Much more than just its namesake cheese, Gruyères is a charming Swiss village filled with quaint cobblestone streets, delicious food, and a museum filled with unexpectedly daring art. Located in the canton of Fribourg, it’s an ideal day trip from cities like Bern, Zurich and Geneva via train. But if you really want to dive into Swiss traditions and the striking surrounding landscape, it’s worth staying in the village and exploring Gruyères for a day or two.
The Gruyères region entices throughout the seasons; in the colder months, you can enjoy the museums and hearty cuisine, while in the summer, you can hike and enjoy outdoor dining in the town square.
History fans will love Chateau de Gruyères, an impossibly photogenic medieval castle with lush gardens and sweeping views of the alps. Here, you’ll find stained glass windows, knight’s armor and period furnishings, as well as contemporary art exhibitions. Looking for a sweet treat? Chocolate lovers will thoroughly enjoy spending time at Switzerland’s oldest chocolate factory, where you can learn about the history and production of chocolate and explore the various shops in town, including Chocolaterie de Gruyères. Of course, you’ll also have to indulge in ample cheese eating—after all, you’re right where one of the world’s most renowned cheeses is produced, with must-see cheese shops like La Maison du Gruyère and La Chaudière Fromagerie Crèmerie. And if you find yourself in Gruyères in late September, you’ll witness one of the most adorable cow parades in Switzerland, filled with live music and centuries-old traditions.
Much more than just a fairytale alpine village, Gruyères is a place where Swiss history collides with sci-fi realism, where traditional fondue meets daring culinary sophistication, and where cows in floral headdresses walk steps away from contemporary chic hotels. It’s Switzerland with a twist, where historic customs and futuristic imagination live side by side.
Good or bad taste is difficult to define, but easy to point out, and Alien: Romulus, from Uruguayan director Fede Álvarez (who famously delivered a fantastic Evil Dead flick over a decade ago), offers a bizarre mix of both. It’s clear that Álvarez wants to hearken back to the analog, tactile sci-fi vibes of the original Alien flicks, with plenty of satisfyingly twisty knobs and low-fi computer screens that will delight any old-school fan. And with a great, young cast that includes Civil War’s Cailee Spaeny and The Last of Us’ Isabela Merced, Romulus feels like it’s courting both the original Alien lovers and a younger, fresher group of potential fans. And it’s fast, too—the two-hour run-time flies by without any filler, and a perfectly paced build-up results in a third act that will have your heart pumping almost the entire time.
But the massive weak point in Romulus’ hull is its reliance on winks, nods, and nostalgia—including one poor-taste cameo that made me cringe every time the character was on-screen. Though I think any casual Alien fan will enjoy the film and miss many of the Easter eggs, there are some egregious references throughout that had my eyes rolling around in my head. Nostalgia is a helluva drug.
Alien: Romulus looks damn good
Álvarez reportedly told the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con crowd that seeing Romulus didn’t require prior knowledge of other Alien films, and that “member berries cannot be the full meal” (a reference to a South Park joke about nostalgia), but I’m not so sure that’s true. From the moment Romulus opens, there are references aplenty—the opening shot shows the wreckage of the Nostromo, the ship from the first film, floating in the empty vacuum of space, for Engineer’s sake.
Though after that, Álvarez swiftly (and smartly) turns the attention to Alien: Romulus’ cast of young adults, who live and work in a dreary, depressing mining colony called Jackson’s Star where it’s always raining and everyone is always sick. Rain Carradine (Spaeny) and her “brother” Andy (David Jonsson), a damaged Weyland-Yutani synthetic reprogrammed by Rain’s late father to protect her at all costs, live a life of indentured servitude—Rain is forced to work in the hopes that she’ll earn enough hours to leave Jackson’s Star and head to Yvaga II, a terraformed planet that’s less miserable.
