So yesterday my Collector's Edition arrived and after gleefully sorting through the peripheral goodies I quickly installed the game and jumped right into the campaign.
Off the bat I noticed what up until now is my only major gripe with the game: The human characters look fake.
This I mean in pretty much every possible way. Most of the character models look like dolls and move like robots during any sort of non-standard animations (by which i mean anyhting outside of running around, tactical positioning and fighting).
Also the NPC marines you fight with are eerily silent during most fights, as if they're not phased by the monsters they're encountering at all. In the movie you heard them constantly shouting instructions, warnings and whatnot during combat, as it would make sense.
Also I have yet to find any sort of character development in any single character in the story campaign so far.
But that is really all of the negative points I found so far.
The environments are awesome, you revisit several locations from the movie, such as the Sulaco and of course the Hadley's Hope colony. Anyone familiar with the movies will recognize a lot of places from the movie, and find them in the exact state the characters of the movie left them, like for example the Sulaco's hanger with the lifted floor panels and Bishop's severed lower half.
You also occasionally come across personal items from the movie characters every now and then, which I won't spoil now, because it's way too much fun finding them yourself.
The game delivers on the atmosphere of both the movie and other games, like the marine campaigns from the first two AvP games: Dark, scary, claustrophobic and even those who are very familiar with the franchise will find new and scary things that will make them wonder what is going on at times.
Gameplay is mostly solid; the controls are tight and the action close up and deadly although I feel sometimes a little too easy (I play on the second hardest difficulty (there are 4 settings: recruit, marine, hardened and ultimate badass), while most games i play on medium difficulty, I wanted this to be a little scarier).
The team AI is weird though, your squadmates seem to be indestructible, the same way they are in for example Call of Duty or Battlefield single player campaigns, so it's not really a problem when they derp out and run into potential, or even obvious danger like idiots, but it takes away a bit from the immersion; like one time when my buddy just sprinted through a doorway currently occupied by an alien, that I was just about to reward with a load of buckshot. Thankfully, there is also no friendly fire (I would have killed a lot of my guys already if there wasn't, mostly through their fault but sometimes also because i first mistook their silhouette for an alien).
I only played one round of multiplayer so far, team deathmatch that is: It was fun, although the aliens control like trucks, at least compared to my all time favourite AvP2, but they're still better than the alien controls from AvP3. I kind of wish though, the game had first person controls for aliens with the same type of camera as in the AvP games, because i find that makes controls on walls and ceilings much more intuitive, despite the general confusion it causes most players. I just got used to it in the years i perfected my skills in AvP2 (the only game i was ever good at competitive multiplayer in), but that's just personal preference.
All in all I think the game is great despite its hiccups, and I can't wait to jump into some co-op, I just need to get a new microphone for that and some buddies to play with.
If I had to rate it on a scale of 10 i would give it a 7 so far, but that is only based on my first impressions.
Has anyone else played the game yet, what's your opinion?
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Only played it for about an hour...
The good:
- Set design - the set design of Aliens was amazing and it translates well into the game.
- Original voice actors (Michael Biehn, Lance Henrikson)
- good sound effects
- good handling
The bad:
- blant voiceacting
- immortal NPCs...really, in an ALIENS game?
- way to generous in avoiding the canon
- there is an AI?
- basically useless motion detector (aliens seem to teleport right into your immediate vicinity)
I won't comment on graphics and animation, because my system is pretty outdated, but it seems to be average at most.
6 out of 10 - playing won't hurt, it is a decent shooter, just not special in any way but the Alien franchise and for that franchise, I would have expected more.
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Ok, looked at it at a much better computer.
The graphics are mediocre at best, outdated by the first Crysis at worst. The animation looks bad, aliens and squad members walking through each other (and through you) is a common occurence.
The Call of Duty model of gaming doesn't really fit an Aliens game IMO (I am not a CoD hater, I have several CoD games that I enjoyed playing). Looking at Dead Space, L4D, or, for a team based Shooter Ghost Recon would have been a much better choice.
I really wanted to like this Game, but I even have to reduce my score to a 5/10 (barely so, because I like the Alien franchise, aren't too canon oriented, otherwise it would probably be a 4/10). Sad Gamer :-(
Thanks for the thoughts. I knew this game was put up on a pedestalfrom day 1 and it resulted in unrealistic expectations.
Just as horrible as DNF, all you need to know.
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I got it on Steam and started the download as soon as it was unlocked (2am) and went to bed.
When I woke up the reviews were out. They weren't good. EVERYBODY HATES THIS GAME!!!
So I avoided playing it, wondered if Steam had a return policy, then finally made my self boot it up.
It wasn't near as bad as the reviews had made it out to be. I was expecting unplayable garbage that dated back to the PSOne, instead I got a game what was "just" good.
I'm playing the campaign co-op with two of my buddies and it really raises the fun bar for me. Our biggest complaint? The AI. As in "what AI?"
