Xenomorph caste 4: Warrior

While not as sleek as the Drone and not as agile as the Runner the Warrior xeno is still the more deadlier of the Xenomorph castes. This species is found in large hives close to the queen. Their exoskeleton is ridged and bulky while not making them totally bullet proof it does make them hard enough to kill. Their armor also hides them among the hives organic walls.

While not as clever as the Drones they do seem crafty and mainly take orders from the Queen. While not having any outstanding features from the other xenomorph's the warrior is still a savage creature.

Featured in

Aliens

AVP:R

Alien Trilogy(PS1)

Aliens vs Pradator 2(pc)
Aliens vs Predator Extinction (Xbox/PS2)

Aliens vs Predator 2010 (xbox360/PS3)

Aliens Colonial Marines(Xbox/PS3)

Top Six Alien sites on line.

Here's a list of my top Six websites for Alien fans.

http://www.avpgalaxy.net/

http://alienseries.wordpress.com/

http://weyland-yutaniarchives.blogspot.ca/

http://www.wierzbowski.net/

http://www.alienlegend.com/

http://alienexplorations.blogspot.co.uk/

Interview with Aliens super fan Giz O'Shaughnessy.

I decided to have a quick chat with Giz O'Shaughnessy contributor to the Emerald Gore Society and Aliens super fan.

Martin: Which of the Aliens franchise was your favorite and why?

Giz: While I love the films (yes even the ones considered bad by most) and tend to read a lot of books, I have to admit that it's the comics aspect of the franchise that really apeals to me. First off, alot of the novels were just expanded adaptaions of comic stories which means I've already gone through them. Secondly, while the Aliens franchise might have started in movie form it's fairly obvious that the first 2 films were the best. And that is exactly where the original stories start off, dealing with what happens with Newt, Hicks and later on Ripley after the events of Aliens. From there, we have a multitude of stories dealing with humanities misadventures with the universes perfect killing machines. Where the films focus on Ripley (they may aswell be called the Adventures of Ripley :P) and the games tend to be military shoot'em ups (I admit, I don't play that many video games.....except for a select few childhood variants) in the comics we get to explore more ground within the Aliens universe. Plus, it's always cool to see some  new way of throwing a potential nightmare at people in possibly one of the scariest environs ever, the unknown vastness of space

Martin: Which  Aliens character was your favorite and why?

Giz: Honestly? The Xenomorphs themselves. At the end of the day, we don't watch the films, play the games or read the books because we care about the humans. Lets face it, we're in this for those cute and cudely killing machines. And yeah, maybe we want to see if the main protagonist makes it through the needle teethed tunnel of death in one piece. But that wanting pales in comparisson to the longing to see one of the sci/fi horror industries best loved creatures doing what they do best, killing, eating and propagating.....Kinda like that other universal virus known as humanity. That being said, the cigar smoking, plasma gun wielding, smart ass, Synthetic Alien known as Jeri was cool ;)

Martin: Where would you like to see the Alien franchise go considering the mess that was Prometheus?

Giz: Um, how about in it's own direction like Promethius did? Seriously, I don't know why sci/fi fans give that film such a hard time. Was it because you all wanted another installment of The Adventures of Ripley with a different actor or did no one understand the notion that this film was supposed to deal with a specieces that wasn't Xenomorphs? Cus guess what, that's what it did. Far as I'm concerned, it was a very good science fiction story (sorry there wasn't enough fast paced action for the masses to get into :P ) dealing with one of the oldest questions us higher function cave dwellers have ever come up with: Who are we and where did we come from? Simple as that. So it happens to be set in the same unviverse and focuses on an expadition from the infamous Wayland (without Yutani) corp. Hell, if anything it gives us all the answer to a near forgotton question: How in the name and honor of the Gods did The Nostromo's computer know what kind of signal to be on the lookout for when it woke her crew? As to the issue of whether or not we got to see the origions of a Xenomorph in what seemed to be completly to late a date to correspond with what was found in Alien, I have this simple question to ask: What's the difference between ebola and Anthrax? Sure, they look a little different and attack things in different ways, but your still just as dead at the end of things. It is stated in the film that they walked into a weapons lab. It is stated there were multiple ships. It can be surmised that there were multiple strains of living weapons being worked on by a species who knew their way around genetics like a master painters know's their way around a canvase. The future of The Alien film franchise has nothing to do with promethius or what they may do in any of their sequals, it instead depends on what we chose to do with a genetically engenired killing machine that has been the stuff of nightmares since 1979. But maybe no more Ripley, eh? She had a good run, but it's time to find some new blood to shed :)