After a Weyland-Yutani employee denies Rain’s request to go off-planet, she jumps at the chance to change her fate: A ragtag bunch of teenagers (and her friends) discover a “Weyu” ship drifting in the planet’s atmosphere, and they want to fly up and steal its crypods so they can venture out to Yvaga themselves. The problem? They need Andy, who can access all of the ship’s systems, even though his strange gait and stammer indicate that he isn’t in perfect working condition.
Image: 20th Century Studios
Andy and Rain’s relationship is the beating heart of Romulus, played to perfection by Spaeny and Jonsson—from the moment his big, sad eyes appear on screen, I know Andy is going to break my heart. Andy’s affinity for puns, which he struggles to get out due to his stammer, endears you to him within moments, and Rain’s good-natured annoyance at his bad jokes further defines their lovely relationship. Romulus tries to fill out the rest of its character tropes like previous Alien films, with a crass and rude British guy, his grim, no-nonsense partner, a kind-hearted heartthrob, and a sweet (and newly pregnant) best friend, and the young actors all play them well, even if their characters aren’t fully fleshed out. But Rain and Andy? I’d die for them.
Visually, Romulus is as close to perfect as a sci-fi horror flick can get. When the shuttle carrying the teens up to the derelict Weyu ship (which is actually a decommissioned outpost, and, as you might suspect, full of facehuggers) soars upward into the planet’s upper atmosphere, the visual effects dazzle: rain pelts the hull, lightning flashes all around it, and strange, red-orange veins of light run through the clouds. When it bursts through the cloud cover, Rain sees the planet’s sun for the first time ever, and I feel a similar stirring of awe in my gut.
Romulus truly is beautiful, from the cinematography to the set design to the way the iconic xenomorphs look. Álvarez impressively and effectively plays with color, light, and texture (wispy gray smoke, white-hot steam, tar-black blood), and the pitch-perfect mix of practical and digital effects blends iconic Alien iconography with impressive, modern tech. And then there’s the digitally recreated elephant in the room.
Romulus and references
As I mentioned, there are a lot of Easter eggs in Alien: Romulus. The decommissioned outpost (split into two massive sections called Remus and Romulus) is powered by a computer called MU/TH/UR 9000, a newer version of the one running the Nostromo in 1979’s Alien. When one of the motley crew members bullies and denigrates Andy, he stammers back a quote from Aliens, saying he prefers the term “artificial human” just like Bishop told Ripley back then. The outpost’s door mechanisms are the same ones from 2014 survival horror game Alien: Isolation. Hell, even the original xenomorph, the one Ripley blows out of the Nostromo airlock, haunts Romulus—its corpse is suspended from the ceiling in the derelict ship, its acid blood having burnt through several floors and destroyed the place.
But the most egregious Easter egg is a rotten one: a digitally recreated Ian Holm, who played a secret synthetic in the original film that was placed on the Nostromo by Weyland-Yutani to help further the company’s attempts to secure humanity’s fate in the stars by any means necessary. The digital avatar of Holm, who passed away in 2020, looks bad and uncanny almost every time it’s on screen, and the fact that the damaged robot (who goes by Rook in Romulus) is just a torso perpetually leaking the synthetic’s iconic white diagnostic fluid makes it even worse. His appearance is so bizarre and unnecessary (and so prevalent, as Rook has a ton of screen time), that it sours so much of what makes Romulus enjoyable.
Image: 20th Century Studios
From the moment Rook is introduced, I watch the rest of Romulus with my eyes narrowed suspiciously, waiting for another Easter egg to (perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not) puncture the fourth wall and boop me on the nose with a “see what I did there?” Thankfully, the cast’s incredible acting and the film’s perfectly paced action effectively distract me from my fear of another reference lurking down a dark corridor. There are several truly gruesome scenes—acid burning off fingers, a facehugger artificially pumping someone’s lungs while attached to them, the gnarly cracking of ribs and spines, and a few brand-new takes on the iconic chest bursting scene—that will delight body horror fans. And all of this action is propelled forward by Spaeny and Jonsson, the latter of whom does such an impressive 180 with his character that it leaves me speechless. Romulus also adds a bit more lore to the franchise, specifically around a certain stage in the xenomorph’s evolution, that gives Álvarez an excuse to put a giant, wet, undulating vagina in the film, just as H.R. Giger intended.
