Aliens: Colonial Marines makes sense of Aliens to Alien3
James Haresign May 4, 2012 - 4:22 pmNews: Randy Pitchford explains how Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines bridges Aliens and Alien3 and just how it fills a couple of plot holes.
Before the time of prequels and reboots a favourite trick of Hollywood was to find a plot hole in a film and plug it with a whole new film (and probably a whole new set of plot holes).Now it’s the turn of the games industry to take up the baton and run with it. Though by Randy Pitchford‘s description of Aliens: Colonial Marines‘ plot, they’re doing a damn good job of it.
For the uninitiated (and spoilers in case anyone starts moaning) Aliens ends with Ripley, Hicks, Newt and half of Bishop escaping aboard the carrier USS Sulaco. At the start of Alien3, all of them are dead bar Ripley, who crash lands onto a penal colony in an escape shuttle, which is quite a feat for people who were in suspended animation.
Speaking to Kotaku, Pitchford explained that Gearbox have gone to into extreme detail to make the two movies sync up a lot more and provide a setting for their game. “The Sulaco is there at the prison planet. Everything that Ripley dealt with on the prison planet ends with her martyring herself as Weyland-Yutani is trying to collect the specimen. Weyland-Yutani actually… boarded the Sulaco.
“Something happened before that Ripley doesn’t know about that led to the ejection. If Weyland-Yutani can’t get the specimen from Ripley, and they are on the ship, what would their next step be? It would be to turn the ship around and go back to the source, LV426.
“So the Sulaco gets back to LV426. Now, we’re part of the contingent that’s the rescue crew. Remember, Ripley asks how long before we’re overdue can we expect a rescue and Hicks says 17 days. And Hudson says something like, ‘17 days? We’re not going to last 17 hours, man.’ That creates the opening for the ship that’s going to go deal with the fact that something happened. Now the Sulaco is reported destroyed. They didn’t send it in 17 days, but they are going to investigate. 17 weeks later, Weyland-Yutani has had plenty of time on LV426.”
Keep an eye on BeefJack for more news on Aliens: Colonial Marines.
