Alien: Isolation Is Calling Me (Let’s Hope Sega Is Listening As Well)…

Alien Isolation smallOkay, Sega. I wasn’t at E3 this year, so tell me you’re rolling into NYC with Alien: Isolation and a few others sometime soon. I have a few appointments in July, but I’ll clear out the better part of a day just to see this in action and play it a little. Not TOO much, as I don’t want to pee myself in public (ha, ha). Just enough so that I know it’s on the right track (and I already do, but hands-on is better than too much “journalistic overconfidence” any day of the week). Um… that is all for now. Oh yeah, Sonic the Hedgehog had a birthday recently. I baked a cake, but ate the whole thing because he needs to watch his weight with that new look and all…

E3 2014: Alien Isolation “Survive” Trailer: Be Still, Your Beating Heart (Or Else)…

 
Or else what?, you ask? Well, I’m sure one of those androids has superior hearing and can scope out that you’re hiding in a locker and that sole Alien in the game? Your ticker thumping away like the ghost of Gene Krupa pounding on a big kettle drum just might make you hope that big ugly thing is deaf in the head. Anyway, I’m gathering that The Creative Assembly’s upcoming Alien: Isolation will be certainly wiping away any memories of Aliens: Colonial Marines as it delivers a horror/sci-fi experience that’s closer to the tone and spirit of the first film and isn’t yet another first-person shooter for the pile. as noted earlier, I’m loving that The CA ha gone and made this for older as well as next-gen platforms, as the game will sell better on the PS3 and Xbox 360 thanks to both systems’ larger installed bases. However, I’m HOPING that anyone expecting a run ‘n gun experience realizes they should probably go watch Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic first to see what they’ll be in for.

1_1401190453 2_1401190455 3_1401190457 4_1401190459 5_1401190461

Some Silly Stuff I Have Discovered This Week…

Mr. Bagel 2

1. Yeah, it’s a fuzzy picture of a cinnamon raisin mini bagel with two raisins that look like eyes and a big grin. Amusing and kind of creepy if you can imagine it suddenly talking or singing or something. This made me laugh because it wasn’t the ONLY one in that bag of bagels either. I think I saw three more, meaning someone at the factory was having a clever day and wanted to share, there’s a bagel-making robot that’s creating not so sentient life in an effort to try and start some sort of revolution, or there’s REALLY something funky going into those bagels that turns them ALIVE before they’re bagged. Well,I never did find out if the darn thing could speak, as I ate it before it could do anything funny.

Rez Plus2. Yep, that’s a copy of Rez for the Japanese PlayStation 2 and yep, that’s the infamous Trance Vibrator peripheral next to it. While I’ve played the game numerous times to completion, I’d actually never used that Trance Vibrator until earlier today when I decided to crack open the box and plug it into my Japanese PS2 to see what all the fuss was about. In a word. Oh. In another word. My. Yeah, I can see why it was marketed as and written up as just what some of you think it is. Shocking! Well, not in the least, because we could all use some good vibrations every now and then, right? Throbbing! Yeah, that’s more like it.

3. Uhhhh.I forgot what number 3 was and I blame number 2 for that. Back in a bit…

Alien Isolation “Creating the Cast” Trailer: Who’s Who Before All That Screaming And Dying Starts…

Once again, it’s fantastic to see all the hard work going into making Alien Isolation a game worth watching. In case it hasn’t been made clear yet, this isn’t a run ‘n gun shooter or one more generic jump scare-filled horror game at all, but a project that’s hopefully going to be seen by fans of the series to fit like a glove in between the first and second films. Sure, that Colonial Marines game may be infamous on a few fronts, but AI will hopefully erase all those negative memories by being a completely different experience in every way. The game is coming to PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on October 7, 2014, so keep an eye peeled if you’re liking what you see in all these behind the scenes trailers…

Gallery: Game Library Odds & Ends (Mostly Odds)…

Odds n Ends PS Version
Hokay, I have some ‘splainin’ to do here:

I’ve played both Kane & Lynch Dead Men and Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, but I’ve never actually owned the first game until a few weeks back when I saw this in a stack of games some guy was selling at a sidewalk sale. Two bucks? No problem. As for the much maligned Aliens: Colonial Marines? I never played the demo and didn’t see that footage everyone says was mocked up and not representative of the final product, so the whole controversy went over my scalp. That said, I nabbed this sealed with ALMOST all the collector’s edition goodies (no Power Loader) for ten bucks, which may seem like too much based on the acid spewed upon the game worldwide. I’ve only played about an hour and while it’s far from great, as a FPS, it’s got some fun bits here and there. My money is on Alien Isolation being a more compelling experience and provided the dopes lurking and jerking on message boards REALIZE that the new game is from a C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E-L-Y different development team known for all of their games being solid experiences through and through.

