Aliens: Colonial Marines: is authenticity enough? | EDGE

EDGE: "In a way, it’s an unfair question: the licence dictates everything, including weapon balance, enemy movement speed and level design, and by committing to authenticity Gearbox leaves itself little room for experimentation. But there the question lingers. After such a long spell in development, and such an ardent focus on fan service, is Colonial Marines really a game, or a movie set tour? Burleson replies with a smile: 'It has aliens in it.'"

[Kurt Russell]

Hmmm. Raises doubts on an otherwise exciting looking game.

[hankmoody]

Just thinking the same thing. I think this game is going to release to middling reviews, personally. It's gonna be a good title for nostalgic reasons and adherence to the aesthetics of the original film but I think it's going to fall short where it matters most. At any rate, Dead Space 3 will be around to satiate my need to kill nasty beasties in space.

[Kingdom Come]

When the game was initially announced back in 2008, I was undeniably hyped, it was originally a highly tactical, squad-based FPS (Think Rainbow Six in Space with Alien's Horror Atmosphere), you issued commands to your 3 AI Companions, requesting them the weld doors shut, guard doorways, vents, floor panels etc, also, there was a great co-operative gameplay mechanic where if playing campaign with a friend you each command one of the two remaining AI companions, giving the second player equal experience to the host.

However, due to Gearbox's shifting focus towards the recently acquired Duke Nukem franchise and then with development of the much requested Borderlands sequel, this game became forgotten about, and, it would seem unfortunately, in order to release it prior to the next generations arrival, it's been stripped down to a bland, generic shooter.

[Freddy_Millz1]

True they are getting very tiring with the whole "stick to cannon ordeal". However, the fan in me admits that im going into this game with my eyes closed. The place SHOULD have been blown to shreds, there SHOULDN'T be any survivors from the 1st group and the Suloco WAS over the orbit of FURY, not LV-426.

You know what though...i don't care! I don't care how they explain all this stuff as long as they do in the game as i play. The only two words that matter before I get this in Feb is "Surprise me". There is no doubt raised in my mind or anything thing like that. Make me jump, make me smile make me cringe, make me sigh during game play....

SURPRISE ME... that's what everyone is paying for.

[antz1104]

Well Hadley's Hope isnt the same site as the colony from the movie, and Im sure they were in a lifeboat at the end of Aliens and they abandoned the Sulaco.

[Freddy_Millz1]

Acheron LV-426 is indeed the home planet of Hadley's Hope.

At the end of Aliens, they were aboard the Suloco in cryo sleep supposedly on a return trip back to earth. They were not put into lifeboats until the beginning of that god awful Alien 3, when they were ejected onto Fury.

After inspecting the Suloco, the new CMs go to LV-426 to investigate what happened. Thus the wreckage of the atmospheric procceser and other familiar surroundings in the game.

Game takes place AFTER Alien 3 supposadly so thats why im saying, their explination of their so called Canonically correct story better be damn good.

[Irishguy95]

The gameplay shown so far has been very abysmal looking. It looks great and is authentic sure, but the gunplay and combat look very bad.

Enemy's and Ai are particularly bad.

Good Alien gameplay http://www.youtube.com/watc...
from 2001/

[finbars75]

The weird thing about this is that Gearbox are the ones doing this game so its hard to tell if this is going to be great or a trainwreck the time they took over for devs on Duke Nukem.I know Gearbox has had alot of time with this so Im assuming its going to be a worth the money to buy.Im hoping its going to save this franchise if not then at least we know they tried.

[Revolver_X_]

Dude, AVP's multiplayer was garbage. ACM doesnt look graphically superior, but definitely not Duke Nukem dated. The MP is very Left 4 Deadish, which isnt a bad thing. 4-player coop campaign with exciting multiplayer makes it a MUST buy for me. Seeing the fast pace and quick response when playing as the Aliens is just another step at being superior to ur precious AVP.

It is limited to certain things like weaponry, but isnt that why Aliens fans play Aliens games? Gearbox has already introduced a new Xeno type. I would think Gearbox has more to "suprise" us.

[Freddy_Millz1]

See? Revolver_X_ knows exactly what im talking about!