RSI Vanduul concept art

Wojo

Wojo

Rear Admiral
I never know if this is off-topic or not...

Anyone else think the Vanduul (read: Vandal... in the classical sense) is more than a little Kilrathi-esque? The newest concept art shows some more details - feline facial features, fur, claws... by themselves hardly unreasonable for a sci-fi alien race, but when you mix them together...

Just interesting.
 
They're not exactly like kilrathi but I see a lot of similarities between them and the movie Kilrathi.
 
They honestly remind me of H. R. Giger's Alien

images
jump_point_van_coverflat_5.jpg
 
Down to the armour plate on the shoulder, complete with red painted insignia. There is something a little Giger-esque around the head yes. But pretty much every alien monster is trying to rip off Giger's aliens to some degree. I do wish they weren't so... bipedal, though. There is probably evolutionary reasons why upright, two-armed & two-legged is going to develop civilisation before, say, a quadruped, but it would be interesting to see something other than what amounts to a human wearing some kind of suit & a rubber mask (to borrow film conventions). You could do anything with CG - they could have six limbs, for instance! Anything is possible.

Why don't we see it? Like all the intelligent Mass Effect aliens - uniformly bipeds. Asari - the biggest cop-out of an alien race ever. (just people with no hair). I understand reasons for film & tv (believability, budget constraints etc) but in a purely CG environment, why?

Rant over.

EDIT: Volus, Elcor, Hanar. Yep I know. At least they tried, I can forgive them for that.
 
Just playing devil's advocate here, are we sure this guy's bipedal? I mean granted, it's likely, but we only see him from the waist up...
 
Kilrathi are known to, when needed, revert to a quadrapedic run for a burst of speed. Of course this is normally done during ritual hunts but they still are very capable 4-legged sprinters.
 
capi3101 said:
Just playing devil's advocate here, are we sure this guy's bipedal? I mean granted, it's likely, but we only see him from the waist up...
Click to expand...

I'm really hoping something like this might be the case. Like these guys from Quest for Glory:
q3b12rajah1.png
 
As far as bipedalism goes, any tool-using species is going to need to have something that can do the things that we do with hands--whether it be a set of limbs that are no longer used for walking, or ones that are used both for walking and grasping, or an elephant-like trunk, or squid-like tentacles, or whatever. There's no requirement that they have only two walking limbs however. Being able to hold and swing a tool/weapon (e.g. an axe) while walking/running (or whatever kind of locomotion they use) would also be important if they are to engage in anything like armed melee combat.
 
Wojo said:
Anyone else think the Vanduul (read: Vandal... in the classical sense) is more than a little Kilrathi-esque? The newest concept art shows some more details - feline facial features, fur, claws... by themselves hardly unreasonable for a sci-fi alien race, but when you mix them together...
Click to expand...

Yup, they're obviously Chris Robert's 21st Century take on the Kilrathi in all but name, so far...
 
Well, he did say that he would have set the game in the Wing Commander universe if he had the rights to it . . .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top