The Alien vs Aliens debate has ignited countless geek battles over the years. It’s a topic as inflammatory in geekdom as “Who’s the best Doctor Who?” On one hand, you have the survival thriller. One Alien and a crew of terrified but healthy walking-incubators picked off one by one in the dark.
Then there’s Aliens, the action flick with the who’s-who in action flicks: the bungling officer, the hardcore sergeant, the a-hole, the prophet heroine and the pre-Michelle Rodriguez Michelle Rodriguez character with balls bigger than the boys. And lot more Aliens, lot more bullets and a flamethrower. Which is better? It’s like Star Wars vs Star Trek – it’ll never be resolved without acid bloodletting.
Amanda Ripley then…
At the end of Alien, Ripley drifts in space and takes a long nap. At the beginning of Aliens, she wakes up and discovers, among other things, that decades have passed and her toddler daughter, Amanda, had passed away from old age (cancer, actually, in the book).
…Amanda Ripley now.
Alien: Isolation, a new game out later this year, takes place between Alien and Aliens. Fifteen years after Alien, Amanda embarks on a mission to find out what happened to her mother, who we already know is drifting in space. She finds herself on a planet infested with Aliens and tries to survive. Check out the announcement trailer released today.
Based on the trailer, Isolation looks more like Alien than Aliens. It’s a survival FPS. It’s dark, not a lot of light, scary things crawling about and you have to use your wits, not just bullets, to make it out. It’s not procedural like Daylight, but the storyline is more intriguing, almost good enough to be a movie in itself. It at least seems creepier and offers better gameplay than the disappointing Aliens: Colonial Marines. If Isolation does indeed turn out to be a better game than Colonial Marines, it will no doubt add more arsenal to the pro-Alien backers in future geek battles.
Another hot geek debate