Remember Me? Yes, Nilin… I do, my dear. I played the PC version (thanks, Capcom!) and loved it for the most part. Capcom also kindly sent me the Xbox 360 version, but I couldn’t play it when I got it thanks to my two busted 360’s collecting dust here. So, I gifted it to a friend so he’d crack it open (and let me review it at his place, of course) and ended up picking up the PS3 version recently for about five times less than what it retailed for last year. As for Silent Hill: Book of Memories? I love Wayforward’s games and the demo of this Vita exclusive was interesting in a “Hey, it’s like Diablo, but NOT!” manner. A few levels in, and I read that the game is pretty much the same thing from beginning to end, but has a level cap and some other stuff that makes it a bit tedious. I haven’t reached that point yet, but thanks for the forewarning, Internet… Continue reading

Alien Isolation “Lo-Fi Sci-Fi” Trailer: The Future? Same Problems As The Past (You Need Four Hands For Everything!)…

Eeek. I actually MISSED posting the Alien Isolation update from April. Oops. Hey, it happens with all these games coming out, kids. Anyway, how fitting that this video is about the low-tech equipment used in the game and the lower tech methods developer The Creative Assembly used to get parts of the game looking quite analog. I love this behind the scenes stuff and you have to appreciate that old techniques work as well as (or even better in this case) than just doing everything on a computer to FAKE video footage that looks garbled and yep, “lo-fi”. October 7, 2014, folks. Carve out some time for this one – it’s turning out really special…

Old Stuff Resurfaces – My Photobucket Account Lives!

rentahero2a
Yikes. I’d almost forgotten about Photobucket until I was digging through some debug console games to rephotograph and recalled I have a kind of inactive account there. “Thanks” to facebook’s nosy ass “Hey, you can and SHOULD connect to EVERYTHING so we can place ads all in your face in your feed that you KNOW you want to see!” (Oh, kill me now. Or them, preferably), I’m now reconnected to my old crap in photo form and it’s nice to see some of that old stuff without having to dig through the stacks.I think I’ve presented this stuff previously, but nostalgia is good for you, I say.

Anyway, that’s Rent-A-Hero #1 and Dinosaur Hunting for the Xbox (two games that never got an official western release) along with Stolen, an interesting and ambitious game that killed the developer that made it after it tanked at retail and among critics. The last image is Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers along with the “action” figure I got with the debug builds. It seems to look just like ex-President George W. Bush (as some who’ve seen it up close and personal have commented, usually while chuckling a bit). I’ve got a bunch more stuff here, but need more time to write about it, a helper monkey to do stuff so I have more time to write and yeah, a better camera to take better photos with…

dinosaurhunting4 stolen2 combatelite2

Alien Isolation Update: The Sounds Of Nostalgia Recreated For Your Screaming Pleasure…

 
What’s looking like the best Alien game to date is getting even better thanks to the development team’s focus on getting every element right as rain. Jerry Goldsmith‘s score to Alien was and in not only one of his best works, it’s one of the best genre soundtracks ever created (even though the original film drops a chunk of it in favor of cues from Goldsmith’s score to Freud and some classical tracks). I could write an entire post on the score alone, but I’ll wax poetic on it at some point in the future, as I’m kind of otherwise occupied with a living pile of work shuffling around the room here and making a nuisance of itself. Anyway, as you can see and hear here, Alien Isolation will get an additional layer of creepy thanks to the sound design and as a huge fan of the original film, I couldn’t be happier.

Alien Isolation lands on PC and PS3/PS4, Xbox 360/Xbox One on October 7, 2014. back with more once Sega hits the inbox with an update…

Alien Isolation Gets October 7, 2014 Release Date

AI_GEN PACK FRONTWow, I need to pay more attention (Part XVIX), as I didn’t know that Alien Isolation was being made for the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Well, now… that changes things up considerably as I can live with the game on the PS3 as long as it’s got a solid frame rate and has the same content as the new-gen versions. Sure, I like fancy graphics and all, but my PS3 still gets a load of usage and I’m not about to knock Sega or The Creative Assembly for thinking smart and realizing from the outset that casting a wider net on this game means MORE people will play it if it gets great scores and they still don’t have a new system in their homes. Granted, as a system SELLER, it’ll work quite well indeed for those looking for a reason to snap up that nice new console or upgrade their gaming rig. On the other hand, those who can’t buy into the newer systems yet will appreciate not being let out of what could be the best Alien game to date. As usual, we shall see… but as I’ve said previously, I trust the CA to do this one up right (and then some)…

Alien Isolation “Creating The Alien” Trailer: Shaping Your Fears Is Tough Work…

 
So, that’s how it’s done, hmmmm. Okay, now we need to see the underwear factory churning out adult-sized diapers with the Alien Isolation logo on them that will be packed in that Collector’s Edition of the game along with a pocket defibrillator and smelling salts. The folks at The Creative Assembly seem to be making the Alien game to end all Alien games because it’s closer to the first Alien film than a few of the more action-packed sequels ever were. Granted, there’s something to be said for those awesome Rebellion-made Alien vs. Predator PC games and yes, a few of the other games in this long running franchise have been quite well done and thrilling. But this may be the first game that feels frightening thanks to it looking to capture what made the original work all too well. Pre-alpha footage means there’s a long way to go before this one’s all wrapped up, folks. I’m betting it’s a big fat face-huggy surprise when it’s all done.

As usual, we’ll see…