‘Alien: Isolation’ Stars Ripley’s Daughter, But Should We Trust Another Video Game?
Alien: Isolation will star Ripley’s daughter, taking the franchise on yet another odd course. However, with the overall disappointment surrounding the franchise that James Cameron made relevant, is another video game a good idea?
The original Alien film was a disturbing twist on the idea of Star Trek, a scenario where the alien life form which the landing party encounters turns out to be perfectly designed to eliminate the human race, either eating them alive or impregnating them with chest-bursting monsters. It was interesting because it was a fresh approach with a morbid twist.
James Cameron’s sequel Aliens added to the equation by assuming the aliens were hostile to begin with, and sending a group of marines in with a bogus objective when it turned out they were meant to be the host to specimens the military could use for war situations. The third film was supposed to be the end of the series as Ripley threw herself into the molten metal to kill herself and the alien inside her. Of course, nobody likes to talk about Alien: Resurrection, a film from Guillermo del Toro and Joss Whedon that delivered a serious blow to the franchise’s success.
The video game Alien: Isolation takes Ripley out of the equation like every game before it that didn’t do so well, attempting to revive the franchise with a new storyline involving the daughter she never saw grow up.
Even the video games based on the films haven’t fared so well overall. After one game that turned out not so bad (Alien Trilogy), Alien based video games have turned out lackluster pretty much every time. Aliens: Colonial Marines was the last of the colossal failures, yet another shooter that could have been so much more.
It seems Fox Studios isn’t done trying to milk the franchise for all it’s worth, as after yet another film that drew a collective “meh” from audiences everywhere (Prometheus), Twentieth Century Fox has landed another trademark for a video game called Alien: Isolation. Amanda Ripley stars in an alternate storyline that has her wandering a space station with soldiers, melee weapons, and one alien type throughout the game. IGN calls the concept basically an Alien version of Dead Space.
Now given the track record of the video games and the last few movies, the Alien franchise has yet to really revive the series either way, which makes us wonder if Fox really thinks they can turn the tide, or if the upcoming Alien: Isolation featuring Ripley’s daughter will just be another nail in the coffin for the already tired series.