You can check out more from Giz and the rest of the Emerald Gore Society here at the link below.
http://www.emeraldgoresociety.com/
and heres their facebook
https://www.facebook.com/EmeraldGoreSociety

Game over man Review: Alien Resurrection

Every once and a while you'll come across a game that surpass's the movie. In Alien Resurrections case thats not hard but still its a decent game. Why you might ask. Two reasons. Bastard hard and bastard scary.

While filled with the intense action their is a lot of jump moments. The story is the same as the movie you plays a Ripley 8 and other members of the Betty crew at alternate times all of whom are trying to escape the xeno infested Auriga. The game was fairly advanced considering it was released on the PS1 this FPS boasted atmosphere and tension to boot and  Argonaut Games who developed the arcade machine aboard the Betty wonderful job making you feel like your in the Aliens universe considering the tech they had to work with at the time.The player must complete different tasks to progress across the game. These include killing clones, rescuing researchers  and ejecting overheating escape pods.

Enemies range from two different types as always with Aliens games. Human foes and Xenos. On the human front the Evil Weyland Yutani (having been bought out buy wall-mart...gAAAhe) is replaced with United Systems Military. These troops range from lowly grunts armed with pistol's and seem to be there as Alien chow to the Spec-Ops soldiers armed with grenade launchers and the advanced Pulse Rifle of the future the Lacrima 99.
Then theres Hazzmat troops armed with Flame-throwers.

That Brings us to the xenomorph selection...and that kinda is a let down. You'v the standard Drone Alien. Fast,agile and rarely alone these fucker ambush you at every twist and turn. Evening following you into the water....and if you dont have a rocket launcher your in trouble. Theres a wicked warrior class thats bright blue but I've only ever encountered three of these fuckers in total...like the Drones in most case's. Then theres the Queen boss who you have to battle half way through the game which is tough requiring you to sneak through her holding chamber and activate switchs ( what is with Queen boss battles and switchs?) Then there the New Born who stalks you through the last stage and you must evade and eject from the Betty. Your probably wondering why I have left the facehugger's till last. Well cause their a pain in the hole...thats why. The ship is littered with them and you have to keep your eyes peeled or else your the expecting mother of a unwatned baby xeno. Luck is at hand cause you can find auto-doc units scattered through out the ship These abort the Alien inside you before it hatchs....let yourself die once so you can see it erupt from your guts and slither off.

The games arsenal is fairly extensive, All four characters have access to USM pistols,a double barrel shotgun, Lacrima Rifle's and Darco Double burner flame units.  Weapons unique to Ripley 8 are the electro gun and the Grenade Launcher, Call get's a wicked Laser Rifle, DiStephano  while have no unique weapons he is a marine so  starts with the Lacrima and a Launcher. Christie weapons include duel pistols and a Rocket launcher.

This is a very hard game but is also very enjoyable and a must for a Alien fan. Cool little things include that  Raymond Cruz, Gary Dourdan and Steven Gilborn reprising their roles as 'DiStephano', 'Christie' and 'Father' even though Cruz and Dourdan mainly grunt and scream and have no real line's. 

Like the Alien Trilogy from the PS1 also this games not easy to find now these days but if your online you could probably find it second hand. All in all a more then average Alien game. I bought this game when it first came out for christmas and keep in mind that was three years after the films release back in 2000 so thats 14 years ago and I still play it....thats how good that game is.

The synthetic alphabet

You ever notice anything about the order of the names of the androids in Alien movies as they went on.

