AvPG Previews Alien Isolation

[Engineer]

Oh and also, newt would have been hiding from 156 aliens since she was colonist number 157. But who knows how many facehuggers were running around too!

No, scratch that. 155 aliens at most. One didn't burst until the marines waltzed into the hive...

[Birth_Machine]

I disagree about your dormancy theory. Newt said "they mostly come out at night... Mostly." That makes me think they were nocturnal, but still active.

Small update: to clarify a little, I don't think the aliens were dormant at THIS time, but they could go dormant/hybernate if needed. Hence how the eggs survived so long on LV-426, and the alien attempting to sleep (I think) in the nostromo's escape craft.

Good catch. Maybe the point is that Newt was clever enough to learn their behavior and plan her movements accordingly to avoid detection. Judging from the film commentary, that was Cameron's intent. For me, that didn't require any suspension of disbelief. YMMV.

This begs the question of what errands the warrior xenomorphs were running at night. Lurk, stalk about, pick up a gallon of milk, lurk some more. That part was always hazy to me.

[Kimarhi]

Got to have that bread and milk.  Never know when it might snow.

[Engineer]

Predators always search for food, but that doesn't mean they always find it. I think the aliens were searching for hosts, but couldn't find anymore since they caught everyone else and couldn't locate newt.

[Birth_Machine]

Christmas on Acheron. A gentle snow blanketing grim, phallic rock spires.

[robbritton]

I disagree about your dormancy theory. Newt said "they mostly come out at night... Mostly." That makes me think they were nocturnal, but still active.

Small update: to clarify a little, I don't think the aliens were dormant at THIS time, but they could go dormant/hybernate if needed. Hence how the eggs survived so long on LV-426, and the alien attempting to sleep (I think) in the nostromo's escape craft.

Good catch. Maybe the point is that Newt was clever enough to learn their behavior and plan her movements accordingly to avoid detection. Judging from the film commentary, that was Cameron's intent. For me, that didn't require any suspension of disbelief. YMMV.

This begs the question of what errands the warrior xenomorphs were running at night. Lurk, stalk about, pick up a gallon of milk, lurk some more. That part was always hazy to me.

Ha! Maybe they were building Gearbox's spurious second hive under the Colony buildings! It's much more likely they were after milk, though.

[RagingDragon]

Thanks Hicks, Dachande, Ikarop, and everyone else that set this up.

For the first time in a long time, I'm excited. Just the direction they're taking alone has a much higher chance to succeed in terms of delivering an authentic, frightening Alien experience. So happy to see this rolling, despite the obvious gripes that I may or may not agree with.

Also wanted to chime in on Newt's situation. It's clear from the Aliens:DC scenes that Cameron intended the audience to infer Newt's survival was due to her fitting into tiny spaces the aliens couldn't. I don't see a problem with this. Of course, they're absurdly strong, but they aren't going to ram their way through meters of steel alloy to reach one person when they have 150+ running around.

There are certain situations where it could be impossible, even for yon mighty Alien, and I personally think they just aren't that dumb. If they were, they would've just continued running at the sentry guns instead of adapting. It would be much easier for them to just wait for Newt to come out and snatch her then.

I like to wonder how much longer she would've lasted if the marines didn't show up when they did. Not long, I'm sure.

One more point on it is that I always thought there could be something in the spot Ripley ends up finding her. The fan-thing/garbage cycler overhead was such an eerie touch (that obviously comes up later in the film,) but I liked to think that maybe that had some effect on the Alien's perception, messing with wavelengths and vibrations and such that maybe it didn't like that area or couldn't properly find her?

I mean, Ripley obviously had no trouble getting in there, so why would the Aliens? It's my personal canon that the spinning thingy maybe helped her in some way due to the Aliens sightless senses. 2 cents added.

In my own pipe dream Aliens fan stories, I've had locations in colonies where the technology messed with the Aliens senses enough to allow people to hide in certain areas, but they figured it out only through luck.

Anyway, can't wait for this game, and I don't say that lightly these days lol. Thanks again, AvPG.

[SM]

Of course, they're absurdly strong, but they aren't going to ram their way through meters of steel alloy to reach one person when they have 150+ running around.

Where is this mythical "meters of steel alloy"?

They sent almost an entire hive and smashed through a pressure door that was about 6 inches thick to six hosts?

Why not rip through some much thinner walls to get one?

[Kimarhi]

The Aliens don't go berserk on humans just cause.  Big Chap and even the Alien 3 drone could've just dropped into the mess and slaughtered everyone at any point.



They went apeshit after the Marines because the Marines waltzed into their hive and lit them up.  Different stimulus get different responses.

[MrSpaceJockey]

Maybe they were happy with the number of colonists they had cocooned at the time. 

[SM]

The Aliens don't go berserk on humans just cause.  Big Chap and even the Alien 3 drone could've just dropped into the mess and slaughtered everyone at any point.



They went apeshit after the Marines because the Marines waltzed into their hive and lit them up.  Different stimulus get different responses.

Big Chap was utterly "ignorant" - O'Bannon's own words - and the same could be said of the Fiorina creature.

And that still doesn't answer of the question of Aliens suddenly not being interested in smashing down walls.

[Kimarhi]

Only if you think the Aliens can't differentiate between unarmed and unarmored little girls and full armed and armored Marines who entered the hive, the same hive that withheld the queen and lit em up.

But if you don't think so we'll just have to agree to disagree. 

[SM]

They didn't seem to have any reservations about taking all the other unarmed and unamoured little girls.

[Kimarhi]

The ones that weren't hiding well would get picked off kind of like the nostromo crew got picked off.  Big Chap didn't go through a rampage smashing bulkheads because he could smell the crew in one end of the ship when he was in the other.  Neither did the Alien 3 drone.  Alien Res had one door smashing I believe but were still pretty leisurely about picking off both the Auriga and Betty crew.

Hence the skinny chick and Newt being the last survivors because they went places that were harder for the Aliens to track them. 

They do what they want when they want.

[SM]

I just find the idea of them going "Meh, I can't be rooted.  What's one more host anyway?" pretty pissweak.

Big Chap didn't need to go on a rampage.  The handful on the Auriga did a pretty decent job.  One bumped off potentially a dozen people in seconds on the lifeboat.