Aliens: Colonial Marines |OT| Game Over Man, GAME OVER!

I'll pick this up when it's short money. But given the fantastic license (Which is still crying out for a great game) and the level of enthusiasm exuded by Pitchford in his interviews, it's hard not to be terribly disappointed by how this all turned out.

This will definitely be a stain on Gearbox's reputation.
 
AxtJ0fv.jpg
 
Trying to get 50 bucks worth of enjoyment out of this game... It's hard. At least some of the (many) bugs are humorous though:

D132240176CA315CD587CB62FD53E74A6F3DE380
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This is a pic of a bug that happened right after reviving a teammate. His model just stayed in the prone position while he slid all over the map shooting aliens from the ground.
 
The perfect Dark said:
I love Giant Bomb but this game is not broken.
This statement definitely goes too far imo.
Creatively bankrupt? Like COD?
Don't get me wrong. Everyone has an opinion but this...woah
Yeah you don't have to like this game but this is overreacting
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For what it's worth creatively I'll take Black Ops 2 over this. Have you read the whole review (site is wonky right now..) or any of the longer ones for that matter? Because at the end almost everyone is arguing the same points. A lot of aspects in CM are indeed broken, either fundamentally or mechanically and while you can play through it (if not it would be a 0/10 in my book) there's an abundance of bugs where stuff just stops working, some of them needing restarts. See this thread. CM isn't 100% broken but a lot of it kinda is.
 
Welp, that does it. I'll spend my $10 on System Shock 2 when it hits GOG tomorrow, and be ready to be scared properly, and wait until Aliens CM goes under $10 in a few months and see what went wrong.
 
Loxley said:
Shogun 2? Unless you're talking SEGA-developed and not just published.
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yeah im talking about just sega published. im not familiar with shogun so i cant speak on that but overall (excluding their japanese games) sega just release complete shit.

its getting to the point where i will just completely ignore any western game with sega on the box
 
Funniest glitch I had so far was being sent out to find two missing Marines, then when I opened the door they were last seen going into....they were just standing there.
Mission Success in record time!
Must have been ghosts though, coz my partner just ran past them and dived into the sewers.
 
OK, I just got back from playing this with a friend. What a piece of crap.

  • The graphics in general are definitely sub-standard. There are parts where the lighting looks worse than Quake 4/Doom 3 and it definitely lacks the atmosphere of either of those 2 games.
  • Any bit of texture work that could be skimped on was skimped on. Ground textures are ugly as sin, lots of repeating metal textures all over generic scifi-esque hallways.
  • Speaking of Quake 4, the non-facial animations are about the same level as that game. That would be fine if this game had come out in 2005/2006 but not for now.
  • It's buggy as shit. Between the two of us, we had disappearing guns, enemies (human and alien) getting stuck in corners, one or the other of us getting stuck on odd bits of geometry, teleporting enemy mobs, clipping enemy mobs.
  • The
    stealth mission
    wasn't tense so much as it was hilarious. All sense of horror/tension is lost the moment
    any of those blind aliens shambles/shuffles into view. It's hard to be intimidated by an alien that is so unlike anything from the movies. The aliens were scary because they were quick, deadly and had a lethal elegance and grace to them. These things have none of those attributes. The only time they move fast is when they're about to explode (which is also when they light up and start glowing...ugh)
  • Monster closets are the preferred (read: only) way for this game to actually "surprise" you.
  • Every shit thing you've heard about the story is true. It takes the established storyline of Aliens and Alien 3 and pisses all over it for no reason.

The music and gun sound effects are the two saving graces of this big pile of shit. Multiplayer is serviceable but I would say that, at it's best, it's no better than AvP and in many ways it's worse.

I really, really wanted to like this game. Before it was released, this was the game that I was hoping would be entry point to the WiiU but now I'm just angry. There are moments where the horrific AI, terribad animation and sub-par textures will stop fighting the great soundtrack/sound effects and, for a brief moment, you'll catch a glimpse of the game you want it to be. You'll be shooting Aliens with a goddamned Pulse Rifle and it'll feel OK.

Don't be fooled-the game is 95% shit and the decent 5% does not elevate it to anything approaching mediocrity.



***VERY MILD SPOILERS***



A few other things:
  • There is a moment where your character is gun-less and crawling through some sub-surface ventilation shafts. 2 or 3 times an alien will burst through some grating to "surprise" you. On the last of these times, the alien bursts through grate, roars and waves it's arms around a bit. Then it pops back out...and politely replaces the grate cover back on top. My friend and I were in tears for a few minutes after that.
  • There are quite a few times when dialogue is delivered with the character models standing as still as statues. The lines are coming from them but only their lips are moving-and just barely at that. It really feels lifeless.
  • The characterization of the females in this game is really awful. Their either damsels-in-distress or overly sensitive creatures, ruled by their emotions. What they most definitely are not is highly trained military soldiers.

I'm a huge fan of the first 3 films (yeah, I said 3-come at me!) but this is a steaming pile of crap. My roommate and I are watching Aliens again to wash the taste of this out of our mouths. I feel bad that my friend spent money on this piece of shit. I feel bad that I ever wanted this game and thought it was going to be awesome.
 
