Gearbox has been handed the keys to the geek treasure trove, in the form of unprecedented access to film assets, art directors and even Ridley Scott. Hell, such was Fox's love of the idea of Gearbox creating an Aliens game that it's even been canonised: yup, Aliens: Colonial Marines is an official sequel to Aliens the film.
That's a lot of pressure for Gearbox, compounded by the game's original reveal way back in 2006. Despite an abundance of promise and potential, it doesn't live up to what an Aliens fan could rightly assume is a quality follow-up to James Cameron's blockbuster.
Granted, we didn't have an opportunity to put competitive multiplayer through the proper motions to mention in this review (or include in the score), but that doesn't make the end result any less disappointing.
You play as Corporal Christopher T. Winter, one of the resident Colonial Marines on the USS Sephora, dispatched to investigate the USS Sulaco, which has mysteriously returned to orbit over godforsaken planet LV-426. One of the first things you'll notice is Aliens: Colonial Marines is another unfortunate example of an afterthought port.
All the love that Gearbox gave PC garners on Borderlands 2 has been left at the door. Visuals are decidedly ugly, despite pitch-perfect art direction; invasive console-friendly prompts are rampant; there's the sporadic occurrence of keyboard-bashing quick-time events. The only saving grace in terms of visual fidelity is the deferred lighting system, which offers a stark contrast to the often bland textures that it illuminates. That being said, even Rebellion's 2010 Aliens vs Predator had DirectX 11 support.
Despite the bland visual fidelity, the audio presentation is top notch. This is a game best played with surround sound—preferably headphones—and Aliens fans will definitely enjoy the use of familiar weapon sounds, audio cues and well-written dialogue buttressed by solid voice acting. In fact, despite a complete cop-out campaign ending and a Prometheus-like approach to questions which only beget more questions, the writing and tone rank among the highlights of the campaign.
Despite the undeniable funnelling approach to level design —even in outdoor areas—Gearbox understands that Aliens isn't synonymous with a corridor shooter; the game exhibits a great balance between action peaks and slow, sometimes-disarmed troughs. The campaign does hold back some of the more frantic firefights until right towards the end, which is a shame as they're by far the most fun. But this ties into the campaign's restrictively scripted nature. Considering it lasts around six hours, it definitely could have done with some bigger action set pieces.
Particularly in the first half of the game, there's some excellent pacing, and a keen familiarity with the source material; specifically, with what really made Aliens work as a film. But within that positive is a veiled con: Gearbox's faithful commitment to the films equates to a lot of sections of poorly lit corridors that feel more filmic than gameplay appropriate.
Friendly Al is terrible—worse than the armed human opponents you sporadically encounter, which are their own brand of bad—and will regularly move in front of where you're firing, just to follow their scripted path. There were multiple times when they walked past enemies, only to wait at the next checkpoint, where we had to arbitrarily push an elevator button, or some similar mundane task.
Then there's the reality that Colonial Marines isn't challenging. We played the vast majority of the campaign in two-player co-op (it supports up to four) on the highest difficulty and, with the exception of a few tense sections, found it to be a cakewalk. The tension was still there at times, thanks, in part, to the eerily effective hearbeatlike beating of the iconic motion tracker, but an overpowered and upgradeable arsenal made short work of even the scariest of threats.
Running out of ammunition is never a concern as enemies tend to drop the type of ammo you've been using. Cooperative supplies are shared and, despite the presence of four active weapon slots, you can access your entire arsenal while on the move, and simply swap out dry guns. Even though stalking xenornorphs will make you jump and even sound out a little girly scream from time to time, they never quite reach the threat level they could have been if you had to conserve shells.
There's a noticeable lack of quality control in the latter half of the campaign, as the first-half sporadic appearance of bugs and oddities become almost as prevalent as the xenos you're blasting your way past. Animations are glitchy, lip syncing is akin to watching a poorly dubbed martial arts film, and even hit registry occasionally misses the mark. Hell, there's also a dodgy checkpoint system that sometimes drags you too far back; other times, it advances you past a fight that you lost.
Despite these flaws, the greatest achievement of Aliens: Colonial Marines is that Gearbox has applied the essential elements of its trademark co-op formula to a campaign, which can still be easily lost in mediocrity if played alone. There's a lot of fun to be had in there, but a lack of spit and polish and a lot of missed potential result in an overall yearning for what could have been.
