antikewl

Aliens: Colonial Marines

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Man, I can't believe so many people dislike Aliens. It's a great sequel - expanding on the universe, tying up loose ends, not just redoing what the first film did - full of great performances, dialogue, action, effects, tension, atmosphere and heart. I think it still looks great, due to the pre-CG effects, and the aliens' movements are totally convincing to me - Cameron uses a load of tricks to avoid them looking like men in suits, arguably moreso than the first film.

I thought everyone felt this way, now I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

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Gosh, now I feel the need to clarify that I don't dislike Aliens. It has lots of interesting things, Paul Reiser for one. And Bishop, and the cat scare (beautifully recreated in spirit by Star Trek: First Contact), and the queen face-off. But when I watched it back-to-back with Alien, it became apparent how badly it holds up. The themes, though a very cool departure from the first film (I am ALL FOR sequels not retreading ground but proceeding to new territory, see also The Chronicles of Riddick), just weren't as classically interesting as before, in part because marine stuff got really popular and the likes of Starship Troopers explored that satirical aspect with more gusto (though less subtlety).

A concrete criticism: it takes a LONG time before the action breaks loose. Not so much of a problem for Alien, but for what Aliens tries to do, it's a very slow build-up. Well, not just slow, but also a bit tedious. They're stepping into every cliche, which wasn't a cliche back then, but it is now, which is exactly what is hurting the experience. Hey, you can still watch the film from a historical perspective and again, it's not a bad movie. I think the backlash [in this place] comes from the fact that a lot of us sort of realized that maybe Aliens wasn't a classic, just a good film, where earlier the consensus seemed to be that it was the shining jewel of the series. Time is proving that sentiment wrong.

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If they were so concerned with slavishly reproducing elements of Aliens, I find it lame that they'd use trendy color grading. At least, the official screenshots make it all look super blue and orange. The movie had sort of a limited color palette with lots of red lights and fire in a steely environment, which created a similar effect, but in a far more natural way.

I guess it's a silly thing to nitpick in such a trainwreck.

At least it captures all the "epicness," according to that ign dot com review. Ugh. I hate it when the internet jumps all over people like game reviewers for having unpopular opinions, but "epicness" is a horrible thing to write. I feel dirty even with the scare quotes.

Man, I really am a huge nitpicker this morning.

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Oooh, so wait, so is that demo the version that Sega used screenshots of to promote the game? Is that what was going on with that?

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Why are people so shocked and horrified that a preview build that was probably running on PC hardware looked a tiny bit better than the optimized and released version? This happens literally all the time, and has happened much more egregiously too. (Halo 4 is a pretty recent example. That is a beautiful game, but those promo shots do not reflect what that game actually looks like, not in the slightest.)

Sorry, but that one is just dumb. That's the hate train taking on a life of its own. That Polygon review that was linked a page back or so, that was seriously dumb too. It's a conversation to have, but this wasn't the game to have it around, it's a broader topic that doesn't deserve to be lost amongst all the things evidently wrong with ACM.

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I don't see how "others do it all the time" is supposed to make it any more acceptable? And "a tiny bit better" is a bit of an understatement, since those effects added a lot to the mood of the scenes. To think that demo build was a mere 6-7 months ago. It seems like reasonable criticism to make, regardless of the game, or the larger discussion surrounding misleading screenshots/promotional material.

That said, I don't think the prettier visuals would've saved this game; it seems broken on a fundamental level. Plus, the internet echo chamber seems to be in full effect.

I'm not familiar with the Halo 4 thing, by the way. Got any links that illustrates this?

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I get the feeling a lot of companies do mock ups like this and we never know it. Creating trailers or gameplay demo videos with the intention of having all of that working later. I'm guessing we only tend to notice when someone fails at living up to what they had on display as part of their promo material.

Two other examples I can think of this are Metal Gear Solid 2 and Munch's Oddysee. MGS2 apparently was not a playable game by any means when early gameplay trailers were released, but instead scripted animated mock ups of what their working game should look like. The only reason I know this is because they went into detail about the issues with their own making of material. Kind of gutsy. Luckily MGS2 does about everything shown in their early videos except for Snake running from a wall of water in the Tanker.

Munch's Oddysee however had some promo videos that were mocked up when it was still for PS2 including a character that never made it into the final game as well as notable missing functions. I guess I never caught wind of these either being cut or never existing as functioning gameplay pieces in the first place, but I was left pretty disappointed.

So I don't know, it's definitely a grey area, even if everyone probably does it. You can't really deny early gameplay footage and trailers to your audience once it's out there. A lot of gamers are probably clicking on these videos without any kind of frame of reference of when they came out as well.

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I'm not saying it's acceptable, it's definitely a topic that needs more awareness, but the way the conversation is being raised with regards to ACM is highly misleading.

For the other thing, let me see if i can dig up some good examples of what I'm talking about.

