Not Aliens.
Not Alien 3.
Not Alien Resurrection.
Not Alien vs. Predator.
Not Prometheus.
Not Alien Covenant.
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| Just Alien. Copyright 1979, Twentieth Century Fox. |
It's my favorite film, and one I consider a paragon of mainstream blockbuster films over the decades. It continues to have wide appeal, particularly the artwork and design aspects. I would have awarded Giger multiple Oscars for his work on this film alone, had I not seen concept art by futurist, Ron Cobb.
Director Ridley Scott, with writers Dan O'Bannon and Ron Shusett, collaborated with Cobb's vision of what the interior of the spacecraft Nostromo should look like. It was terrifying. It was beautiful. It looked like what a leftover well-used piece of equipment in the dystopian future should look like. It looked like an old city bus.
A new form of entertainment out now, the video game movie, has brought Ron Cobb's future back. Okay, yes, I'm late to the punch, as Alien Isolation has been out for several years now. When I saw previews of this game, it was Ron Cobb in a blender. It was breathtaking.
A few years later, I secured a copy of Isolation, and played through the first few levels. I had to get Zachary out the room to do this, so I was mainly playing at night for a few days. Finally, I had to stop. This game is way too scary. I didn't want to have a heart attack.
It's rather impossible to play, too, especially for an infrequent gamer like me. I just don't have the time to hide from the alien 1,000 times and die 999 times over a period of months.
Still, Alien Isolation is just gorgeous. It's no wonder that it took 3 years to develop. The androids have that very disturbing THX 1138 quality, that gives you no glimmer of their intent for human preservation. I would have loved to see an actual Alien franchise film with these Seegson defective androids.
The designers also made a Nostromo mission you can add on, so you can play as in the original 1979 film. They even brought in the original actors for voice, and just in time, too. (Rest in peace John Hurt.)
I experienced the rest of the game as a movie though video walkthroughs. It's all my heart could take.
Let me just say Ripley is up shit creek without a paddle more than 600 times over than any Ripley in any previous film to date or will be in any future film, absolutely to the point of total implausible survival.
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| Future humans just don't burst into flames in the presence of gamma rays like they used to. |
I would actually love to play this game all the through with it only being mildly fatal, like Portal. But since this will be the last game I play for a while, at least the storyline can be put to rest. Plus, if I see one more Ron Cobb bulkhead, I'm going to puke rainbows.