Gearbox has been handed the keys to the geek treasure trove, in the form of unprecedented access to film assets, art directors and even Ridley Scott. Hell, such was Fox's love of the idea of Gearbox creating an Aliens game that it's even been canonised: yup, Aliens: Colonial Marines is an official sequel to Aliens the film.
That's a lot of pressure for Gearbox, compounded by the game's original reveal way back in 2006. Despite an abundance of promise and potential, it doesn't live up to what an Aliens fan could rightly assume is a quality follow-up to James Cameron's blockbuster.
Granted, we didn't have an opportunity to put competitive multiplayer through the proper motions to mention in this review (or include in the score), but that doesn't make the end result any less disappointing.
You play as Corporal Christopher T. Winter, one of the resident Colonial Marines on the USS Sephora, dispatched to investigate the USS Sulaco, which has mysteriously returned to orbit over godforsaken planet LV-426. One of the first things you'll notice is Aliens: Colonial Marines is another unfortunate example of an afterthought port.
All the love that Gearbox gave PC garners on Borderlands 2 has been left at the door. Visuals are decidedly ugly, despite pitch-perfect art direction; invasive console-friendly prompts are rampant; there's the sporadic occurrence of keyboard-bashing quick-time events. The only saving grace in terms of visual fidelity is the deferred lighting system, which offers a stark contrast to the often bland textures that it illuminates. That being said, even Rebellion's 2010 Aliens vs Predator had DirectX 11 support.
Despite the bland visual fidelity, the audio presentation is top notch. This is a game best played with surround sound—preferably headphones—and Aliens fans will definitely enjoy the use of familiar weapon sounds, audio cues and well-written dialogue buttressed by solid voice acting. In fact, despite a complete cop-out campaign ending and a Prometheus-like approach to questions which only beget more questions, the writing and tone rank among the highlights of the campaign.
Despite the undeniable funnelling approach to level design —even in outdoor areas—Gearbox understands that Aliens isn't synonymous with a corridor shooter; the game exhibits a great balance between action peaks and slow, sometimes-disarmed troughs. The campaign does hold back some of the more frantic firefights until right towards the end, which is a shame as they're by far the most fun. But this ties into the campaign's restrictively scripted nature. Considering it lasts around six hours, it definitely could have done with some bigger action set pieces.
Particularly in the first half of the game, there's some excellent pacing, and a keen familiarity with the source material; specifically, with what really made Aliens work as a film. But within that positive is a veiled con: Gearbox's faithful commitment to the films equates to a lot of sections of poorly lit corridors that feel more filmic than gameplay appropriate.
Friendly Al is terrible—worse than the armed human opponents you sporadically encounter, which are their own brand of bad—and will regularly move in front of where you're firing, just to follow their scripted path. There were multiple times when they walked past enemies, only to wait at the next checkpoint, where we had to arbitrarily push an elevator button, or some similar mundane task.
Then there's the reality that Colonial Marines isn't challenging. We played the vast majority of the campaign in two-player co-op (it supports up to four) on the highest difficulty and, with the exception of a few tense sections, found it to be a cakewalk. The tension was still there at times, thanks, in part, to the eerily effective hearbeatlike beating of the iconic motion tracker, but an overpowered and upgradeable arsenal made short work of even the scariest of threats.
Running out of ammunition is never a concern as enemies tend to drop the type of ammo you've been using. Cooperative supplies are shared and, despite the presence of four active weapon slots, you can access your entire arsenal while on the move, and simply swap out dry guns. Even though stalking xenornorphs will make you jump and even sound out a little girly scream from time to time, they never quite reach the threat level they could have been if you had to conserve shells.
There's a noticeable lack of quality control in the latter half of the campaign, as the first-half sporadic appearance of bugs and oddities become almost as prevalent as the xenos you're blasting your way past. Animations are glitchy, lip syncing is akin to watching a poorly dubbed martial arts film, and even hit registry occasionally misses the mark. Hell, there's also a dodgy checkpoint system that sometimes drags you too far back; other times, it advances you past a fight that you lost.
Despite these flaws, the greatest achievement of Aliens: Colonial Marines is that Gearbox has applied the essential elements of its trademark co-op formula to a campaign, which can still be easily lost in mediocrity if played alone. There's a lot of fun to be had in there, but a lack of spit and polish and a lot of missed potential result in an overall yearning for what could have been.
Recommended links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens:_Colonial_Marines
http://www.sega.com/alienscolonialmarines/