Edit: I'm having trouble digging up anything that clearly illustrates it, grainy youtube videos aren't cutting it. (The game still looks so good that i feel like i would be pointing out blurry individual pixels to try and make my case.) The general gist is that there's some texture pop-in and some seriously harsh detail scaling going on at distances, none of which is present in the promo material surrounding the game. The trailers and official demos all suggest a totally pristine, perfect game.

I mean, and nobody ever calls out publishers and developers on this stuff when it's a game that people mostly like. That probably shouldn't be the case, it probably shouldn't be something we're always so willing to let slide.

(I didn't mean to imply that there was some controversy surrounding Halo 4 bullshots. I mentioned it specifically because there wasn't when there are, what i find to be, noticeable differences between the pre-release materials and the released game.)

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Sorry, I was saying something I already knew you did not mean and I shouldn't have implied that that is what you meant. Having read up a bit more on how folks are responding to this, I see your point.

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In this particular case, it kinda looks like the demo video wasn't even being rendered in realtime, so it's a bit like the "target renders" that everyone got mad about with the early PS3 demos (Motorstorm/Warhawk).

Whether or not it's a dishonest practice, it's still disappointing to see the actual game being nowhere near as nice looking. That youtube video illustrates it pretty well.

I get the whole "this is a work in progress thing," but that doesn't really cover it in this case. It's more like "This is what we wanted the game to look like."

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Looks like there might be a bit of a fight brewing over who's actually at fault for Aliens: Colonial Marines, with "primary development" of the game having at some point been outsourced to TimeGate Studios.

I mean, but ultimately, Gearbox has to be held as the responsible party, right?

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It's Killzone all over again, I guess.

Still, I'm halfway through now and still enjoying it. Funnily enough, the best level so far has been the one with the Old Lady Alien gif.

You're stripped of your weapon (/bag of 20 weapons) and the other marines for the majority of the level and it's creepy as hell. Too bad the level design was so bad that I had to look up Youtube videos on two separate occasions to find the damn exit!

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Not really? I mean, yeah it's interesting, but this person is hardly a credible source. A tester at Sega wouldn't know too much more about the Publisher/Developer agreements & contracts than we do. A lot of what this person said is basically hearsay, and could be derived from what we've heard online anyway.

 

Like the whole "Gearbox used this to fund Borderlands" thing ... anyone could come up with that theory, but it's full of holes. If you were Sega, would you pay up millions of dollars without ensuring the money got spent correctly? And after 6 years, don't you think they'd clue in? Just doesn't add up.

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I agree that the whole "they used money to fund Borderlands 2" thing sounds a bit suspicious. It's more likely Gearbox used in-house resources to make Borderlands 2, while out-sourcing ACM. It also doesn't ring true that he sincerely believes Gearbox lied to the public. Still, I have no doubt there would be office scuttlebutt, and I could see that he'd believe the version of events that he heard, even if the rumours had mangled some of the facts.

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It's more likely Gearbox used in-house resources to make Borderlands 2, while out-sourcing ACM.

I think Sega outsourced ACM, sure, but I doubt Gearbox would have the authority to make that call independently. The alternate explanation, that they outsourced it behind Sega's back, is crazy implausible.

 

But yeah, definitely a "rumours of rumours of facts around the office" kinda thing.

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It is really curious how Sega, Gearbox, and the anonymous Timegate source are all passing around this hot potato through rumors and rumors of rumors. No one wants to let it lie that they're the reason the game sucks, but they don't want to be caught naming too many names either.

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Knew it, it's topped the UK charts. Maybe the sub par quality will mean it'll slide down the charts faster, but still its making serious bank

 

1. Aliens: Colonial Marines
2. Dead Space 3
3. FIFA 13
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
5. Far Cry 3
6. Assassin’s Creed 3
7. Need for Speed: Most Wanted
8. Just Dance 4
9. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
10. Halo 4

 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=513976

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As much as I love Alien and Aliens, I simply cannot get warm for an alien action game. It should have been an adventure game with a bit of action.

 

Now is, as usual, the time to point out that if you'd like a half-decent Aliens game, Wayforward's Aliens: Infestation for the DS is great. Platformy-Metroidvania Aliens game; very good, and lovely animation.

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It's particularly notable in how it utilizes an oddball permadeath mechanic to allow itself to have that action-focused gameplay, but still feel threatening.

You start the game with a small squad of marines and eventually recruit more. They all have their own dialogue and sprites, but to be really reductive about it, they are essentially additional lives. The game could have gone a bit further with it and made them meaningfully different, but it's still a cool system. If you have a character you like, there's a lot of moment to moment tension as you struggle to keep him/her alive. The game ends up striking a nice balance between making the marines seem fragile, throwing a ton of enemies at you, and not ending up unapproachably difficult.

Wayforward does cool stuff.

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A number of Twitter accounts, which were only set up recently and seem spectacularly preoccupied with Gearbox and Gearbox products, are lavishing Pitchford with praise for Colonial Marines, and they are now the only people worthy of his time.

 

 
This Pitchford guy is a bit of a douche bag, i should have known really, just look at the shirts he wears
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myeyesthegogglesdonothing.jpg

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