I was incredibly wary of the Ellen Ripley's daughter when I first heard about it. The premise screamed fan fiction. But I think CA made a decent job with making it believable and the audio with Ellen Ripley was decent and the tears on the helmet later was somber. Maybe my expectations were low, but I didn't have as big of a problem as I would have.
I'm not sure what you're referring to with the tears on the helmet. Is that in one of the prerendered cutscenes? I've been skipping them on my second playthrough so I might have forgotten it.
It might seem abrupt, but considering his emphasis on getting the Nostromo wreck and landing on LV-426 for profit, he has reasons for blaming himself since he wanted to get money/assets. The logs and audio clips also explain the struggle on Marlow's ship and his wish for providing for his wife.
Yeah, the establishment is fine (having to bribe their way onto Sevastopol with the flight recorder was a very nice tangential point that added depth to multiple characters and the overall setting), but it's impossible for logs made before the incident to communicate his feelings after it of course. Maybe they could've done something right after the LV246 flashback. Or maybe that would've been the wrong time. They needed to do something more, that much I know.
I think a lot of the relationship was implicit and under-explained. But I did remember Amanda reacting to Samuels dying. Saying his name and something about not dying in vain.
She says that to further justify continuing towards Apollo, it's not a big thing at all. The relationship just doesn't exist in any real way, I wonder if they planned for it to go differently, a lot of the game feels like that to me.
I attribute it to fanservice.
I actually didn't think of the comedic element of it until my second playthrough, the fanservice element overwhelmed me at first. The earlier glimpse is still problematic, it shouldn't have been there if this was supposed to be a big reveal.
Wasn't there some audio log about them being able to shield off the reactor area or lock it down for some time or something?
I don't remember this, I'd appreciate if you could find it. In any case, such a major detail shouldn't be optional.
I always identified the Blown-Into-Space alien to be the same one throughout the game.
No way, that alien died when it entered the gas giant's atmosphere. If that interpretation wasn't what they intended, they did a bad job of showing it.
Thanks for the kind words, guys. Two more thoughts, both about Samuels. Are we supposed to know he's an android from the very beginning? Him beating the absolute shit out of a Working Joe with his fist was a huge "hell yeah" moment (I cheered), but was it meant to be the reveal? Also my friend pointed this out: why can't Amanda talk to him through the vent at that point so they can better plan their approach? I know it's minor but it stumped me and yeah it's kinda dumb.
The other Samuels thing is how he says that Apollo's countermeasures will be lethal for him, you stop them, and he still dies. Stating a goal and letting you achieve it only to reverse it with no further justification is bad form, especially in a game where goals are everything by definition. Again, it's cool that they made Samuels sympathetic, but the execution was sloppy.