What the hell was that ending?

[BOXman]

Nobody expected an amazing story by any means. This is an alien universe story; the only good ones were the first two movies. The rest were mambo jumbo.

But this? What the hell was this?
You ended the game with WE WON BY THE POWER OF LOVE?!?
And by creating a telepathic human connection that somehow can control the Xenos but we never get to experience that...

I understand they had a lot of ideas and didn't have time to flesh them out. But this campaign was extremely messy. Up until mission 5, the level design and layout were fine.

Later in the game, they added interactable consoles for specific missions. Why not have that for the rest of the game? That would have been really cool.

You also added interactive cameras only for one mission. Again, would have been really cool to have that sooner.

They had a synth subplot that went nowhere. I guess if I read every codex I might get more insight into this. But why not just show us instead of telling us by walls of text?
Then, they had rushed motivation. Risking the ship to save a single girl who should definitely not be rescued AT ALL!!! They have taken her to their nest. We already know what they do to them when they take them to their nest. So why are we forced to do dumb heroism???

They also failed to ever give us a moment to care about our main characters. We mainly play as random marines. They don't have personalities except for a grunt attitude. But the game expects us to care about the main characters even if we only play as one of them TWICE!
There should have been an optional mission that forces us to interact with the main characters and give them room to breathe and grow a connection with them. But we don't get that. We get cutscenes and super-rushed segments to connect the other levels.

Great gameplay foundations. But horrible execution in the narrative.

Disappointed.

[alex010300]

Well the dude died after using his powers and the Giant Alien was just confused only.

[BOXman]

Originally posted by alex010300:

Well the dude died after using his powers and the Giant Alien was just confused only.

So, he sent him telepathically human porn in order to confuse him?


That's the only way I can agree on the ending.

[Kruppstahl]

Nothing I would applaud about, but nothing I would throw tomatoes at either. It was average.

What I was amazed by is the Alien adaptability most people don't know about. I was wondering myself when I watched the first Alien movie, and they found the skeleton in the chair, how that Alien must have looked, cause the whole in the chest was huge. Nice addition to that at least. With the new species shown at the end. The Alien adapts and forms an organism perfect to kill the hosts one. So I give them that credit cause the game was very good and the story end didn´t killed it for me.

[BOXman]

Originally posted by Kruppstahl:

Nothing I would applaud about, but nothing I would throw tomatoes at either. It was average.

What I was amazed by is the Alien adaptability most people don't know about. I was wondering myself when I watched the first Alien movie, and they found the skeleton in the chair, how that Alien must have looked, cause the whole in the chest was huge. Nice addition to that at least. With the new species shown at the end. The Alien adapts and forms an organism perfect to kill the hosts one. So I give them that credit cause the game was very good and the story end didn´t killed it for me.:yiingyang:

But wasn't the original egg made for humans?
In the first movie, the eggs are made from the actual dead alien. So... wouldn't they be the exact same thing? I think the Prometheus movies are the only ones that changed that rule.


Not big into alien lore.

[RobOda]

The story was decent throughout, but the ending was like someone switching the peanut butter for a bit of poo for your sandwich.

[DACNINJA]

I agree regarding the plot especially the ending but the game mechanics are ok.
I wouldnt mind if the cameras are clickable or not, it doenst really add anything.

My marines survived every step of the way already, killed multiple queens, chargers everything. 2 of them were equipped with laser guns. I have near full stock of tools, medicine, ammo, 5 turrets. If they were there in the final mission and that giant alien had like 10x a queens HP it would have still been spawn killed.

Yes theres no point in saving Cassandra over risking the marines lives she was only remotely relevant because she is Harper's daughter who went absent in the story after he got sick.

From a story standpoint its ok to do that but at least give us a valid excuse why they did that. I like this game nonetheless.

From a gameplay standpoint it wouldnt hurt to change the tone from underdogs to xenocidal badass. It ended right after I started to feel like I was the hunter. I got 2 level 10 and I was only able to use their 300$ laser TWICE?

Come on let me fight the big alien and give me the satisfaction of spawn killing that monster.

[BOXman]

On gameplay alone, this game has insane potential!
Which confusing as to why they only made a campaign.

[Harlekin]

I had a lot of Fun, watch my Game Report

[Moffin Bovin]

have psychic powers been in the alien universe previously?

I never heard of that before, and when i saw it it made me feel like Aliens is now just discount Starship Troopers.

Originally posted by DACNINJA:

Yes theres no point in saving Cassandra over risking the marines lives she was only remotely relevant because she is Harper's daughter who went absent in the story after he got sick.

Except for that whole thing where she has a link to the Aliens and potential ability to control them...

[BOXman]

Originally posted by Moffin Bovin:

have psychic powers been in the alien universe previously?

I never heard of that before, and when i saw it it made me feel like Aliens is now just discount Starship Troopers.

Originally posted by DACNINJA:

Yes theres no point in saving Cassandra over risking the marines lives she was only remotely relevant because she is Harper's daughter who went absent in the story after he got sick.

Except for that whole thing where she has a link to the Aliens and potential ability to control them...

I think the Prometheus trilogy had that.
But that trilogy is a giant mess. I'm not even sure it is cannon.

