Triple Jointed Knees

[irving343]

I'm hotly anticipating the game, everything is dead on, except for one thing, the Xenomorph's legs, they just don't sit well with me, anyone else feel the same way?

[thecaffeinatedone]

As long as whatever we get is great gameplay on top of the already good graphics then I'm fine with the legs.

[Gate]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gutCFMc5khY#

[Jenga]

I'm a creature artist and I had the same complaint. It's frustrating to seem them go so far to recreate the look and feeling of the origina film and then make such a huge design change to the alien itself. I read in one of the interviews scanned into the gallery on this site that they made the change because they felt that having the original humanoid leg alien would feel too much like a man in a suit. I personally think they should have gone whole hog and faithfully re-created the whole body of the alien but ultimately if it's animated well it won't matter. It is annoying it's like perfectly re-creating a Indiana Jones in a game but giving him Crocodile Dundee's hat. It's not going to affect the story or the action but it breaks immersion.

[thecaffeinatedone]

It is annoying it's like perfectly re-creating a Indiana Jones in a game but giving him Crocodile Dundee's hat. It's not going to affect the story or the action but it breaks immersion.

True! But, whereas you can clearly see that Indiana Jones isn't really wearing a crocodile dundee hat, you can't really say the same about the alien's legs. Yes, there are shots where the alien's legs are shown, but a lot of them don't show the legs, sans a few, and audiences probably won't remember that detail.

[Jenga]

And that is a completely logical and fair viewpoint. I think it also hits on the double edged sword surrounding accuracy in the broader sense. If you get really close (like 90% accurate to the nostalgic original) then that extra 10% is so much more frustrating and sometimes more visible because of how close it came to being 99% accurate. Definitely the general audience won't notice but this type of hyper-faithful design and bringing back close to all of the original cast...that's not for the general audience....that's for the die-hards sitting around commenting on a message board like us.

In a broader sense it's the same issue we face with the uncanny valley games in human CGI characters as they become more and more real. That close but no-cigar appearance starts to short circuit the part of our brain dedicated to recognition of human faces.

So I wish they just did the legs right. Re-creating the problems the original filmmakers dealt with will bring it that much closer. It will force them to hide the Alien in shadow, steam/smoke or the environment...this is part of what made Alien better than Aliens-A3-AR and especially AVP 1&2. Does it really matter? Not that much. Is there potentially something to be gained by recreating it - absolutely!!!

[PRI. HUDSON]

You are all a bunch of babies.

[thecaffeinatedone]

It will force them to hide the Alien in shadow, steam/smoke or the environment..

Indeed, although that's assuming that players stay in one spot and don't inspect the Alien more. They did attempt to use the legs from what I've heard but they didn't look right and didn't animate well. They could've tweaked the legs slightly but kept 'em humanoid I suppose.

But I can bet you aaaaany money, that tears of "not authentic enough" would still come rolling down people's cheeks here. "The leg is too skinny/too wide! Wait...that's not how it moved/it's slightly different!"

[Spoonman101]

My problem with this is that it debunks the idea of aliens adopting traits from the host. A problem I had with Alien Resurrection... Well thankfully it's just a game rather than a movie....

[SM]

You know who the host is?

[Spoonman101]

Most likely a person...

[Xenomorphine]

Visually, I always liked the tri-jointed look, but there are video clips where they look strangely bendy...

[SpaceMarines]

I'm just wondering how the hell a specific joint can have three joints?

Anyways, this is a pretty nit-picky issue. The comparison with Indiana Jones' trademark fedora is completely unjustified. The hat of Indy is iconic; the legs of the Alien, eh, notsomuch.

[SM]

They're practically invisible in the first two flicks.

[OpenMaw]

They're practically invisible in the first two flicks.

It's blasphemy, and the entire staff at CA should be hung by their intestines. 0/10 HORRIBLE LEG DESIGN.

Shame on SEGA for allowing this appauling thing to be made.






It does irk me a bit for authenticities sake, and I don't buy the "It didn't animate well" arguement. I get why they really did it, and that's fine. License and all that. Go for it, but it's not a deal breaker, just kind of "Eh..."