I'm bored! Can you tell!?
Dec. 19th, 2007 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI confess: watching any Alien or Predator-related movie with me is no fun.
I'm not even the hugest nerd about these two fandoms. I just like the movies a lot. Except for Alien Cubed and most parts of Predator 2 (like the parts with Gary Busey). Those sucked pretty much a lot. I did, however, really like the premise of Aliens Versus Predator the movie, and I don't apologize for that or for planning to see Aliens Versus Predator: Requiem. I like the movies a lot and I think they're totally awesome.
What I'm really annoying about is the computer game Aliens Versus Predator, which came out years before they ever got the movie off the ground and is one of the only FPS I've ever played but it easily my favorite computer game...well, ever. There is absolutely nothing I don't like about being an Alien in that game and climbing walls and shit and hiding in the dark and biting people's heads off for health and falling onto people and tearing them apart. LOVE IT. I even love having to sneak around those GODDAMNED SENTRY GUNS MOTHERFUCKERS so I can take them out with a well-placed tail-whip. I LOVE HAVING A TAIL. This is the first game where I started off on "easy" not just because I suck at games but because I wanted to gradually play through the harder and harder levels. I actually have beaten it on the hardest level because I cared enough to do it because I LOVE THIS GAME AND WOULD PLAY IT A THOUSAND TIMES OVER AGAIN.
Being a Predator isn't even a close second even to being an Alien, although being a Predator is fucking cool, too. You can see in all these colors! You're invisible! WEAPONS ZOMG! Plus, although I never mastered it, you can take trophies! With the bad-ass wristblade! SO COOL. Then again, you have to fight THE GODDAMNED ALIEN QUEEN with only said wristblade, a speargun, and your bad breath as the boss battle, which was where my game skills proved to be made of epic fail. On harder levels, shit they put FACEHUGGERS in there, too. So you gotta avoid an eventual chest-bursting AND the stompy-doomy Queen Alien of DOOM. Worse, if the facehugger got you, you got a face-first view of what it would be like to be face-hugged for realz. Eeeeew
As a side note, let it be said that, YES, I know these things aren't real. Knowing that and not still being secretly afraid they are are two different things. Talk to me about zombies some time, you'll appreciate that the subtleties matter little when it comes to fear.
The only bad thing about the game were the pitiful humans. And that's what I remembered very clearly from watching Aliens again last night. No one wants to be the humans. No one even wants them on their side because they are squishy and weak and ineffective. And their technology is for crap. The best the humans get is the panic-induced movement scope thing that just shows squishy blobs where moving objects (ahem, DEADLY ALIENS WHAT WANT TO EAT OR MAKE WOMBS OUT OF YOU) are. Personally, I'd prefer to be taken by surprise horrible death than to watch and listen to some scope beeping out the fact that it's closing in on me.
I could never play the human levels in that game for very long because it scared the crap out of me. The lighting was terrible so you could never see. The enemies were quick or cloaked or melted into the background so you always got munched. And the weapons at my disposal fell far short of nuclear so I was never satisfied that I wasn't going to die.
The only time I played a human with any satisfaction was in a local multiplayer game with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
feiran and this is THE BEST GAMING STORY OF MY LIFE, so please pay attention to me (please!?):
Knowing my utter terror at being stuck in the dark with aliens of any sort, when I picked a Predator Deathmatch (one Predator, anyone kills it becomes it),feiran picked out a human with a grenade-launcher. Eventually, after many rounds of me sniping her with the (and I quote) FUCKING DISC (hee! Predator 2 was good for something!), she killed me, and the shoe was on the other foot. She killed me so dead a hundred times because, gee, the Predator can cloak and humans suck at seeing and she (bastard!) stayed still so much of the time that she never registered on my tracker.
I decided to get tactical. I dropped the floor of a square room with a metal walkway that ran all around the walls. I tucked myself into a corner and flicked flares into the opposite corner up onto the walkway. I was in the shadows, and I had a perfect view of the spot I was bombarding with flares. I'd see anyone coming because there was no exit on the ground floor where I was and the door was over my head (so no one would enter from across the room and spot me).
Sure enough, this vaguely blobby invisible outline came to investigate. Chick-chick...BOOM Only after I resumed my rightful role as Predator, did I get the goggling "HOW THE HELL!?! WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?!" from my fellow player.
And that's why it's my favorite game ever. Well, that and the fact that Aliens head-bite people to restore their health. You wouldn't believe how fun it is to watch some unarmed engineer cower while you position yourself just right to eat their melon. YUM!
I'm not even the hugest nerd about these two fandoms. I just like the movies a lot. Except for Alien Cubed and most parts of Predator 2 (like the parts with Gary Busey). Those sucked pretty much a lot. I did, however, really like the premise of Aliens Versus Predator the movie, and I don't apologize for that or for planning to see Aliens Versus Predator: Requiem. I like the movies a lot and I think they're totally awesome.
