Sci-Fi Do Want: The Pulse Rifle from Aliens

There's a wonderful aesthetic to the "Alien" movies that's difficult to describe. It's a grimy universe with extremely advanced technology that somehow looks both sophisticated and simple at the same time.

This is a design paradigm that the Pulse Rifle encapsulates perfectly, with it's bulky shape and digital ammo readout it looks futuristic and potent, but also like something that you would be able to mend in the field without being a tech expert.

I'm not sure that the side of the gun is the best place to put the ammo readout, guys

When the Pulse Rifle is fired it spews out a huge muzzle flare, but rather than sounding like the pounding hooves of the horsemen of the apocalypse, it has a much more subtle noise that sounds more like some sort of electric power tool than a deadly assault rifle.
This is another example of how the Pulse Rifle combines the bulky and brutal and the sci-fi into something that is the best of both worlds.

Throughout the Aliens movies we get to see that the Pulse Rifle is quite up to the job of killing one of those slimy double-mouthed wall crawlers, but it requires several bursts of concentrated fire to take one of them down, and this makes the weapon feel potent but somewhat insufficient at the same time.
Sure, you can go hunting Aliens with a Pulse Rifle, but you better be quick and accurate or you will very quickly find yourself with an empty gun and a pissed off acid dripping Alien that's about to suck your juicy face meat off your skull.

Rediscovering James Cameron’s Aliens

I'm glad to be able to bring you another article by Jordan Siron. Jordan has previously written about the first "Alien" movie and what he thinks makes it so great.
This time Jordan takes on the sequel "Aliens" and illuminates us as to why he thinks it is a lesser movie than the original.

The (not so) cleverly named Aliens has been considered by many fans to be the best in the series. While I respect others’ opinions, I am afraid I have to respectfully disagree. Directed by Hollywood Hot Shot, James Cameron, Aliens is vastly different in terms of tone, themes, and effects. It’s so different from Alien that one such as I have often wondered if it had originally been planned as the first entry in a totally different franchise. It is by no means a bad film – it’s downright entertaining, to say the absolute least – but it left me a tad sad over what might have been.

The Story
It just so happens that the planet from the first film has since been colonized, but all contact has been lost. A team of Marines, accompanied by Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and an obnoxious bureaucrat (Paul Reiser), venture to the planet’s surface in hopes of discovering the catalyst behind the radio silence. The team discovers the entire colony has been torn asunder by the titular creatures, and must fight to survive.