Quote from: Mr.Turok on Feb 08, 2024, 04:14:25 PMIt's a shame that its simply a reformatted The WY Report and not an actual militarized survival guide against the xenos. Fireteam Elite did expansion of the UA Colonial Marines and the overall world of the Alien series so much better than what the book supposed to do. Only difference is that it has the app that allows you to see aliens on your phone and that last few pages where how they can use xenos for military applications.
There's nothing in the book about Alien military applications, in fact early on it says "yeah the Company might have applications, but we're the USCM and we kill on sight." Maybe you're thinking of the WY Report? The last few pages in the Book of Alien are Alien identification guides and some of David's drawings.
Quote from: Slutty Badger on Feb 08, 2024, 02:03:40 PMWhy does the Covenant section have no AR sequences when that's the primary selling point of the book?
The primary selling point of the book is the first two movies (same as the WY Report), it just includes Covenant because it would seem incomplete without it given when it came out.
As a contrasting example, see the upcoming Encyclopedia that's excluding material released before the book comes out.
I'm about 2/3 of the way through my re-read and I gotta say, while I was hard on it for its errors (and I stand by what I said then, the errors are egregious and the book needed a fact-checker very badly), I'm softening on it on the re-read. As a casual fan coffee table book like the WY Report, it's got some fun ideas and the presentation is solid. As a dedicated fan, the errors are disappointing but it's got some interesting franchise deep-cuts and covers a surprising amount of material that conveys to me that the author was passionate about the assignment but presumably just wasn't up to the task on a technical level, and I'm okay with that. The AR stuff is a fun addition. And as a long-time fan, it's just such an oddity based on what it includes vs when it was released (namely the Aliens Colonial Marines content).
It's not an authoritative tome on the USCM (that book arguably already existed), nor is it even a particularly convincing in-universe document, but just like the WY Report I don't think it's trying to be. Just like the WY Report it's a casual fan coffee table book, a novelty.
