Aliens: Colonial
Marines - 2013 [Publisher: Sega, Developer: Gearbox Software]
Me: So how many games
is this for you Gearbox?
Gearbox: 38 ...
Simulated.
Me: How many good games?
Gearbox: 2 ... not
including this one.
Me: Shit ... Game
over man! Game Over!
Aliens: Colonial
Marines is a first-person shooter game that puts the player in the role of a
Colonial Marine in the universe set in the Alien Franchise. Now as everybody
agrees the sequel to the amazing Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, is probably
one of the greatest films ever made filled with such memorable characters as
Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Newt, Bishop and even Burke. Any game that boasts that
it is the direct sequel to the film we all love has got to be amazing right? I
mean almost every single game has borrowed some elements from Aliens so they
can't really screw this one up? Wrong. Seriously I don't know how more wrong
you could be. This game is just wrong. Wrong.
Aliens: Colonial
Marines is set 17 days after the events of the film ‘Aliens’ and to anyone who
has seen the movie that is an important number of days. It is the number of
days that Corporal Hicks tells Hudson and the remaining survivors of the Sulaco
that that is when they can expect a rescue mission to be mounted as they are
reported MIA. We take control of a character who is part of this rescue mission
which will set down on LV-426 and enter Hadley's Hope to try and save their
marine brothers but as well all know, there isn't going to be anyone to save.
Almost immediately there is major plot hole in this setting that just doesn't
quite fit in with the movie. During the climax of the film, Ripley and the
survivors of the Sulaco are told by Bishop that the atmospheric processor is
going haywire and that it will explode with the force of more nukes that you
could shake a stick at! Hadley's Hope would be wiped out in an instant and
there would be nothing left on LV-426 but a radioactive crater. Kind of doesn't
leave much for these marines to do when they set down but somehow Hadley's Hope
is more or less still standing with only a few parts of the structure
destroyed. Now I'm willing to look past this, I mean how many fans of the
Aliens film haven't wished that they could play a video game where they
advanced through the empty and creepy looking corridors of the complex,
clutching their pulse rifles and freaking out whenever their motion trackers
pick up a reading! What should be one of the scariest and most tense games you
could ever play ends up being a massive disappointment and part of that is because
the story is so lacklustre and uninspiring.
As I have already
stated we are treated to plot hole after plot hole through the entire six hour
campaign, a length which is pretty common for these type of games nowadays,
that only adds to the disappointment surrounding this game. As I have already
said before not only is Hadley’s Hope still around but the Sulaco is above
LV-426 as if nothing happened despite events of Alien 3 saying otherwise. Now say
what you like about that film [I actually like it, once you get over the whole
they killed Hicks and Newt thing of course] it is official canon and you can’t
just ignore what it has done, something which Aliens: Colonial Marines seems to
enjoy doing, made worse by the fact that this game has been announce to be
official canon and an actually sequel to the movie. After seeing the Sulaco I was
left scratching my head asking ‘how the hell is that still here?’ and I was
overjoyed to hear a marine as that exact same question during a briefing. I
stood up and applauded this marine for asking question I want answers to and do
you know the answer we both got? ‘We don’t know why it’s here ... all we care
about is getting out marines out safely” .... Really? That’s the answer we
get?! If you’re going to add something to the story, no matter how contradictory
it is to the background you already have, at least try and explain it instead
of waving us away and expecting us to forget about it. Now I think I know why
the game decided to bring the Sulaco back to LV-426 despite the fact it was
over Fury 161 in the events of Alien 3. The reason they did this was so they
could show you the interior of the ship and show off all the nostalgia that you
remember from the game. As cool as it is to see unseen parts of the ship ... I’d
rather have a coherent and strong story instead of some cool rooms to explore
that tug at my heart and get me feeling all nostalgic.
And nostalgia is
something this game seems to love and to its credit does pretty well. The score
and event cues are spot on and at times really get you into the game, bringing
about feelings of the movie but without any good action, I’ll talk about this
later, it falls flat and seems pointless. There are Easter eggs hidden
throughout the game that are very cool to collect such as Vasquez’s Smart Gun
or Hick’s Shotgun which I found myself desperate to find because they are
really cool reminders of what happened in the film and you can’t just leave
them lying around somewhere in the game. The only problem is that this game is
so focused on reminding us how awesome Aliens is, that it forgets to try and do
the same for itself and really misses a golden opportunity to give as an
amazing game that involves our favorite Xenomorphs which we have been lacking
lately.
Whereas all the
characters in Aliens were likable well maybe not all of them, and seemed like
real people the characters in Colonial Marines are anything but. The character
designs themselves seem lazy with no real effort put into their facial designs
and none of them have a lasting impression on you except for the fact that they
annoy the hell out of your throughout the game thanks to a piss poor AI which
plagues this game like a diseased little rat. O’Neil, our ‘friend’ who tags along
with us for the game, is a prime example of how bad the AI is in this game
which his almost nonexistent reactions to the threats around us. Seeing as he
is armed with the Smart Gun, a gun which we can only use for around 10 minutes
in the whole damn game, you would expect him to be a big help to your survival.