A is for Ash who is sneaky and bad

B is for Bishop who always looks sad

C is for Call who cant keep her mouth shut

D is for David who's name fucks  it up

Game over man Review: Alien 3 for the Gameboy

While Alien 3 was not the most loved or successful of the Alien franchise it did spawn a number of decent games. Two of which I own. One is for the SNES ,the other is for the Gameboy. Ill be taking a look at the latter in this review.
So game play is top down isometric shooter with  rpg elements. The story is very close to the movies with the two major deviations being you have weapons and your not fighting just one lone runner but a hive of Xeno's, this trend would in all the Alien 3 games. Its makes sense that developers feared that one Alien and no weapons would make a dull game ( Prove em wrong Alien Isolation)
So you play as Ripley who has to find away defeat the xenomorphs and get off Fury 161 before Weyland-Yuntai arrive.( Ripley survives in this game). Players are rated xeno's killed, Prisoners saved, try's taken and other overall objectives.
Xeno types include Facehuggers which to scale of Ripley and the other humans in the game must be the size of pitbulls.The Drone/Runners are a mid difficult foe not taken much hits to kill but still very fast. The Warrior types are huge and move more like the gorilla Alien, they take a number of hits to kill. Lastly you'v the Queen who cant be killed via weapons but must be taken out with the piston like the Runner was in the movie.

Weapons include a cattle prod like the one from Alien, a pretty wicked pistol which does decent damage, a Flamethrower which on the menu screen looks like its from Alien also....thing about the flamethrower is it only can destroy eggs and nothing else! Lastly the Smartgun which on the menu looks like the fucking harpoon gun from Alien.

The game dance's the line from being really fun to be really fucking annoying. A lot of the time you'll be doing scavenger missions looking for toolkits and blowtorch's to open doors and fix things. At one stage Dillon sent me to a rubbish tip to find the torch and I spent about 10 minutes clicking this tip from different sides till the game decided to go "yeah now its there!" Also I suffered from the same problem I had in the Resident  Evil games....limited storage. For example I came buy Bishops head way before I needed to so my spaces ended up being all filled so I had to drop it until a later part where I had to back track all the way back to the same place to pick it up. The fan puzzle's were cool but if you fucked them up chance's are they would kill you more then the Xeno's.

Despite these niggles Alien3 for the Gameboy is still a fun and worthy product of the franchise. If you'v an old Gameboy or Indeed Gameboy advance and can get your hands on it pick it up.
Also huge thanks to Charlene Bennett for giving me such a wicked x mans gift. Your can check out her blog here. http://blondepurplebruise.blogspot.ie/

Dark Horse Comics Review: Aliens: fast track to heaven

Fast track to heaven is a impressive Graphic Novella and the latest run from Dark Horse comics along with  Inhuman Condition. While not a sizable book is still pretty decent and beautifully put together. Liam Sharp does a wonderful job as both author and artiest in this wicked tale.

set beneath the ice of Jupiter''s moon Europa the crew of the orbital station lose contact with the research station below the crew descend in the elevator into a nightmare situation and come face to face with a very pissed off alien.

Sharp's artwork is awesome with a gritty and edgy tone very in the spirit of the first Alien and adding to that is there is only one Alien. Sharp makes the point that like in first movie even one xeno is fucking lethal.

All in all Fast track to haven is an awesome book and is'nt too hefty on the pocket so if you can track it down pick it up. You wont be sorry.

Alien Art Attack!!!

Here's a wicked piece done buy a good friend of mine John Cullen. You can check out more of his work here. http://nellucnhoj.tumblr.com/

Salvage Interview

As some of you might know Abandoned comic's next publication is Salvage a story heavily influenced buy the Alien franchise. So I've decided to ask my good friends Abandoned comic Co-founder Mike Lynch and the super talented Anthony O'Neill both of which a big fans of the franchise what makes these movies so great.

Martin:Lads thanks for joining us.

Mike: No problem Martin.

Anthony:  Thanks for having me

Martin: Which of the Aliens franchise was your  favorite and why?

Mike: Has to be the original Alien for me. It is one of my favourite films of all time. It’s just a great horror story. It did a great job of creating a level of suspense that kept you on the edge of your seat. Plus I love the look of it, everything from the Jockey to the Nostromo still holds up today.

Anthony: This is gonna sound predictadable, but its gotta be Ridley's first movie,
the reason being that, the budget was so low (i think it was something like 4 million) that it forced Scott
to be inovative and adventurously artistic, kit bashing sets, hiring unknowns in major roles and even changing
those roles and even putting his faith in dodgy swiss surrealists.

where as when he was offered the budget of 130 million for prometheus he simply went down the road of
"eh...if its this expensive, IT MUST look good!" Which as we all know isnt always the case. Granted the scenery
and scale of prometheus is beautifull, but does it hold the tangiblity of the first film? i think not.