What I'm really annoying about is the computer game Aliens Versus Predator, which came out years before they ever got the movie off the ground and is one of the only FPS I've ever played but it easily my favorite computer game...well, ever. There is absolutely nothing I don't like about being an Alien in that game and climbing walls and shit and hiding in the dark and biting people's heads off for health and falling onto people and tearing them apart. LOVE IT. I even love having to sneak around those GODDAMNED SENTRY GUNS MOTHERFUCKERS so I can take them out with a well-placed tail-whip. I LOVE HAVING A TAIL. This is the first game where I started off on "easy" not just because I suck at games but because I wanted to gradually play through the harder and harder levels. I actually have beaten it on the hardest level because I cared enough to do it because I LOVE THIS GAME AND WOULD PLAY IT A THOUSAND TIMES OVER AGAIN.
Being a Predator isn't even a close second even to being an Alien, although being a Predator is fucking cool, too. You can see in all these colors! You're invisible! WEAPONS ZOMG! Plus, although I never mastered it, you can take trophies! With the bad-ass wristblade! SO COOL. Then again, you have to fight THE GODDAMNED ALIEN QUEEN with only said wristblade, a speargun, and your bad breath as the boss battle, which was where my game skills proved to be made of epic fail. On harder levels, shit they put FACEHUGGERS in there, too. So you gotta avoid an eventual chest-bursting AND the stompy-doomy Queen Alien of DOOM. Worse, if the facehugger got you, you got a face-first view of what it would be like to be face-hugged for realz. Eeeeew
As a side note, let it be said that, YES, I know these things aren't real. Knowing that and not still being secretly afraid they are are two different things. Talk to me about zombies some time, you'll appreciate that the subtleties matter little when it comes to fear.
The only bad thing about the game were the pitiful humans. And that's what I remembered very clearly from watching Aliens again last night. No one wants to be the humans. No one even wants them on their side because they are squishy and weak and ineffective. And their technology is for crap. The best the humans get is the panic-induced movement scope thing that just shows squishy blobs where moving objects (ahem, DEADLY ALIENS WHAT WANT TO EAT OR MAKE WOMBS OUT OF YOU) are. Personally, I'd prefer to be taken by surprise horrible death than to watch and listen to some scope beeping out the fact that it's closing in on me.
I could never play the human levels in that game for very long because it scared the crap out of me. The lighting was terrible so you could never see. The enemies were quick or cloaked or melted into the background so you always got munched. And the weapons at my disposal fell far short of nuclear so I was never satisfied that I wasn't going to die.
The only time I played a human with any satisfaction was in a local multiplayer game with
feiran and this is THE BEST GAMING STORY OF MY LIFE, so please pay attention to me (please!?): Knowing my utter terror at being stuck in the dark with aliens of any sort, when I picked a Predator Deathmatch (one Predator, anyone kills it becomes it),
feiran picked out a human with a grenade-launcher. Eventually, after many rounds of me sniping her with the (and I quote) FUCKING DISC (hee! Predator 2 was good for something!), she killed me, and the shoe was on the other foot. She killed me so dead a hundred times because, gee, the Predator can cloak and humans suck at seeing and she (bastard!) stayed still so much of the time that she never registered on my tracker.I decided to get tactical. I dropped the floor of a square room with a metal walkway that ran all around the walls. I tucked myself into a corner and flicked flares into the opposite corner up onto the walkway. I was in the shadows, and I had a perfect view of the spot I was bombarding with flares. I'd see anyone coming because there was no exit on the ground floor where I was and the door was over my head (so no one would enter from across the room and spot me).
Sure enough, this vaguely blobby invisible outline came to investigate. Chick-chick...BOOM Only after I resumed my rightful role as Predator, did I get the goggling "HOW THE HELL!?! WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?!" from my fellow player.
And that's why it's my favorite game ever. Well, that and the fact that Aliens head-bite people to restore their health. You wouldn't believe how fun it is to watch some unarmed engineer cower while you position yourself just right to eat their melon. YUM!
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-19 09:38 pm (UTC):)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-19 09:40 pm (UTC)That and to do a years-later victory dance over my roommate and her trickery.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-19 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-19 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-19 11:23 pm (UTC)Have fun with aliens on Christmas!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-19 11:42 pm (UTC)Happy Holidays with Aliens to you as well!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-20 04:41 am (UTC)In any case I think it's a great movie, one of the greatest movies of all time and indeed the greatest movie of the series. Everyone will disagree, but Sigourney Weaver is magnificent and I just think the movie is great. It is also a great sequel, in that it is risk-taking and different and yet (mainly through Sigourney's performance) it builds intrinsically from the first two movies. It's not the sterile creepiness of Alien nor the crowd-pleasing action flick that Aliens is but I think there's much more there than is given credit for.
The only downside is the optical effects, which are basically terrible. Why the filmmakers chose not to use digital composites at that point in time is a mystery but it was clearly the wrong choice.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-20 04:46 am (UTC)There's also an emotional disconnect with the killing off of the few humans Ripley engaged with in Aliens. It was a mistake to get rid of both Hicks and Newt, especially since the tiniest of scenes with Bishop was so good. The Ripley is on her own against the disbelievers and unwanted among them was done already with the previous movie.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-20 06:25 am (UTC)And I think the fact that Newt and Hicks die brings out even deeper emotional terrain in Ripley. There's a scene where she talks quietly with the doctor (which may only be in the workprint) that is at the heart of what I love about Alien3. In Aliens, as well, the troops come around fairly quickly -- all they have to do is see an Alien to believe it, whereas I feel the shunning of Ripley in the third movie has little to do with the Alien at all.