Aliens: Colonial Marines

[antikewl]

I know I'm going to be in the minority here, but I'm actually enjoying it. Plays like the original CoD "Classic" console port with low res textures and glitches and clipping, this is true, but I enjoyed that too.

Also, I didn't like Borderlands.

Is there some kind of specialist that I can see about this?

[melmer]

The reviews are all over the place on this one from destructoids 2.5 to this 9/10 (check out the comments they're great)

Whatever the quality of the game it's still going to sell like hot cakes in the UK just like the last one

Hopefully next gen someone can do the Alien franchise justice. I can still remember playing the first AvP demo on my PC (which could barely run it) and completely shitting myself, and quite often blowing myself up with frantic grenade fire.

[melmer]

[Sno]

I would say that I have been a pretty big fan of the various AvP FPS's* and I definitely have a lot of love for what Gearbox does, so I think I'm probably pretty much the intended market for this game, but I could not be less excited for this game.

Everything I've seen just looks busted and ugly.

(* = For the record, Monolith's game is the best one by a significant margin. I don't think Rebellion gets enough credit for what they've done with that series though, and i think 2010 was a terribly misunderstood game.)

[melmer]

The part i'm kinda interested in from the destructoid review

Perhaps the most disgraceful element of Colonial Marines' story is a plot twist ham-fistedly forced into a late chapter that, for fear of upsetting readers with spoilers, I cannot adequately detail. Suffice it to say, the story undoes canon established in the movies, and does so with such casual disregard, it comes off as an insult to the audience's intelligence.

If anyone knows whack it in some spoiler tags as i'm never going to play this game

[Argobot]

I don't know about the ending plot twist, but based on one review I read, it sounds like:

The Hicks character is some how alive even though he died between Aliens and Alien 3 and the game does absolutely nothing to justify why he's alive.

[antikewl]

I don't know about the ending plot twist, but based on one review I read, it sounds like:

The Hicks character is some how alive even though he died between Aliens and Alien 3 and the game does absolutely nothing to justify why he's alive.

If you really want to geek out about this stuff (and I mean REALLY), there's a whole bunch of inconsistencies listed here: http://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=47052.0

But, yes (I haven't got to that part yet, incidentally) this particular thing is one rather large plot hole. :/

[melmer]

Probably all you need to know:

http://www.polygon.c...nbhGXRIdKf3bUGC

[LazerBeast]

It's unfortunate that this game seems to have turned out so poorly.

[antikewl]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8J8SzBhjqaQ

[Lu]

They should have just cancelled this thing. It feels like this pandering piece of entertainment for the Bros, completely missing the point of what's cool/interesting/enjoyable about Alien and Aliens.

[dusk]

Nooo! Why can't they do this property justice? Why!?

To be fair, I haven't played it yet.. but I wasn't holding out much hope.

A couple of years ago now, a friend and I drank a lot of beer and discussed what we wanted out of an Aliens game.. What our perfect Aliens game would be.

We both had fond memories of AVP over LAN and shared many multiplayer experiences through the years. We also played the pen and paper RPG a couple of times back in the 90s.

If you'll indulge me.. What we came up with was this:

Basically an MMO where you create your character down to the finest details. Bullshit amounts of customization.

This character is created on your chosen server. Each server is, essentially, a massive spaceship carrying marines. This also serves as a sort of lobby.

On the ship you can interact with other players, wait for friends to log in or find others to group up with. You can also gamble, eat cornbread or watch miniature laserdiscs.

When you're ready to go on a mission, you all head into an instance entrance. You can choose from a number of different mission types, for example: story-based missions, survival mode or randomly generated encounters.

After successfully completing a mission, you earn money and better gear or you can find loot and alien tech out there.

However

• Your character posesses something similar to the old "wound" system from a number of different rpgs.
  
• You can sustain a small number of wounds over time, but they have a negative effect on your character, eg: limping, unable to carry heavier gear.
  
• A wound can be healed by finding a medbay (generally only one per mission).
  
• You can become "impregnated" or "cocooned", both of which start a timer.
  
• If you run out of wounds, become trapped or.. well, burst and your character is left behind, then.. game over, man. Time to make a new character.
  

So, as a team, you can decide to turn tail and run, pick up your wounded and head back to the dropship.. or fortify a position and try to wait for a possible rescue.

There are times when you'll be required to split up or escort a scientist etc etc.

Yeah, it's probably flawed and naive, but I think it touches on why the movie felt so desperate and exciting.

The thing is, you need to care about or be invested in your character. Also, team-based mechanics and hard decisions. Games are so much more immersive and.. scary when you have something to lose. "No I don't want to lose my guy with the awesome gun and purple combat boots! Noooo! (wild pulse rifle fire)

So, this is what I see as the problem with AVP and A:CM. You just respawn.

