The good news: Sega just recently announced a major deal with Twentieth Century Fox to make not one but multiple next-generation games based on the "Alien" movie series. One of the titles will be a first-person shooter in the vein of Aliens Versus Predator game franchise. Another title will be a role-playing game. Interesting.

The bad news? Well, the first game is at least a few years away and probably won't see the light of day until 2009 (scheduled formats are the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360). And let's be honest - the Alien movie series is pretty much dead. The last two "Alien" movies were bombs, and the recent "Alien Versus Predator" movie was weak sauce.

Still, this announcement has me excited for a few reasons. First, Alien Versus Predator 2 is one of the most exciting and scariest FPS titles I've ever played, and we need more "Alien" titles like it. Second, Obsidian Entertainment has been confirmed for the RPG Alien game, and they've done a pretty good job with its first two games, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II and Neverwinter Nights 2. There's speculation that Gearbox Software will helm the FPS title, and again, the developer has a pretty nice pedigree with such games as the Brothers in Arms series.

I'm just really, really hoping that another publisher/developer doesn't make a game that tarnishes below franchise (see below post on Star Trek). Because if these two games turn out to be crap, I'm going to be feeling like Drake after getting hit with Xenomorph blood: burned.