Alien Isolation discussion topic

[Ben]

Yeah I mean Sega's only official word was to deny that the game was outsourced, so....yeah. Assuming you believe that the whistleblower is telling the truth, that means that you also believe then that Sega essentially lied about the game not being outsourced.

So look, lol...either way, Sega doesn't come off looking great. Yeah Barry, I know, as a writer for a Sega site, why Colonial Marines likely is the way it is. (Or I have thoughts, anyway...based on the evidence we've seen and the whistleblowers' accounts. I don't think though that we should be taking unconfirmed info as fact.)

As far as Isolation's concerned....I think that Alien Isolation can avoid those major issues, sure. The game likely won't be outsourced, and development seems to be progressing nicely. That said, if there are issues with this game during its development, I no longer trust Sega to spot them and fix them. That's what Colonial Marines did as far as I'm concerned. It did impact my trust of Sega with regard to the quality of the games they're publishing. Colonial Marines is also just another game in a lonnnng list of licensed titles that Sega's put their name on that have been bad.

As far as the average gamer is concerned...how much of Colonial Marines' trouble they actually know (or don't know) is up for debate. If this game does turn out to be good, hopefully they trust Sega enough to give the series another shot.

[Aki-at]

Honestly I'm not sure in this day and age why people still go on about studios being inexperienced in genres. Between indie titles that happen to be the developers first game such as FEZ or Bastion to major studio coming up with titles that are a radical departure from their roots such DICE and Mirror's Edge, Rocksteady with Batman: Arkham Asylum, Amusement Vision with Monkey Ball etc there really is no need to be worried about a developer is tackling the genre for the first time, it just comes down to their pedigree.

You even just have to look back at The Creative Assembly's history, they were a sports developer before they released their first RTS game in 2000, Shogun, which went on to be one of the best games of that year.

[Barry the Nomad]

Let's not forget Viking: Battle for Asgard, which despite some flaws, was a lot of fun.

[Chaosmaster8753]

Wasn't Stormrise the last Creative Assembly console game?

[Aki-at]

Wasn't Stormrise the last Creative Assembly console game?

If we are going down that route, the last console games were infact Castle of Illusion and the Olympics tie in game.

However that team really was just The Creative Assembly in name only and as we all know, no longer exist anyway, I'd rather take Viking as their proper last console game.

[Ben]

Let's not forget Viking: Battle for Asgard, which despite some flaws, was a lot of fun.

I was actually going to bring up Viking:Battle for Asgard to argue against Aki's point, lol. That was an example of Creative Assembly trying out a different genre that wasn't received as well as their other work.

I'm certainly not saying that it's impossible for them to pull it off, but if a developer is used to doing one style of game, a transition to a totally different style of game can be a rocky one.

[max_cady]

There are two things that I feel I should bring up.

Number 1 - Outsourcing development is a fairly common practice. Sometimes it's just cheaper to have some c-grade dev to do most of the grunt work, then have the coders from the main dev to iron out the bugs. Worked for Alan Wake, didn't work for Aliens CM. Doesn't put SEGA in a good light, I know, but just thought I'd throw it out there.

Number 2 - Personally, Viking was a good a game, but flawed because it was pretty repetitive. You build up and army, slowly rescue towns and conquer cities. Rinse and repeat. Though, I think they had some very good ideas.

[Aki-at]

I was actually going to bring up Viking:Battle for Asgard to argue against Aki's point, lol. That was an example of Creative Assembly trying out a different genre that wasn't received as well as their other work.

I'm certainly not saying that it's impossible for them to pull it off, but if a developer is used to doing one style of game, a transition to a totally different style of game can be a rocky one.

Viking was their second attempt at the genre. Shogun: Total War, one of their best games, was their first stab at TBS-RTT prior to a decade of work on sports titles and ports.

There is nothing that really suggests a developer cannot preform well in a new genre, there's more to back up that branching out actually helps them. Retro made one of the Wii's best platformers after their work on Metroid, Ubisoft Montpellier from platformer to adventure, Smilebit exclusive works on sports game and rail shooters did not hinder Jet Set Radio etc and it's not like a developer does not hire new heads to help them in the development process to add further experience to a project.

I'd worry about issues about repetitiveness amongst other things, not that this is the developers first attempt at survival horror.

[max_cady]

Didn't CA develop Spartan: Total War as well?

[Aki-at]

Didn't CA develop Spartan: Total War as well?

Yeap it was their first attempt at the genre I believe. I'd love to see some more hack & slash from them and some more refinement on the army building aspect. Though hopefully after this SEGA will let rip CA and make them develop a new IP. The fact they built up a whole project on the strength of a tech demo has me thinking they will, if it's successful, obviously.