Wrong! I can’t count how many times he stood there like an idiot and left me to
fight the Xenomorphs before running off and leaving me alone when they were all
dead! During the course of the game you get the feeling that he is supposed to
be someone you care about but thanks to being just another generic marine and
the fact he has annoyed you for the entire game, you really don’t get the
feeling that there is a bond between the two of you. The rest of the marines
are just the same and don’t really give you any feeling that your part of a
unit, they’re just dull cliché after dull cliché which leads to the game
bringing back a character from the original film to maybe try and bring you
some more nostalgia so you can forget these two dimensional characters. I won’t
spoil it but if there was one character from the film that you maybe though
could make an appearance, one who we didn't see die perhaps, this is definitely
not the one and the game once again leaves you scratching your head asking more
questions that get half assed answers.
Well we’ve talked
about the Marines and we’ve talked about the story, what else is there to talk
about in an ALIENS game? Oh that’s right the Aliens themselves. And are they
any good? Do they make you quake in your boots and shoot wildly at a pipe that
looks like a Xenomorph? Do they fuck! As I said before with O’Neil the AI is
absolutely awful in this game and the AI for the Aliens is no different. Gone were
my hopes of having to track down an alien using my motion tracker or hiding in
the corner of a room, waiting for an alien to burst through the door only for
them to get me by coming out of the ‘goddamn walls!’ Instead we are treated to
what must have been the slow breed of Aliens who didn’t quite understand the
meaning of stealth. They jump out at you and charge headlong towards you as you
just empty your rounds into them and then wonder why Ripley and the other
marines had such trouble with them in the movie. I never once needed to use my
motion tracker, unless doing it for role-playing purposes to at least make this
feel like an Alien’s game, as the aliens seem to just rush over towards you
from the front, barely using the walls and ceiling to try and outflank you and
cause you some problems. I expected to be scared during this game but found
myself bored as alien after alien jumped out to do a little show for you before
you blasted it away with your pulse rifle. The only part of the game that
caused some tense moments was during a sewer section where you have to sneak around
without a single weapon as blind aliens shuffled around and try to catch you.
It can actually get pretty intense and some points and is the highlight of the
game. You get the feeling that if this kind of atmosphere had been present
throughout the game then there would have been a lot more fun to be had out of
it instead of just your average shooter which funnily enough brings me on to my
next point.
This game should not
be called Aliens: Colonial Marines. It should be called Weyland Yutani: Call of
Duty as for most of the game I found myself fighting the grunts of Weyland
Yutani instead of the Aliens that I wanted and was expecting to face. The game
just descends into your typical shooter game with you just hiding behind cover
as you trade shots with humans who you really couldn’t give a damn about and
just turns the game into another Call of Duty. Now it could have been a cool
angle to have Yutani Corporation involved in the plot, maybe posing as your allies
at first before turning on you to achieve their real goal of making a profit
and running away, laughing like a maniac as they get their very own Xenomorph
to test and use as a weapon. What do they do? Attack you and essentially wage
war on their own country. How did they become a billion dollar corporation
again if this is how they solve their problems?
So in hindsight the
Single Player portion of the game is poor and only becomes mildly entertaining
when your friends join in for some 4 player co-op which tries to let you
recreate the feeling of having your buddies fighting and dying all around you
but the game just becomes too easy. It was already easy enough on your own with
some people reporting that you can simply sprint past all the aliens and never
have to fire a shot! Four players and it becomes painful for the aliens who you
actually start to feel sorry for. One thing that was cool about the single
player however was the weapon customization allowing you to add all sorts of attachments
and emblems to your weapons which made them feel a lot more personal but seeing
a red dot sight on your pulse rifle as a little annoying and just reeked of
Call of Duty.
On to multiplayer and
at times it can actually be quite fun. Now that players can control aliens they
seem a lot more dangerous and as a marine you actually have to use your motion
tracker to find out where they are moving which creates a lot more tension that
the story could ever hope to achieve. The aliens are fun to control but the
whole climbing up walls and onto the ceilings can be a little difficult as you
find yourself stuck in the walls and at the mercy of your marine enemies.
However the multiplayer is lacking in variety and there are only a few maps
with only a few game modes which means you’re probably going to experience
everything multiplayer has everything to offer the first time you sign in to
play. The fact that you can only launch a game with the full amount of players
is something that is really going to hurt the game in the future as less and
less people will be playing it ... that is if they would even want to.
All in all Aliens:
Colonial Marines is a disappointment. You get the feeling that the developers tried,
though we don’t really know who really developed the game seeing as Gearbox and
Timesgate blame one another for this mess of a game we have, to create an
amazing experience to rival the film yet it just falls flat at every turn. The
graphics are poor throughout the game with textures popping in and out at will
giving the game the look of a PS2 title which is very disappointing given the beautiful
games we have on PS3 these days. When compared to the demo that Gearbox
released at E3 we really are left scratching our heads at how a superior
looking and superior feeling game could become this. After six years of going
through development, building up huge expectations which all the talk and
trailers released, we are left with a game that thoroughly disappoints and is
certainly not worth the full asking price. I myself borrowed it from a friend
who was willing to lend me it after only a day. That should have told me there
and then about this game.
Me: Gearbox? How do I
get out of this chicken shit outfit?
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