Keikaku said:
There is a moment where your character is gun-less and crawling through some sub-surface ventilation shafts. 2 or 3 times an alien will burst through some grating to "surprise" you. On the last of these times, the alien bursts through grate, roars and waves it's arms around a bit. Then it pops back out...and politely replaces the grate cover back on top. My friend and I were in tears for a few minutes after that.
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My friend and I were laughing at this too. Every time he popped in, the game would turn off my flashlight. I assumed he just didn't like bright lights, and was reaching to turn mine off.
 
The flashlight is hilarious. It doesn't have a battery, so it's always on....but the game switches it off for you when it has a "surprise".
So dumb.
 
Keikaku said:
I really, really wanted to like this game. Before it was released, this was the game that I was hoping would be entry point to the WiiU but now I'm just angry. There are moments where the horrific AI, terribad animation and sub-par textures will stop fighting the great soundtrack/sound effects and, for a brief moment, you'll catch a glimpse of the game you want it to be. You'll be shooting Aliens with a goddamned Pulse Rifle and it'll feel OK.
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Agreed. There are some cool moments, particularly with the motion tracker/pulse rifle/smart gun/flamethrower. Sometimes it really feels like Aliens.
 
Did anyone notice Hick's character model looks like it is from a different game? It stands out in cutscenes where they are showing everyone's faces, the other marines have an extra layer of detail.
 
i just watched the demo that Kim Sterling walked us through. I have to say, that game looked quite good. He pointed out the part where a xenolorph squeezed through a crate to get past the turrets. Thats pretty good a.i. right there. was the engine completely different if the a.i. is not the final product?
 
bangai-o said:
i just watched the demo that Kim Sterling walked us through. I have to say, that game looked quite good. He pointed out the part where a xenolorph squeezed through a crate to get past the turrets. Thats pretty good a.i. right there. was the engine completely different if the a.i. is not the final product?
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Aliens: CM quality control spilling out everywhere
 
d0c_zaius said:
Aliens: CM quality control spilling out everywhere
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hey! i just got off work. im tired.

anyway. that demo looked hectic with the xenomorph just swarming every room, along with the power loader sequence at the end. the fact that the crusher alien and the queen are completely different in the final product is ridiculous.
 
I'd hardly call a xenomorph squeezing through a small space AI. I'm almost 100% positive that was scripted specifically for the demo along other instances of "smart AI". But it was still really impressive conceptually nonetheless.
 
The AI doesn't even look to be dynamic in any way.. once a xeno is triggered, it has a fixed path to get to you, without deviation. There was one part early on where I was in a room on the Sulaco, and a xeno was coming down the hall outside. I could see it clearly through the glass, and even took a few shots at it (I was frankly surprised that it actually shattered the glass). But did the xeno take the newly-made opportunity to take the shortest route? Nope. Huge open window right in front of it, and it keeps going down the hall until it comes to the door.

Honestly, though, I am enjoying the game. I'm more perceptive of the flaws that have been pointed out than I would have been otherwise, but it is what it is, I suppose. Definitely not the game that they promised us, though, and not the game that they could have made with the proper effort.

PC version, by the way.. Digital Foundry did a face-off, and I was actually surprised to see how much better the textures were on the PC version. Not to say that I thought the textures are anything to write home about, but I didn't realize just how piss-poor the textures were on the consoles, especially the X360. That's just horrid.
 
Moze said:
yeah im talking about just sega published. im not familiar with shogun so i cant speak on that but overall (excluding their japanese games) sega just release complete shit.

its getting to the point where i will just completely ignore any western game with sega on the box
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The Total War series is among the best strategy franchises in gaming. Football Manager is also supposedly pretty great. They also have Company of Heroes now. At least on PC their western branch is pretty great.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAxAECFuG4&list=UUsgv2QHkT2ljEixyulzOnUQ&index=3

this angry joe top 10 things about aliens that will make it badass video says it all. 15:15 for the bs Randal Pitchfork press release thing

"you know I've made a lot of video games, and I've made a lot of action games. and I've made a lot of games that involve shooting and games that involve soldiers, and uhh I mean games that you know were savin' the world from aliens too frankly and ehh... when you can SURVIVE an encounter, beat them...man... that's when you feel like a badass."

o_0
 
RobbieNick said:
Is the screen tearing exclusive to the 360 version? Cux I'm not noticing much of that on PS3.
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They left the frame rate unlocked with no type of v-sync while the PS3 version has a soft cap of 30 so it tears like crazy on the 360. I'm pretty easy with tearing but at the degree it was showing in the videos too the point of prerendered video would tear Ill go bonkers.
 
The pulse rifle is actually pretty bad in this game, despite what I've seen some people say. They just loop clips of burst fire when you pull the trigger. If you hold the trigger and unload a full magazine, it sounds more like multiple bursts. It creates a disconnect and makes the gun feel terrible. I'm using the silencer just because it makes the sounds coincide with the bullets more accurately.
 
