Sat Feb 4 05:01:43 EST 2012

oh boy, space marines

Alright, no. I'm not letting this one past.

Just how many Aliens games have there been, now? Answer: a shitload. Thirty eight! And this is just counting the official ones. How about the Starcraft series, which is Aliens with the serial numbers filed off, or Alien Swarm, which is basically "Top-down L4D, with aliens". Then there's the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, with its Space Marines and Tyranids. Then there's the Doom series, and the Quake series after it. The Halo series. The ten billion other variations on the same theme.

Yet another video game where space marines kill aliens does not seem to me like a rich, untapped vein of creative potential. That vein has been tapped, then mined out, then strip mined, then all the rock was dug out down to the mantle, which glares at us, a great red baleful eye, as if to dare humanity to produce one more game where the voiceless protagonist communicates with high command over a radio, after the rest of his team was wiped out.

This has been done before. Why is it being done again?


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