[Ben]

Survival horror is a totally different beast than anything else listed. There are developers who have been working on survival horror for decades who are now struggling to make good survival horror; it's a tough genre to develop. I'm interested in seeing what CA does with it.

It looks promising, but Aki I'd just like to remind you that years ago, I expressed skepticism about Colonial Marines and Sharky and George more or less attacked me (lol) in the Sega forums about how I was wrong, how I was "too negative" and how that game "would be different" how it "looked awesome," etc. etc. etc.....so...yeah. Look, if this game turns out to be great I'll certainly try to play it. But for now I'm not going to bother getting my hopes up.

 

Retro made one of the Wii's best platformers after their work on Metroid, Ubisoft Montpellier from platformer to adventure, Smilebit exclusive works on sports game and rail shooters did not hinder Jet Set Radio etc and it's not like a developer does not hire new heads to help them in the development process to add further experience to a project.

Retro (for all their Nintendo projects) had the full backing and support of Nintendo; Nintendo had their people assisting Retro Studios at all times during development, they constantly provided Retro with feedback and ideas throughout the process. Retro had pretty much unlimited access to the experts at all times. Ubisoft is the same way, though the first Assassin's Creed was a rocky start that took them a 2nd attempt at to really get right in AC2.

If things haven't changed from Colonial Marines, Sega isn't providing any support at all aside from throwing money into the project from a distance and not even being a part of development enough to ask where their money's going. (Again, if the whistleblower is to be believed.) And even if they had, Sega's struggled with survival horror too. They've dabbled in it with the likes of D2 and that Kinect game they just put out, but again, it's a challenging genre.

[Aki-at]

Survival horror is a totally different beast than anything else listed. There are developers who have been working on survival horror for decades who are now struggling to make good survival horror; it's a tough genre to develop. I'm interested in seeing what CA does with it.

The issue is that survival horror can be tedious and this is where my major worry for Alien comes from. How are The Creative Assembly going to shake up the usual "Go hear for x item, avoid y enemy, use x item there, avoid z enemy" formula that all survival horror games fall prey to.

It looks promising, but Aki I'd just like to remind you that years ago, I expressed skepticism about Colonial Marines and Sharky and George more or less attacked me (lol) in the Sega forums about how I was wrong, how I was "too negative" and how that game "would be different" how it "looked awesome," etc. etc. etc.....so...yeah. Look, if this game turns out to be great I'll certainly try to play it. But for now I'm not going to bother getting my hopes up.

My point is that being concerned about it on the grounds that this is their first foray into the genre is a minor issue at most.

Retro (for all their Nintendo projects) had the full backing and support of Nintendo; Nintendo had their people assisting Retro Studios at all times during development, they constantly provided Retro with feedback and ideas throughout the process. Retro had pretty much unlimited access to the experts at all times. Ubisoft is the same way, though the first Assassin's Creed was a rocky start that it took them a 2nd attempt at to really get right in AC2.

The game in question I was talking about was Rayman to Beyond Good & Evil.

And how would you say Retro managed Metroid Prime then? Certainly there were no experts at Nintendo to say they could say they have the experience of making such a game.

If things haven't changed from Colonial Marines, Sega isn't providing any support at all aside from throwing money into the project from a distance and not even being a part of development enough to ask where their money's going. (Again, if the whistleblower is to be believed.) And even if they had, Sega's struggled with survival horror too. They've dabbled in it with the likes of D2 and that Kinect game they just put out, but again, it's a challenging genre.

The Creative Assembly is SEGA so that already is a major difference over Aliens: Colonial Marines.

[nuckles87]

The Team at CA working on this game is a new team, not the people who've been working on the strategy games. So CA's specialty in strategy games is kind of moot here.

[Ben]

My point is that being concerned about it on the grounds that this is their first foray into the genre is a minor issue at most.

Alright, I see where you're coming from. I still think experience can be helpful, though I suppose it isn't essential, that's true.

And how would you say Retro managed Metroid Prime then? Certainly there were no experts at Nintendo to say they could say they have the experience of making such a game.

That makes sense. I was referring to their switch from that to 2D platformers, but I guess you're right that Metroid Prime to begin with was an unproven genre. Still, they did have Japanese Nintendo staff involved with the project in that case as well, so at least from a quality perspective, it was being kept an eye on.

The Creative Assembly is SEGA so that already is a major difference over Aliens: Colonial Marines.

It's Sega West. But yeah, we'll see. I'm not saying that the game will be bad, lol, just saying that I'll remain skeptical. I don't discourage any of you from getting psyched for it.

[Happy Cat]

http://segabits.com/blog/2014/01/18/alien-isolation-screenshot-shows-off-freakishly-large-alien/

some new screens aki posted, go check em out!