Aliens in games are cool

I don't really view myself as much of a gamer. I certainly wouldn't associate myself with the "culture" it has. [edit: I am so totally a gamer. - Future March] But one thing I do notice in a lot of games I've been playing recently is that, well, aliens are really awesome.

It's not that aliens are fun to play as even. In fact most of the instances I've come across, they're enemies. But what neat and gorgeous enemies they make! For an example, here's one of the alien Akrid from Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions.

I hope 10 grenades is enough...

Yes that's right, it's a giant worm like the infamous one from Dune. Except it lives in the snow. And you can fight it. Can is the important word, as it's optional, but it's still pretty cool. Especially how one of its attacks is just to charge and eat you. Whole. Like bam, you're dead, a giant worm just ate you.

Speaking of worms, another game with worm aliens is Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. The game has a unique alien lifeform called a mindworm. They basically drive people to insanity like some odd form of D&D's Frightful Presence. It's rather Lovecraftian in nature, and even look!

Tell Cthulhu he left his children over here.

Like whoa, that's intense. They're kind of a pest at first, sorta like the barbarian tribes in Sid Meier's Civilization, but you can eventually control them, and then they become a potent ally.

But some aliens you just can't control. No, they decide they have to attack earth for some obscure reason... probably something to do with expansion or whatever. But anyways, they come down in their UFOs, first sparsely but then in full force. Yes, it's a UFO Invasion, and only X-COM can stop them! For these are the terrible Greys! Okay, they're called "Sectoids" in the game, but they look like the Greys.

Yes, it is ironic that it was easier to find a decent resolution picture of an early 90's game than it was a mid 2000's game.

I'll be honest, I mainly pointed this one out because X-COM: UFO Defense is pretty much the best strategy/isometric-rpg/resource-management/military-simulation game ever made. Well, perhaps the sequels were better, I haven't played them.

But hey, at least the Greys don't use us as hosts! Not like the next guys, an alien from Half-Life. No, next we're dealing with those devilish monstrosities from the nearby dimension of Xen, Headcrabs.

They're not this cute and fluffy. Trust me.

But hey, there's not just one of these. No, there's two other, more powerful species. That's right. There's a bunch which are super-fast, and then others which inject you with a neuro-toxin and try to kill you with one scratch. That's intense. They also do some pretty crazy stuff, like coupling with your head to turn you into a zombie. I don't know what the transition is like, but considering the end result, really really painful.

Sorta like this, but more blood and screaming in pain.

To sum Headcrabs up, I'll quote myself from playing through a section of Half-Life 2.

AH ZOMBIES *sawblades* AH HALF-ZOMBIES'

Hey, it was damn scary at the time!

Now, I could go on and on about aliens in video games, and list a bunch more examples, but these were just some neat ones I thought I should mention. Read on for some related comments.

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About the games referenced:
If you have a chance of playing Lost Planet some time, I'd reccomend you at least play the first half-hour or so. The game is really cinematic, and the Akrid are pretty neat monsters. The gameplay itself is... solid, passable, but not amazing. The graphics are pretty good though.

Alpha Centauri is pretty much Civilizations II except on Alpha Centauri. It basically picks up after the Space Race ending of Civ II anyways. It's a great game if you love sci-fi and the Civ games though, so if you do you should most certainly check it out.

X-COM: UFO Defense is a classic. The game is really complicated and fairly difficult, so be forewarned. Even so, it's very addicting, and the gameplay is really good and plays very well. It also manages to make relatively turn-based battles very tense and edgy. Definitely pick up a copy if you can.

And Half-Life? It's a classic in the FPS genre. The second game is a lot better, and Half-Life2 2 is basically what managed to get me to actually enjoy the genre. It's got a decent story (for a first-person shooter), but the presentation is really amazing. The characters all feel really realistic, which is great and helps make it feel more authentic. It's a good game and you can get it in The Orange Box with Portal, so go get it if you don't mind some pretty gory aliens! (Seriously, Headcrabs are gross!)

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Last comments:
I'd also like to make a comment from a creative standpoint here. Aliens are a great way to make interesting and strange creatures without having to resort to magic. They can allow new ways of looking at thing like environments, animals, and races. You can use them to maintain reasonable plots, yet still explore strange new worlds and odd realities.

And they're just cool.

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