But just when I’ve forgotten about the torso of Holm lurking in a dimly lit corner, when I’ve just been delighted by a zero-G action sequence that involves floating, spiraling acid blood Rain and Andy must avoid while suspended in mid-air, when I realize that Álvarez almost perfectly times the outpost’s countdown timer until it will collide with the planet’s icy ring to the runtime of the film, Romulus comes back around to the references. The proto pulse rifles from Aliens, Rook spouting an exact quote Holm uttered in Alien, Spaeny in her cryo-undies wielding a gun just like Ripley, Andy stammering “get away from her you bitch,” a human/xeno hybrid that makes your skin crawl, a face-to-face moment just like the meme.
Thankfully, Romulus ends strong, with an emotionally powerful, deliciously disgusting final scene with a jump-scare that almost made me pee myself. I just wish that it had the confidence to stand on its own a bit more, rather than deliver nods and recycled lines on a silver platter with a wry smile. Though, whether you’re a fan of the franchise or not, I believe Alien: Romulus is worth a watch—maybe some fans will adore the references, and those who know nothing about Ridley Scott’s legendary sci-fi universe can remain blissfully unaware and just enjoy a well-paced, well-shot, well-acted romp. It’s a win-win in that regard.
Scorn is a rough game so far. It’s slow, send you down winding labyrinths with little guidance, offers zero narrative comforts (at least early on), and is set in a dramatically uncomfortable and grotesque world clearly inspired by the works of Swiss artist HR Giger. I’ve found it to be an unfun, painful experience. But if I’m being honest, I think the discomfort is the point. And in that, Scorn might be a successful game.
Developed by Ebb Software and out yesterday on PC and Xbox—I’m on PC—Scorn has been in development since 2014. After a failed Kickstarter campaign and a since-ditched plan to release the game in two installments, it reappeared on Kickstarter in 2017 to successfully secure its funding and is now available to play. It bills itself as “an atmospheric first-person horror adventure game set in a nightmarish universe of odd forms and somber tapestry” and also takes inspiration from Heideggeran philosophy.
I’ll let you, the reader, deal with the philosophical angle, as that’s not my specialty and I have no desire to comment on Martin Heidegger’s work or how it applies to this game. I approach Scorn from the perspective of someone who is deeply moved by the works of HR Giger; I often appreciate art that is unfun, difficult, and, either intentionally or not, abrasive. I am not an expert on Giger’s biography or his intentions behind his work, but I know how I’ve responded to his art. And it’s with that which I approach this game.
Scorn
Scorn, in the five hours I’ve spent with it, appeals to me because it imparts so much friction on the player. I am not necessarily having a good time, but am nonetheless being pulled down the corridors of this macabre plodfest, more adventure game than first-person shooter, because of how deeply the extremely Giger-esque art hits me.
As a trans woman who’s spent most of her life closeted, I’ve found HR Giger’s work viscerally communicates an ambience of doomed sex, sexuality, and physical forms, a general sense of unease and confusion that resonates with how I’ve seen the world for most of my life. His images provide meditative spaces that are much more cerebral and in tune with my feelings of the world than the more simplistic, gore-for-gore’s-sake utility Hollywood has often reduced it to. It’s why I’m drawn to this game. And while Scorn ain’t for everyone (not for most, probably), so far it is managing to mirror what I get out of Giger’s art by refusing to bend to “AAA” gaming expectations of being easy to play and understand.
There’s no hand-holding. No map. No objective marker. The HUD elements are confusing (to a fault, actually), and the puzzles take a bit of time to wrap your head around. You can’t jump. You can’t crouch. Invisible walls are everywhere, making Scorn feel more like a museum. The first “weapon” you get is nearly useless against the early enemies, and once you finally acquire a firearm, it is woefully inaccurate. This game has one of the worst cases of “where-the-fuck-am-I-supposed-to-go-now-itis” I’ve experienced in years. And yet, I want to continue playing it ‘til the end.