HomerSimpson-Man said:
They left the frame rate unlocked with no type of v-sync while the PS3 version has a soft cap of 30 so it tears like crazy on the 360. I'm pretty easy with tearing but at the degree it was showing in the videos too the point of prerendered video would tear Ill go bonkers.
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DNF had tearing on 360 but not on PS3 IIRC.

Coincidence?
 
FaintDeftone said:
Wow I'm shocked at some of the love GAF is giving this game. I played an hour and a half of it and I was ready to throw in the towel. Some of the worst animations I've seen in recent memory, awful clipping and screen tearing, horrible AI, bland human encounters, not a drip of tension or atmosphere, poop hit detection, and textures that look like assets from a launch PS2 game.

I have to admit though, the team deathmatch is kinda fun though...
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I think anyone that claims to be enjoying this game is probably delusional and is simply trying to justify the fact that they actually spent money on this. Either that, or they've never played a good game in their life and need to be shown the light.
 
1stStrike said:
I think anyone that claims to be enjoying this game is probably delusional and is simply trying to justify the fact that they actually spent money on this. Either that, or they've never played a good game in their life and need to be shown the light.
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Some people like bad things. See people trying to peddle Prometheus as a good movie.
 
FaintDeftone said:
Wow I'm shocked at some of the love GAF is giving this game. I played an hour and a half of it and I was ready to throw in the towel. Some of the worst animations I've seen in recent memory, awful clipping and screen tearing, horrible AI, bland human encounters, not a drip of tension or atmosphere, poop hit detection, and textures that look like assets from a launch PS2 game.

I have to admit though, the team deathmatch is kinda fun though...
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how bad is the human ai compared the xenomorph a.i.?
 
bangai-o said:
how bad is the human ai compared the xenomorph a.i.?
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Umm...

They're both shitty.

Watch This

Couple clips in there that show how "awesome" the AI is.

The AI is constantly getting stuck, glitching out into weird poses, bumping into things and shooting at nothing. The alien AI just kind of... wanders around pre-defined routes and if you do anything out of the ordinary, like the one gif where the guy just moved back slightly in the vent, they drop aggro and lose track of you. It's garbage.
 
bangai-o said:
how bad is the human ai compared the xenomorph a.i.?
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In my experience the humans don't do anything unless they have direct line of sight of you. You can play peek a boo with them if you can get one behind a door. They also sit in cover way too much and grenade spamming is much worse than any COD, even W@W.
Aliens just run right for you the moment they appear, glitches make this more awful coz most of the time ignoring any AI teammates you have or they sometimes go right though walls, doors and other scenery.
 
I just want to know what the hell happened between the demo and the final release. The demo doesn't look staged to me, it looks like actual gameplay. Did they put the console version on steam by mistake? Why did they need to 'dumb' everything down?

I'm pissed at how this came out. Not so much because of empty promises, but rather its just another bad Aliens game.
 
SirButterstick said:
The demo doesn't look staged to me, it looks like actual gameplay.
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I might be wrong, and please do correct me if I am, but I believe the demo is a part of the game that Gearbox hade built with their own assets. Gearbox then gave TimeGate those assets, but TG decided to scrap those and build it their own way.

So in retrospect, A:CM most likely would have looked like it does in the demo if Gearbox had done it themselves and actually cared for the game. This is their fault, and I'll distrust them until they prove otherwise. I certainly will not believe in anything Pitchford says hereafter.
 
SirButterstick said:
I just want to know what the hell happened between the demo and the final release. The demo doesn't look staged to me, it looks like actual gameplay. Did they put the console version on steam by mistake? Why did they need to 'dumb' everything down?

I'm pissed at how this came out. Not so much because of empty promises, but rather its just another bad Aliens game.
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Normally it's called FAKE GAME FOOTAGE or TARGET RENDER if you will. You showcase what the game WILL look like, play like and feel like. It can be 100% CG sometimes, it can use tech that will be used for the game (lighting system, mesh, shaders, etc) and other times it can be half and half but it's always scripted and normally you make sure that you don't shoot too high.

In the past years, some companies have shown Fake Game Footage publicly (normally it's kept in-house for various reasons and one of them is to not alienate the audience with some promises that can't be delivered). The first gameplay demo for Bioshock Infinite really felt like a Fake Game Footage reel and when I saw that ALIENS demo, it looked scripted up the butt and smelled like pure Target Render.

I know that some Target Renders have found their way unto the web; Assassin's Creed for example showcases the main navigation gameplay and some fight sequence. Plus visually, it must've looked awesome back then and the fact that the final game looked better shows that FGF/Target Render can be a great way to easily show your idea to the world.

But based on what I read about ALIENS, they put their goals way too high. Maybe to hide the fact they were scared SEGA would pull a move and was getting impatient while waiting for actual proof that they weren't putting money in a sinkhole.

What a mess.
 
God, please someone stop me. I fear I may go pick this up today to see what its like firsthand.

As a diehard fan, the urge is so fucking strong, even after everything that's been said and done.
 
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