Warning: Gigantic wall of text bellow. if you don't wanna read it all, check out the
summary at the bottom of the page: Oorah
As some of you might have noticed, I've re-written my original post to better express
and reflect my thoughts on this title. Given time and experience with the game, my
initial thoughts on them have changed quite a bit. First and foremost, no, I don't think
this game is as good as I thought it was when I first began playing it, nor is it as bad as
I believed it to be regarding the information I've obtained about its current state and
the tumultuous history behind its development. It's an average game at best and at
its worst, plain and simple.
Aliens: Colonial Marines was published by Sega and developed by Gearbox, and like, 4
other companies. It's one of the first, if only game in the series to be considered a cannon
sequel to Aliens. The game begins 17 weeks after the events of Aliens. You play a marine
corporal named Christopher Winters. Your squadron received the distress signal from the
crew of the Sulaco and have been sent in to see what became of the Sulaco's crew and to
assist the remaining marines of Rhino Squadron. Upon arriving at the coordinates, the
marines mysteriously find that the Sulaco has some how been put back into orbit above
LV-426 instead of Fury-161.
The mystery deepens when Winters boards the Sulaco and is tasked with retrieving the
last remaining survivors of Rhino, and as he begins to explore the dark and eerie halls
of the Sulaco, not all is as it seems.
The game is your standard FPS, nothing we haven't seen before, though there are some
standard mechanics that seem to be lacking in this title that have otherwise become a
standard in most modern shooters. The game handles well enough to serve its purpose,
but its not on par with Call of Duty.
The single player campaign runs for 11 stages and depending on how good you are, will
take you around 6 to 8 hours to complete, give or take an hour or two. The game can be
quite frustrating at times due to problems in the programming. There is some replay value
to the single player campaign, however, as there are legendary artifacts and collectibles
all throughout the stages. There are also challenges that you can complete in order to unlock
modifications that you can use to improve your weapons and to personalize both your marine
and your xenomorphs in the multiplayer section.
Each weapon has a number of modification modules that can be purchased and used to give
the weapon different functions and can be carried over into the multiplayer game, giving you
a slight edge over the standard loadout of weapons. That being said. legendary weapons can't
be modified and are otherwise better in some ways to standard upgraded weapons.
While the single player campaign leaves a lot to be desired, it isn't all terrible. While we don't
have the gorgeous graphics that we saw in the 2011 demo of the game, what we do have is
still good in its own right and can still pull off that creepy atmosphere that you get from the
movies. The environments are still quite awe inspiring and very creepy and some of the level
designs are fantastic, especially the sewer level when you're stripped of your weapons and have
to escape without drawing attention by the xenomorphs.
The music and sound design is really good, too. The weapons sound like they do in the movies,
as do the xenomorphs. the music is really good in spots as well, but the voice acting is a bit hit
and miss at times. The only really bad things I could think of with single player is that the story
doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and considering it was written by the guys behind Battle Star
Galactica, that's pretty pathetic... The enemy A.I is all but worthless. Xenos aren't the stealth
killers that we see in the movies, instead they just zergrush, and while this is effective in some
cases, it makes them easy kills.
- Spoiler:
The human enemies aren't much better, either.
Single player aside, the game really shines in its multiplayer section, and while I feel that its
entirely unfair that Gearbox put all their best efforts into the multiplayer section (like many
other companies tend to do...), the multiplayer section is easily the best part of the game.
The game comes with four different games to play: Death Match. Extermination. Escape and
Survival. In Extermination, 2 teams of 4 (Marines Vs Xenomorphs) complete against one
another. Marines must go to various points on the map to destroy nests of eggs while the
xenomorphs try to stop them. In Escape the roles are reversed. A squad of marines try to
escape to various extraction points on the map while the xenomorphs try to kill them.
Survival mode is similar to Black Ops Zombies. A team of marines must survive as long as
they can in a single location, using various environmental elements to help secure their area
while fending off teams of xenomorphs. Marines dying in this mode and in Escape will not
respawn, while Aliens will.
In all modes, matches are made up of two rounds, with teams switching sides at the end of
each round. Experience, challenges and ranks earned in multiplayer carries over to single
player and vice versa.
You can customize both your marine and your xenomorph's appearance that carries over in
to multiplayer matches, and there's a fair amount of customization that can be performed,
both in terms of appearance but as well as weapon and ability loadouts. Some of the aliens
you can make look wicked as hell and you can personalize the way they perform and the
various special attacks and abilities they have.
Lastly I wanna talk about the controversy surrounding this game. Fans and critics alike
are panning this game with a burning passion, and some of the things they're angry about
are very valid. The most obvious thing so far is the differences between the demo released
in 2011 and the final product. The game we have now looks nothing like the game they
showed us in the demo. Graphics, dynamic lighting effects and Physic elements have
severely been downgraded from what they previewed in the demo. Entire sections of
the game have been altered or outright removed completely from the game. Enemy A.I
is retarded to the point of facepalm inducing and animations are blocky at best.
There are superficial problems that are being patched at the moment, but the majority
of the complaints about the game are likely to never be addressed. For those of us who
own the console versions, we're pretty much SOL, but if you intend to play this game
on your PC, fret not, as many of the more skilled fans in the series are working on not
only repairing the games coding, but in getting the most out of the graphics, and it won't
be long before they'll probably get their hands on level creating equipment.
The main thing everyone is asking right now is what the hell happened to the game.
There's no shortage of rumors going around right now, but they're just that, rumors.
So far GearBox hasn't said shit and what Sega has said has been very little and nothing
specific.
This post is already long enough, so if you're curious about the rumors, you won't have
any trouble finding sources on it. What it comes boils down to is that, Gearbox spent
time and resources given to them by Sega to create in house titles and to finish duke
nukem forever instead of developing Aliens: Colonial Marines. Instead, they outsourced
the majority of the game to other companies, and what we got in return was a subpar
overall title.
[Oorah]
So in case most of you didn't read any of this, at least read this part. Yes, the single player
game sucks, the graphics aren't what they should have been, and we've probably lost a few
levels, but overall, its not the worst single player campaign ive seen. The orgasmic story
we were promised is shit, but all that aside, the multiplayer is pretty good and definitely
where the game is the strongest. I wouldn't recommend going out and buying it at retail
price, though. Rent this title or wait for it to come out on steam for a cheaper price. You
will be getting a better product for a decent price.
The one exception I can make is the pc version, as there is already a dedicated fanbase
working on not only improving the games graphics, but its stability and mechanics
through modifications and will most likely be the best way to experience the game as
a whole.
