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Author Topic: Aliens: Colonial Marines  (Read 3025 times)

Offline Totoro

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Aliens: Colonial Marines
« on: February 21, 2013, 10:51:43 AM »
Oh man, what a terrible game. For a franchise very near and dear to my heart, this pains me. Have read a lot about the development process, sounds unfortunate for all involved.

Spoilers if you don't want the first half hour of game ruined!
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I think it was about 2 minutes in when I saw a marine preforming CPR chest pumps on another marine's FACE that I let out an audible "uh-oh".

Then you try to rescue a marine that has been cocooned, by DRAGGING A BLOW TORCH ALL OVER HIS ARMS AND LEGS. Ouch.

As you do so the 1st alien u can fight jumps on you. The marine is screaming at u to shoot it, and you grab your gun, veeeeery sloooowly like you don't have a care in the world, and can not in fact shoot because by then the alien is in ur face. So maybe you start mashing the melee key. Nope, that does nothing. Oh, the screen is prompting me to use the "use" key. Of course. Why would I try to shoot or melee an enemy when I can "use" it. By the time I figure this all out... dead.

The game design only gets worse from there, not to mention all the glitchy glitchiness and terrible AI. (Aliens will just squat there at the end of the hall oblivious to the world)

And when you finally get to jump in a power loader you get to:

A: Fight a massive alien Queen, or some new kind of powerful alien that would be hard to fight with regular weapons.

B. Wade through a room full of hostile xenomorphs squashing them beneath your feet and smashing them into the walls with your powerful arms giving the player a fun sense of power, if even for a short time, after a lot of conventional fighting.

c. Open a door.

Yes the answer is C. And on my computer, the left button activates the right arm, and vice-versa.

I quit out of the game at that point, not sure if I wanna go back...

Toto

Offline BFM_Octane

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Re: Aliens: Colonial Marines
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2013, 05:10:45 PM »
I was severely disappointed. I really wanted it to be good too. See my previous thread on ACM.


What about the 2nd visit through the "umbilical cord". Why for the love of Pete does that guy release a grenade when he falls to his knees and the chest burster hatches from his chest? Did he think to just kill all the other marines too because he was going to die?

Or when whats her name pops the questions at the beginning, about how the Sulaco got back over planet LV426... Its like they stuck that in there simply because all the fans were curious and debating about it prior to the game's release?! I cringed! What's more is you get to the end of the game and you still never find out anyway!!!

The boss fight with the loader against the big alien was atrocious, as was every single boss fight thinking about it.

ALIENS DID NOT VAPORISE INTO MATRIX STYLE PARTICLES IN THE MOVIES WHEN THEY DIED!!! I didn't like it in DOOM3, I didn't like it in Quake 4, I don't like it now!

Sure, homage to the original ALIENS movie is good, but lets be realistic about it! After the final fight in the movie, Bishops bottom half would not still be on the ground (as you find in the game), it would have got sucked out of the cargo bay doors into space along with the Loader, the huge queen alien and the hefty metal boxes flying past Lt Ripleys head as shes about to close the doors. Things like this began to mount up the "oh no"s.

The game is just full of stupid.

Hicks is alive?  No... He died, we saw his mangled carcass in the status pod at the beginning of ALIEN 3.

The ending?...

And this was supposed to be the official seal of approval from Fox, sequel to the movie?


The only bit i truly enjoyed, was the mission where you have no weapon, and you have to navigate through alien husk infested murky sewage areas where aliens went to die off naturally. Not all of them were properly dead.

And, they got the sound and atmosphere almost down to a T. Kudos to the audio team. I remember this especially where in both separate occasions your holding out in the very same area of 'Hadley's Hope' as they did in the movie.

Multiplayer?... Well i just logged out off that as soon as i saw its match-making windows. Im sick of that too... Infact every game like that i don't play online.

Glitches, if it wasn't aliens standing around doing nothing, the game makes it so they jump from behind you, to right infront of your reticle! The game makes it also that if you let your AI team mate fight an alien, it takes considerably longer for the alien to die unless you chip in a few rounds yourself. And vice versa, punch a few rounds into an alien, let your AI team mate do the rest. Save a few rounds... Boring AI.

Where was the suspense and fear from using the motion tracker? There was none. Infact just before aliens popped out, the game gives you a blip to let you know anyway... That was REALLY disappointing.



So yep. Still to this day ALIENS ONLINE (footage) is still my all time favourite aliens game. A game from a small gaming company from Virginia (Mythic Entertainment) got it far further down to a T and that was with doom style 2D graphics back in the 90s! (Game is no longer playable. Twas online based pay to play they shut the servers down because Fox took the rights to the game off them back in 1998... I cried.)



Nice job developers... Nice job Fox... I was just glad I could navigate my way around a keyless keyboard and put the keys back in their correct slots.  :zombie:
« Last Edit: February 22, 2013, 03:11:03 PM by BFM_Octane »



Offline Totoro

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Re: Aliens: Colonial Marines
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2013, 07:16:07 PM »
I'm gonna finish the campaign on easy baby mode just to do it, and I'll read the rest of your post when I do, hehe. I hit spoiler part, so stopped 4 now.  :P

Offline BFM_Tails

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Re: Aliens: Colonial Marines
« Reply #3 on: February 23, 2013, 05:20:41 PM »
Terrible game and a summary of the industry and what call of duty has done to it

Offline Totoro

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Re: Aliens: Colonial Marines
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2013, 06:13:34 PM »
Ugh, finished it...

