Pathogen - New Campaign

Started by Kailem, Jun 10, 2022, 04:04:49 PM

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Pathogen - New Campaign (Read 35,926 times)

Kailem

Kailem

#150
Played through it last night, and overall I liked it! Some cool new music, cool new weapons, the new "Not Neomorphs" were fun to fight, and the mutated hive looked cool.

Also very nice to have an actual boss fight too; and she was tough! Took us a few tries on intense to beat her, but it was very satisfying when we did.

I was also surprised at how little intel there was on the reason the xenos could be affected by the pathogen though.

Quote from: PAS Spinelli on Sep 01, 2022, 07:18:36 PMMy personal headcanon is that the Hive was started by one of the mutated Xenos from the lab, making the following brood vulnerable to Pathogen mutations

That's what I'm thinking too. One of the voiceover lines at one point spoke about how the WY scientists at Pala Station were directly injecting pathogen into facehuggers, so I'm taking it that this hive is the result of one of them getting loose and starting up a hive, not that xenomorphs can normally be effected by this stuff.

And yeah, we know for a fact that they worked with Andrew Gaska to tie stuff in to the RPG when they were making the main game, but it could be that there's some behind-the-scenes stuff going on that meant they just didn't have access to him for this. Or they just decided they wanted Neomorph enemies for this expansion and decided to go about introducing them into the game this way, regardless of any continuity issues it might have thrown up.

Either way, it certainly stands out given that everything had been tied so closely together prior to this.

Mike’s Monsters

Mike’s Monsters

#151
Agreed with @Kailem! We played it with @RidgeTop and I had a bunch of fun last night. Was nice having a boss fight and a cinematic to go with it after! Was actually a challenge too, we took 3 (4?) attempts to beat her, which was also a nice that it wasn't quick and easy.

Would have loved to fight a normal Queen in a situation like this too.

The mutations are cool and stuff, but I think I'd rather them just be normal neomorphs. I'm not super into the pathogen designs or creatures themselves, besides the Neomorphs in the game. The Queen design was cool, but I don't know I buy all the designs and mutations myself. Kinda think I would prefer just more different breeds of actual Xenos maybe.

Samhain13

Samhain13

#152


Corporal Hicks

Corporal Hicks

#153
So I actually quite like Fireteam's take on the (Not) Neomorphs. In terms of just pure game, I do really enjoy Pathogen. While obviously a reuse of assets, the level design doesn't feel like it's just a recycle of the previous campaigns which is great! I thought they did a great job with the (Not) Neomorph hive and made it look distinct from the Aliens, but still very visually interesting in its own right. The use of all the fungal imagery was great. 

I wish they'd not use the "go explore areas off this main chamber" twice in a row though, but I did really enjoy it in the first mission.

I was really pleased to see Cold Iron had listened to the complaints and put in a boss battle, and a cut scene. So thanks for that!

But yeah, lore-wise, the campaign does bug me. The Aliens shouldn't be able to be infected with the Pathogen. I know we saw it the once in Fire and Stone, but we had moved past that. I dislike how Fireteam and Inferno's Fall has dipped back into Fire and Stone's take on the pathogen. I much preferred Alex White's take we had started got towards.

Wweyland

Wweyland

#154
I will also mention the music. It would have been easy and lazy for them to just reuse music from the other campaigns, but this one felt great and different (especially going into the hive part).

Story-wise, what's up with the suicide mission-type requests from the command? Go into a hive with a 3 man team and kill everything? Same for the Regicide campaign, but there we had 2 different teams (which doesn't make sense from a military standpoint to split up forces).

Samhain13

Samhain13

#155
The Pathogen just keeps getting more inconsistent over time, became just a cheap plot devide used by the writers to pull whatever they want on the storyline cus muh magical space gooze can do anything.

BlueMarsalis79

BlueMarsalis79

#156
Not quite, all over the place in Prometheus, more internal consistency in Alien Covenant, that carried into the Alex White Alien novels and got even better, then Aliens Fireteam Elite goes into uncharted territory.

The issue's not what they make it do, but how, when something's fantastical in science fiction that's okay, what's not okay's when they do not give a reason the audience can grasp as to why things are as they are.

It's important to maintain suspension of disbelief that we for example get an explanation as to why the Aliens here can be affected when other sources say otherwise.

Xiggz456

Xiggz456

#157
Finally beat that f**king Queen! Took me several tries but I finally got it and I appreciated the short cinematic cut scene!

As for the lore and going by what we know from "Infiltrator", I would guess that irradiated pathogen is responsible for the not-neomorphs. Same logic could also apply to "Fire & Stone" considering the Prometheus' crash into the Juggernaut could've irradiated the pathogen within the vessel that then spilled into the environment on LV-223. At least that's my current head canon for the moment.

Still Collating...

Still Collating...

#158
Quote from: Samhain13 on Sep 08, 2022, 01:11:00 PMThe Pathogen just keeps getting more inconsistent over time, became just a cheap plot devide used by the writers to pull whatever they want on the storyline cus muh magical space gooze can do anything.

That's exactly how I feel. The writers aren't really being thoughtful here. Especially when we've had Covenant, the RPG and Alex White's interpretations that have started to make more internal sense of it all. One step forward, then two steps back with recent releases.

And I'm kind of getting bored with the whole superhero logic of: just use a virus, or just use radiation to make some crazy, generic, fleshy mutants. If you're gonna change and mutate the aliens, at least stop making them more stupidly fleshy and generic, but lean into the more biomechanical side...

BlueMarsalis79

BlueMarsalis79

#159
The Pathogen does go biestal though, not biomechanical, but I largely agree.

BlueMarsalis79

BlueMarsalis79

#160
I love the Neomorph as a extension of that but the issue, the designs in this, just do not have the same fear factor...

Wweyland

Wweyland

#161
We really need a Pathogen Horde mode map.
This chould have easily been part of this DLC.

BlueMarsalis79

BlueMarsalis79

#162
I agree.

Cosmic Incubation

Cosmic Incubation

#163
More horde mode maps in general would definitely be appreciated.

But yes, definitely a Pathogen map!

VeteranSergeant

VeteranSergeant

#164
Quote from: Wweyland on Sep 08, 2022, 09:21:32 AMStory-wise, what's up with the suicide mission-type requests from the command? Go into a hive with a 3 man team and kill everything? Same for the Regicide campaign, but there we had 2 different teams (which doesn't make sense from a military standpoint to split up forces).
It's the plot for a co-op shooter game. There's not been much about it that made sense from any context.

I mean, the Regicide campaign is a great starter. It's a space station. Just blow it up from outside with missiles or something. Tow it out of orbit and fling it at the closest star. Why does this mission even need three Marines on a suicide mission to overload its reactor?

The answer is: It's a co-op zombie-style shooter game. The levels exist solely for you to shoot at hundreds of zombies Aliens.

It's the same reason the movie Marines hole up in Operations instead of doing the smart thing: drive one of the colony rovers miles away from Hadley's Hope and wait for Bishop to come pick them up. It's more exciting.

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