[antikewl]

Holy shit, guys. Game redeemed!

https://www.youtube....X0wAwbG8#t=138s

[Argobot]

Blame Paul WS Anderson for the bro-ification of Aliens and also Resident Evil.

[LazerBeast]

Here comes the developer finger pointing.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/12/someone-else-mostly-made-colonial-marines-mostly/

[sclpls]

Funny that, how every time Gearbox releases something terrible, it's someone else's fault.

I'm not entirely convinced Borderlands is a particularly good game either, but people didn't notice with all the guns distracting them.

[youmeyou]

No, it's good. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

[gregbrown]

The best description I've heard of Gearbox is that "Randy Pitchford is a used car salesman," and I'd agree. DNF made me hate the company, and I must admit to some schadenfreude as it slowly became clear that the game was amazingly bad. If there's any silver-lining, it's in showing that:

• Previews were uniformly positive even when they should have seen this coming from a mile away, and hopefully people will recognize that the whole exercise is nothing but uncritical regurgitation of PR (unlikely), and
  
• We get to find out which outlets are really bad, like the EGM review that Mington linked above.
  

[melmer]

Props to the polygon review which refused to use the screenshots sent to them by sega/Gearbox (The ones used in that EGM review and probably most other site) as they felt they bear little resemblance to the actual game.

http://www.polygon.com/game/aliens-colonial-marines/3159

[feelthedarkness]

Yeah, Gearbox is weird. Borderlands is a fun diversion to play with friends with some good art direction, but it's not exactly a great game. There is basically only one interaction.

I wish Obsidian's Aliens RPG got to see the light of day. Somebody should leak the alpha.

[antikewl]

I'd love to see a game based on the first Alien movie… or with that same atmosphere. A single enemy, you're (near) powerless, all about psychological terror. It'd be fantastic! Anything based on Aliens and the Colonial Marines is going to be a run and gun, sadly.

[melmer]

The sad thing is this game is going to sell like fucking gangbusters just like the 2010 AvsP purely because of the Aliens property

Sales

Despite its mixed critical reception, Aliens vs. Predator debuted at number one on the UK all formats chart.[20] It is currently the fastest-selling game of 2010 in the UK, a record previously held by BioShock 2.[21] It was also the best-selling game on Steam, as well as on the retail PC charts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_vs._Predator_(video_game)

And probably most casual gamers with their lower expectations who just want to shoot some aliens with a pulse rifle will have an absolute blast and recommend it to all their friends

Sega and gearbox will make their money and can churn out another subpar aliens game in a couple of years time

[Roderick]

Hey guys let's talk about the films instead!

Upon rewatching the whole series last year (two years ago now as I still live in 2012), I felt that Alien is still a mindblowing film, a true classic. Aliens, on the other hand, has aged pretty badly. It feels like something that was very thrilling and new and exciting back then because it upended a lot of then-cliches and took the genre into a new direction - but now feels a little gimmicky?

[youmeyou]

I'd love to see a game based on the first Alien movie… or with that same atmosphere. A single enemy, you're (near) powerless, all about psychological terror. It'd be fantastic! Anything based on Aliens and the Colonial Marines is going to be a run and gun, sadly.

I'd argue Dead Space is as close as gaming has come to capturing the atmosphere of Alien. They cribbed heavily from the franchise so it's not really a shocking statement. Dead Space 2 (and it sounds like 3) have veered into something entirely different, they're much more space shooting gallery and less suspenseful tight corridor exploration with aliens crawling around vents.

Rodi, I disagree, I think both films are groundbreaking on different levels. Alien is a stunning, minimalist horror film with an inventive sci fi wrapping. Aliens is a war film repurposed to become something totally different. It plays the cheesy jingoistic gung-ho soldier cliches against the unstoppable terror of a classic horror villain. Watching soldier feeds blip out on the TV screens still feels intensely desperate and chaotic. If it suffers it's from having been copied by every dark sci fi action film ever made practically.

[Argobot]

http://www.eurogamer...n-retrospective It's a good write-up on the 8-bit Alien game.

I love the Alien movie; it's easily one of my favorite movie movies, let alone favorite sci-fi movie. But I really, really, really, wish that games would just leave Alien/Aliens alone. We get it!

Edit:

Have you ever watched both movies back to back? I generally have a positive opinion of Aliens as a movie and also as a sequel, but watching it right after Alien makes it very apparent that it is the lesser movie. Still worthwhile, but it in no matches the the sheer glee of that first movie.