Terrible lol.

I actually didn't mind the idea of Hicks, but the throwaway line explaining his body found in wreckage was a cop out.

But he was totally unused after u go to all that trouble to get him...

Ending was terrible.

Final fight against queen was laughable.

And that colony seemed to be in pretty good shape for having been through the blast at the end of Aliens...

So sad. :(

Offline BFM_Octane

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Re: Aliens: Colonial Marines
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2013, 07:36:40 PM »
The atmospheric processor must have mostly gone "P00F!" in an upwards direction, mostly.

...Like many reviews say, gotta at least play it in the hardest difficulty mode.

Lets see what future updates bring? Maybe?  :shobon:



Offline Totoro

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Re: Aliens: Colonial Marines
« Reply #6 on: February 28, 2013, 08:54:25 AM »
Bishop (Aliens)
Quote
In nineteen minutes, this area's gonna be a cloud of vapor the size of Nebraska.

I call shenanigans lol!

I tried playing on hard, but found that it didn't really make me any happier.  :P I thought about replay but I think I am gonna move on.

The Zero Punctuation review is out, which I am about to watch for a laugh. Obviously can not link it.  :o

-Toto

Offline BFM_Octane

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Re: Aliens: Colonial Marines
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2013, 02:40:39 PM »
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit"

It did look pretty run down by the end of it. Y'know, big fires n stuff...


Dont click for vid its just a picture.



Offline BFM_Octane

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Re: Aliens: Colonial Marines
« Reply #8 on: March 04, 2013, 01:08:40 AM »
Y'know what I just got thinking...

What they should have done story wise was a prequel, not a sequel. The battle between the colonists and the aliens (not a bad idea! Its all referenced in the movie when Ripley and the USCM first get to Hadley's Hope and explore the labs and corridors, barricades, acid blood damage, bullet holes and blast marks from seismic survey charges). Maybe the aliens came over from the derelict ship and invaded Hadley's Hope, attracted to the heat from the Atmosphere Processor. Or follow up the Director's Cut movie - Hadley's Hope contaminated when Newt and her family came back from their exploration with the 'Face Hugger' attached to her father.

Its even the small things that are infact the significant ones. One of which I remember the first two movies for, was the droning stretched out scenes of the camera panning across equipment, landscapes, that howling wind. Its only a small thing but my goodness, its definitely something needed in these alien games. A signature for the movies' pace.

Like some reviews say, I think the main problem is that in the movies, especially the first one, people have always been the hunted, the prey. Even in ALIENS with the marines they were still the hunted... But then as soon as they take the ALIEN world and put it into a game you suddenly become the hunter. The horror suspense vanishes, all of a sudden your a DOOM guy with 7 weapons and 3 types of grenade, rocket launcher BFG, the lot, unstoppable force kind of thing.

So I say this, do my prequel idea... and play as the character Newt! The young girl in the movie. The only weapon she had was Casey the Doll head... Running away from the aliens, staying under the radar, leaping for cover and finding the nearest air ducts and vent shafts, suspense around every corner, every second of the game. No gun, no motion tracker, no stupid AI team mate... would have made a far better aliens game imo. And the things you could put into THAT storey line. Game could start out like DOOM 3, how everything is fine (well, apart from her dad who would be in critical bay 4 with an alien attached to his face) but then things start to go bad, and then get worse. And then before you know it your but one of a few left alive. And then lights out, theres no one else, your own your own. You've seen the worst, you know they've sent out a distress call. The Marines are on their way. You've just gotta survive.

A bit of (possible) trivia - Apparently, in the movie, when one of the marines lifts up the head of a cocooned colonist who is actually still alive before the alien pops out of his/her chest... apparently, according to a friend who has read the books, that colonist is Newt's brother. I've never managed to get confirmation on that one.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2013, 01:15:49 AM by BFM_Octane »



Offline BFM_Tails

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Re: Aliens: Colonial Marines
« Reply #9 on: March 04, 2013, 03:27:01 AM »
Ive read some articles about A:cm, and, weather or not this is true, which im fairly sure it is, the big problem was that gearbox was given 60 million dollars from sega to make the game. Instead of using this money on aliens, they spent nearly 55 mil. on Borderlands 2. Colonial marines was also delayed time and time again. Wanna know another game that was delayed again and again? Duke nukem forever. And we all know how that turned out. So in the end, they pushed out a rushed product, and to save time and effort into making interesting levels where you fight aliens, you fight people call of duty style, in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. Its bad. I really wanted this game to be good but it isnt. Octane, If you are interested, I highly recommend Natural selection 2, Its only multiplayer, the community may be small, but it is an awesome game, aliens VS marines, everything that colonial marines should have been. And I have been sinking a lot of hous into it

http://www.youtube.com/v/hp-4iaKXP68&rel=0

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