But putting visual effects aside for a moment "Alien" is simply the best film of the franchise because it is so inviting.
Its like that ghost train that you knew you shouldnt have gotten on as a kid, but it just looks so cool from the outside
that before you knew it you' were sitting in the carrage.

Every character has a pressence all to them selves, not one member of the crew silently falls into the background,
they subtly coax you to join them on this voyage of dark discovery, and without ever turning away you willingly offer
them your hand... and then you realise it... you're rolling through that dark tunnel where the monsters live, and although you
may want get off, you've already been strapped in for the ride.

Martin: Who's your favourite character from the movies?

Mike: Ripley is my favourite character. She is just a well written character. She has been through so much and just keeps going.

Anthony: i want to say Ripley because of her progression as a character, watching Sigourney's performance of growth
throughout the entire franchise is astounding, to see Ripley go from a shakingly terifed "you are m, m, my lucky, lucky s, s, star"
to the confident battle cry of "GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BITCH!" is nothing short of sheer perfection.

BUT! I wont say Ripley simply beacause everyone who loves the Aliens franchise, loves Ripley, and each for his or her own interesting
reasons.

No! the character i will mention for this interview is... ok so technically im cheating here because this is two characters,
but i think you'll agree that you cant have one without the other, the character 's are Brett, and Parker.
The reasons i  choose Brett, and Parker are completely literary, besides Ripley, Brett and Parker are two of the characters that
carry allot of the wait of the universes explanatory responsibilities. If it wasnt for Brett and Parker constantly "griping" over "the bonus situation"
how would we ever know of the illusive "Company" that is "Weyland yutani industries" if it wasnt for Parkers insesent outburts of sheer panic
or Bretts incredibly tense death scene, imagine how much of a chunk of fear would disapear from the film, and speaking of Bretts
death and in all seriousness i actually think my favourite character
is the cute and lovable super survivor, Jones the cat. :-P

Martin: What elements from the movies did you feel need to be in Salvage and do you think the comic share's a lot of elements and queue’s from the movies?

Mike: Alien’s started the sci-fi/horror genre. So I suppose there are set rules to it. A lone ship in space, detects a signal, bad things follow. What I tried to do with Salvage was keep those elements but add a few of our own too.

Anthony: for me it was the subtlety, taking a que from Ridley, a que which Jean Pierre Jeunet seemed to ignore, was the monster in the dark aspect, i didnt want
to show the monster until i truly had to, and even then obscure distent shots, sillouettes or shaded close up's still go a long way. I also wanted each character to (as iv said above)
carry his or her own pressence, i wanted each of them (at least from a visuale, manerism, sense of the word) to have there own personality. The ship also had to feel
like it was a practicle ellement i didnt want it to feel static or sterile like a C,G rendering i wanted it to be tangible, like you could walk every eerie corridor, peek around
the corner of every steam filled door frame and yet find nothing but more of the black broken metal maze in which you had lost yourself in. I wanted dirt, grime, dark
brooding detail, and a look of rusty derelict delapadation in short i wanted it to look ABANDONED!

Martin: Where would you like to see the Alien franchise go considering the mess that was Prometheus?

Mike: Prometheus had some good ideas but I think it would have worked a lot better if it had been it’s own thing rather then try and make it apart of the Alien Universe. I am more interested in seeing what happens with the new game Alien Isolation.

Anthony: I would love it to get back to its roots, when animals werent necessarily animals, machines werent necessarily machines and most of all people werent necessarilly
people. Martin once gave me a book called Aliens labyrinth by Jim Woodring and Kilian Plunket which i think is a perfect example of this so if they ever made a movie out of it,
 Thanks for having mecount me in, only who would you get to direct it? now thats a question for another interview.

Martin: Lads thanks for your time.

Here a link to Mr O'Neill's wicked work for those of you who want to check it out ((You should)) http://anthonylukeoneill.blogspot.ie/
and to Abandoned comics http://www.abandonedcomics.com/