay and storytelling unfold from 4 different angles. As a Colonial Marine, you may or may not know the Pilot is a human player. As a Bioweapon Specialist, your friend may or may not know the Science Officer’s mission conflicts with theirs. When time comes to confront xenomorphs, the Colonial Marine may have to ally with the Pilot.Brief, the game becomes a lot more dynamic and linearity is greatly reduced.
I admit this explanation needs a lot of work and I will come back to it later on.
Anyway, Coopetitive Online Gameplay, a flavor of Cooperative Online Gameplay where all human players don’t necessarily play on the same team, some kind of Cooperative Online Gameplay where human players may have to advance different plots towards conflicting objectives.
The storyline of any new Alien-inspired game should probably avoid paraphrasing the movies.
Movie-to-game adaptions have often led to terrible games, as much as game-to-movie adaptions have led to terrible movies. (I am still trying to forget AVP: Alien vs. Predator, but the memory of a predator running hand-in-hand with a human female still haunts me.)
So, I think Gearbox and Obsidian should look for intersecting or parallel storylines. Clearly, those new games should take place in the Alien universe, but the franchise timeline has many gaps to leverage.
Example:
The action could start on LV-426.
The terraforming colony just discovered The Derelict and the egg chamber. They load up a few eggs for study.
Now, this is a terraforming colony, not a science facility. So, while the local Science Officer attempts to learn more about the eggs, a few samples are shipped to the main Wayland-Yutani-controlled science complex in the Zeta II Reticuli system.
The rest of the game tells the story of what happens within the Wayland-Yutani-controlled science complex, located on an unrecorded planetoid.
Do not overexpose xenomorphs.
Xenomorphs create the most tension and fear when you know they surround you, but you are unable to see them.
The more you expose xenomorphs, the more you demystify them and make it difficult to maintain a fearful atmosphere.
In fact, I like the idea xenomorphs constitute an overpowering force that can only be survived.
Gearbox’ first-person shooter could certainly be set up as some kind of survival horror FPS. In fact, that’s pretty much the way Monolith had set up Aliens versus Predator.
The key, obviously, is to maintain a high level of atmosphere, which force the player to think tactically.
The creation of this blog was triggered by these announcements:
SEGA of America Inc., SEGA Europe Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising today announced a worldwide exclusive agreement to bring game content based on the critically-acclaimed Alien film franchise to next-generation gaming systems.
SEGA of America Inc. and SEGA Europe Ltd. today announced that Obsidian Entertainment will create a role-playing game based on the Alien film franchise with license from Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising. This title will be developed for the next-generation systems and the PC.
SEGA of America Inc. and SEGA Europe Ltd. today announced the signing of critically-acclaimed developer Gearbox Software to create a first-person shooter title based on the Alien film franchise for the next-generation systems with license from Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising.
Hence, the purpose of this blog is to collect ideas and wishes for Obsidian Entertainment and Gearbox Software.
At this time, this blog is essentially the brainchild of a single fan.