Scorn succeeds at communicating, at utilizing, what I love about HR Giger’s work in two key ways. But it fails in a third, perhaps fatal one.
Its first success comes in nailing the confusion and surrealism. I don’t know what anything will do. As the gamer, I feel frustrated by that. But as myself, Claire, I am delighted by being so lost and forced into a place of unknowing.
The way it tends to play out is you come across strange rooms and devices whose purposes are unclear. You try to activate these in some way, using either the weird objects you pick up or by mashing the A button, only to be frustrated when the animation plays out to no effect. You then stomp around the corridors and touch gross things over and over until you finally figure out where you’re supposed to go or what piece of filth interacts with what pulsing organelle.
Gif: Ebb Software / Kotaku
This is undoubtedly annoying, but I’d argue that, in the spirit of Giger, this is how it should be. If this game assigned random lore words and catchphrases to objects and spaces around you, or otherwise made itself more friendly, it would corrupt the natural flow of bizarre bullshit that you have to manage. The protagonist (thus far) is silent, leaving my own thoughts to narrate what I’m experiencing. Scorn becomes very personal in this vacuum of character and voice.
A game that so directly pulls from Giger should be inherently surrealist and confusing. That said, many of these puzzles are of the kind that we’ve seen before in other games. What makes them work, for me at least, brings me to Scorn’s second key success so far: It brings the “mechanical” of the “biomechanical” source material to life. Seeing this kind of art style bend and slither through my manipulations conveys a sense of movement that Giger’s still works typically do not.
Combined, these two strengths grant me a game experience similar to what I experience when lost in a Giger piece. Had it played more smoothly, more gently, it would have been far more Prometheus than “Brain Salad Surgery.” Scorn, on its own, is no “Brain Salad Surgery,” “Necronom IV,” or “Birth Machine,” but I find it, as a video game, to be resonant with what I go to those works for.
Scorn’s ultimate failing, in my opinion, has little to do with its clunkiness as a game. Sure, the protagonist walks way too slowly (get used to holding down “sprint”) and you really ought to turn off motion blur and crank up the FoV by at least a notch or two. Also, the game is suffering from a kind of stutter I’m starting to notice more and more of in Unreal Engine games. These are all valid reasons for players to bounce off this game.
But for me, its key failing is the art design’s almost shocking (given the source material’s) lack of engagement with human sexuality. I think Scorn could’ve stood to learn more from the eroticism of Giger’s work. There’s gory body horror here for sure, but the watering down of its erotic motifs deprives Scorn’s art of the sense of humanity, as twisted and warped as it may appear, present in Giger.
I understand why this is likely the case. Any game that followed HR Giger’s depictions of distorted genitalia, of monstrous penises and vaginas, would likely land in Adults Only territory. There is enough “inserting,” phallic imagery, and yawning openings to hint in the right directions, but Scorn suffers for not going all the way.
Scenes like this one should be more explicitly erotic.Screenshot: Ebb Software / Kotaku
Frankly, more penises and vulvas and body parts would make this game much better. The fingerprints of Giger-esque biomechanical sexuality are there in the design of its various tunnels and rising phallic objects, but lack the clear details of actual human anatomy. In this one key way Scorn is almost like a radio-friendly version of an otherwise explicit song. To be fair, I don’t know if I trust a modern video game to work with such themes tastefully in the first place, but the mashup of horror, confusion, and eroticism is a major appeal of this art style for me and it’s a shame to see it so, well, neutered in Scorn. Raw, hauntingly surrealist eroticism is what so often draws me to Giger, and its omission here saps the game of potential vitality.
Scorn is not a fun game. It’s confusing and painful to play. It’s like listening to Dillinger Escape Plan in reverse. But for those reasons, I will continue plodding through these corridors so long as the sloppy combat doesn’t sour the experience too much.
