What Do I Spy?

[Pete]

You're onto something there - the two most alien aliens in the game are the Celatid and the other one whose name I can't remember - little rock-like fella.

 

They were dangerous if you got close enough, but they're also easily the least favourite aliens in the game.

 

TFTD did a bit better on that front with the Hallucinoid and the Tentaculat, but even they were identifiable with either creatures from earth or at least parts of creatures.

[owen magnetic]

We had totally alien aliens in the original Xcom. Celatids.

 

Is that what you want, people? More Celatids?

[FullAuto]

Indeed, the Silacoid and Celatid were probably the most 'alien' of the designs.

 

Even stuff like the Chryssalid was basically humanoid. The time for "Those aliens just look like humans." criticism is a long-standing issue that you can bring up with science fiction since its inception, it's not the fault of the game or the designers when it's a firmly embedded trope of the genre.

[ShadowBlade]

No, wait, I said human, and not humanoid. The new Floater's organic part has no discernible alien features. I bet it is, in fact, not an alien. And I'm very familiar with the whole Starfish Aliens versus Rubber Forehead Aliens debate. I'm not expecting gaseous life forms nor hyper-intelligent shades of the colour blue. You went down a complicated tangent, FA.

 

I simply want adversaries that you can look at them and say "hey, that's an alien!" (i.e. most X-COM aliens) as opposed to clearly repurposed humans. But as long as it's just the Floater and arguably the Muton, I'm fine with it. I just don't want half the enemy types to be cyborgized humans, and have the game thematically feel like Quake.

[FullAuto]

The new Floater's organic part has no discernible alien features.

 

Just like the original Muton, Sectoid, Ethereal, etc. All are far more human than not.

 

You went down a complicated tangent, FA.

 

I actually think it's fairly simple.

 

I simply want adversaries that you can look at them and say "hey, that's an alien!" (i.e. most X-COM aliens) as opposed to clearly repurposed humans.

 

That's clear to you, maybe it's not so clear to others? It's not clear to me that they're repurposed humans, given the limitations of the human body such an exercise would be a waste of time. Humans are not meant for flight from the most basic level up.

 

I just don't want half the enemy types to be cyborgized humans, and have the game thematically feel like Quake.

 

I think you're jumping to conclusions. You've seen one race that you think merely clearly resemble cyborgs/the Strogg. That doesn't mean the rest of the alien types are going to be anything like them. As for 'thematically like Quake', I think that's an even bigger stretch. What were the themes of Quake, anyway?

[silencer_pl]

You had alien aliens in Apocalypse and look how it looked.

[Space Voyager]

HE HE HE, this thread is priceless.