[DACNINJA]

Originally posted by Moffin Bovin:

have psychic powers been in the alien universe previously?

I never heard of that before, and when i saw it it made me feel like Aliens is now just discount Starship Troopers.

Originally posted by DACNINJA:

Yes theres no point in saving Cassandra over risking the marines lives she was only remotely relevant because she is Harper's daughter who went absent in the story after he got sick.

Except for that whole thing where she has a link to the Aliens and potential ability to control them...

Yes but if it were up to me, id totally kill everything in that planet, save no one after we get Otago flying.

Cassandra is an apocalypse waiting to happen

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

The ending didn't bother me too much. Was it amazing? No. Was it awful? No. We were playing as the boots on the ground but the game consistently made itself about the core characters at any given time, so I expected it to end with a focus on the core characters. Dark Descent is a narrative driven game, telling the story of Hayes and the people she meets throughout the ♥♥♥♥ show. I'm okay with that, Alien films and games (good or bad) have always been about telling somebody's story.

That being said, what I wanted to cover was Harper and his seeming sensitivity to the Xenomorphs.

The big TL;DR version is that there's precedent for it in the novels, comics, and extended media such as the tabletop Alien RPG.

What is new to Dark Descent is any human having literally any effect on the Xenomorphs without any kind of serious chemical, mechanical, or genetic assistance, as far as I'm aware (I could be missing a novel/comic though).

The theory behind it which the game doesn't get around to explaining too much, is that supposedly Xenomorph hives work on low level telepathy on top of all the pheromone recognition. The low level telepathy becomes present once a Queen is present, with larger and multiple hives amplifying the effect. Funnily enough, the more Xenomorphs you get in one spot, the less autonomy they get. Makes sense from the perspective of wanting the most efficient killing machines possible - more intelligent individuals to get started, coordinated numbers to overwhelm - but that's a whole other conversation.

As far as humans go, most folks have little to no sensitivity to hive telepathy. In extremely rare cases, you come across individuals who are sensitive to the telepathy right away, like Harper. The end result is pretty much as Dark Descent portrayed it - Vague "ideas" of what the hive apparently wants with an instinct for knowing when Xenomorphs are around. The kicker is that constant exposure is too much for the average human and it pretty much always kills them if they stick around as hives grow larger. That or the alternative.

The alternative is what happens to general populations long term. As said earlier, most folks have little to no sensitivity to hive telepathy. When Xenomorph numbers go completely out of control though? Lets say, when an entire planet is undergoing infestation? The effect becomes pronounced enough for the general population to start feeling it. Without going into the ins and outs of what each person interprets the telepathic influence as, the overall result is those that cant resist the effect start wanting to both spread and become a part of the hive. Thus the cults.

Marlow went ahead and skipped a whole bunch of steps by kicking off the cults himself and running his experiments on Cassandra. Then again, he was allegedly a respectable scientist before this, so perhaps he was one of the first to start falling to it? That could also be a whole conversation in itself though to be honest.

TL;DR: Just again at the bottom because I made a wall of text explaining this, wow. The short story is that there is precedent for the telepathic shenanigans in Dark Descent, which is explored in the comics, novels, and tabletop Alien RPG.

[CoolNitro]

Just to add my gripe, What was the point in asking us the player to choose an action ( kill or save civies ) it was quite oddly dumped on our lap as a choice we must make ( with a pop up window and drama ) some half way into the game and only for that single map, worse though there is no follow up.

The game has many neat ideas none really take away from it but they are not fleshed out enough to be any more then per mission maguffens.

[Khryst]

Originally posted by BOXman:

But wasn't the original egg made for humans?
In the first movie, the eggs are made from the actual dead alien. So... wouldn't they be the exact same thing? I think the Prometheus movies are the only ones that changed that rule.


Not big into alien lore.

That was the original "idea" but they cut that from the movie and it was never put in. You can only "see" it by watching deleted scenes etc. it's never actually been put IN the movie and was left out "on purpose" to give "more mystery" to the alien.

the 2nd movie created the Queen as an "egg layer" but never really answered the question of where the eggs came form originally. People came up with ideas but nothing was ever "canon".

3rd movie continued the idea of "queens" and that they are "born different" then normal Xenos as Ripley was infected with a "queen chestburster".

after that the lore went dormant moviewise and darkhorse picked it up with comics and books, saying that "queen chestbursters" are a thing, but in the absence of a queen a "drone" can undergo hormonal changes that make them into a queen or a Praetorian are essentially not just a "queensguard" but will become a queen if the queen is lost.

then the AvP movies came along (god they ripped off so much from the books/comics then butchered it to try and make it their story) where they basically said in the 2nd movie that the Predalien was in a "inbetween" state of becoming a queen which is why it could somehow implant pregnant women with a bunch of chestbursters to "quickly grow the numbers for hive"...I ♥♥♥♥ you not that's what they said in interviews.

Then came the Prometheus/Covenant ♥♥♥♥. which completely destroyed any mystery about the Xenos concluding they were created by one of OUR androids.

and now we're stuck with magic black goo, and an extremely deadly "alien" species bioengineered by a Weland Yutani Andriod.

[BOXman]

that's a mountain of confusing turds.