Alien: Isolation

(Apologies for the laziness in this post - I didn't set aside the time to struggle with a digital drawing or to write much more than a rant on the first game announcement to make me this giddy since Dark Souls 2. Also, I wrote this on my phone, so I have no idea where the image will appear...)

With the announcement of Alien: Isolstion, the folks at Creatice Assembly have painted a massive target on themselves. Alien fans and gamers alike were deeply scorned by Aliens: Colonial Marines, a game that fell short of all promises. Now, just enough has been teased about Alien Isolation to kickstart the dreams of gamers, Alien fans, and horror survivalists alike.  We have a glimpse of something that could be truly terrifying.

By focusing on Ellen Ripley's daughter Amanda, the game foregoes the possibility of rewriting the Alien cannon. Instead, we'll fill in the gap between blowing the Alien out of the airlock and Ripley's eventual retrieval. This safe zone gives the developmers room to breathe, and we rabid fans will have no preconceived storyline to follow.  This is something new, something different,  something unknown.

By following the suspense-thriller path of the original movie, we are promised something wonderfully dark and terrifying.  The golden rule of monster movies (never show the entire monster until the final scene) falls well into play here; if you see the xenomorph in full, it is the end (for you).  From what we've seen so far, the game play will play like Silent Hill Shattered Memories (a clear division between safe zones and dangerous areas), or it will play like Slender (you are never safe, always being hunted).  Either case results in a damn fine game.

I'm excited - giddy even - and really looking forward to this game. My biggest complaint is the lack of a Wii U release.  ZombiU proved the Gamepad-as-motion-tracker concept is excellent, and that looking away from the main screen is terrifying when you're being hunted.  Alien: Isolation seems like a concept that could really draw on the Wii U's quirky strengths, and I honestly believe it will be a lesser experience on other consoles.

If anyone at Creative Assembly happens to read this, please look into a Wii U release - perhaps via crowd sourcing to prove a it's worth the investment. I'd back that in a heartbeat.

Off to a Rough Start

Happy New Year and all that jazz.  Starting it out sick as a dog, so any resolutions I may have considered are sitting in the wings, but something I definitely want to stick to is constantly creating things (art, crafts, writing, anything really).  This week, I created a font (seen above) and this little comic (and rambled below - there is no substance beyond this point, just words).

Back before Nintendo shut down Swapnote, I occasionally took part in a self-mandated 30-day Swapnote challenge.  The rules were simple: Create a Swapnote every day for 30 days.  Swapnotes consisted of four panels, which would redraw themselves when received.  From these challenges, I created a few comics and characters, and otherwise had a bit of fun that my friends enjoyed.  Since Swapnote shut down, I've been tossing around the idea of bringing my characters back to life in webcomic format.  Problem is that drawing on the 3DS and using my little Bamboo tablet are rather different and stuff never quite looks right...

Anyway, Happy New Year.  Hope you're avoiding the cold/flu/plague that's been going around.