I can forgive the occasional NPC that just stands there and watches a bad guy make a run for me. I've been dealing with that since the first Call of Duty came out (and watched it get worse with each CoD - but that's another rant for another day), so I let it pass. No...what bothers us is your NPC teammates will run through an area triggering events that would have been a big tension payoff if one of us had done it; or they will open a locked door and run off to a predetermined location starting a fire-fight while the three of us are trying to explore and immerse ourselves in the setting.
Honestly, if the NPC's would have not been added at all (making the entire game a One-Man-Army game which I hate), or, better scenario, programmed to follow my lead and only act once I triggered an event, the game would be much more enjoyable.
I know Gearbox can do it, I've seen some damn fine AI in the Brothers In Arms series, so I don't know why they have such issues here.
The multiplayer kind of let me down too. I like that you can customize your marine and can unlock different traits and such. We tried the Survivor and Escape modes, since Deathmatch is pretty self explanatory.
We had heard that Escape was like Left 4 Dead...and it kinda was. The Marines run from point A to B doing objectives to get to the end and escape. Wow - that sounds awesome. Only...it's not. Because there's only you four Marines (that's fine) and only four Aliens (that's not fine). This mode would be 100% better if there were mindless hordes of Aliens with the Alien players mixed in. I can tell they wanted a L4D feel to it, but didn't get the point that makes that game so awesome. It's not the face that there are human players as special infected, it's that there is a human intelligence mixed in the the infected horde that can exploit the Survivors, or set up traps and trip up the Survivors and can sit back and watch the horde do it's thing. Here the maps feel empty as they are rather large (though not exceptionally long - but that may be because they are so empty), so spotting an Alien player coming at you is extremely easy. And given the fact there is only one Alien type that can attack at range the Marines have a huge advantage. Add in easy to acquire Smart-guns and turrets it's amazingly easy for the Marines to win.
Survivor suffers from the same issue - large map, no targets. And it's a shame because it's a neat idea. The Marines have about 30 seconds to dig in, the the horde is...oh wait, sorry...the four Aliens are unleashed.
And that pretty much sums up the game for me. There's a lot of potential here, but it seems the Devs (and there seems to be some finger pointing at Gearbox and another studio they used to co-develop, Timegate) just kind of said "eh, that's good enough". If they'd just put in that extra umph (and for a game that's been in development since 2006, you'd think there had been enough time) the game would have came out much, much better.
As it is, I give it a 6/10. Playing co-op with my buddies gives it a 8/10. Multiplayer gets a 3/10.
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It's playable, and the stuff you'd expect to see and hear in an aliens game is there.
'nuff said.
Just finished the campaign and I have to adjust my score downwards. The game feels more like Call of Duty guest starring aliens, than an actual aliens game. You are fighting other humans way too often, and the alien scaryness wears off quickly ony you notice how stupidly they just charge at you. The only regular sized alien that actually manages to do anything effective is the lurker, and even that works only sometimes.
I suppose my previous post was a little biased because i made it just after finishing the sewer level, which was genuinely scary, but afterwards, the game just completely fails to deliver the same amount of scaryness, i was at the zenith of it at that point.
The crappy AI only got worse from that point, to the point where i actually saw my teammates get teleported to my position because they were too dumb to keep up. (they even have a visual effect for that!)
Enemies running through your teammates completely ignoring them and vice versa.
And the story is a complete disappointment.
I have yet to try the other multiplayer modes beside deathmatch. I hope they will salvage the game.
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People have pointed out various Graphical glitches
That. Is. Hilarious.
I'm honestly wondering if I'm playing the same game as everyone else.
I've got the PS3 version, and I think it's great. Yeah, the graphics aren't awesome, but they're good enough. And graphics are far less important than gameplay.
Anyway, the sound makes up for any lack of graphical wow-factor: Henriksen, Biehn and Paxton in the voice cast, and those pulse rifles sound just right.
The solo mission has two radically different styles of combat; fighting aliens is very different to fighting W-Y mercs.
Aliens I find very tough to fight - I'm a sniper by preference, and the aliens get up close and personal all too fast. Individual aliens are not as tough as the movie, but they can be difficult if there's three or more, especially if they're being sneaky.
Health pick-ups are few and far between, and wide save points make some sections extremely challenging. There's enough wobble in the weapons to make aiming tricky.
I find it has a distinctly old-school flavour, and I like that a lot. It doesn't lead you by the hand. Keep playing, and the game will suck you in.
I haven't got the hang of multiplayer tactics yet - done persistently poorly as both a marine and an alien in deathmatches, and haven't ried the other modes - but I've only played a few rounds, so I expect to get better with familiarity. There don't seem to be any server issues, so it's smooth.
I rate it very highly - far better shooter than Black Ops 2 (which had a decent story, but totally unchallenging gameplay).
It's true that there's not much Alien suspense in the story; this is a stand-up shooter, not a bug-hunt. How much suspense can be milked out of a 27-year-old film anyway? But the first time I wandred through the goo, waiting for an alien to leap out, I was definitely nervous.
That being said, I haven't played any of the AvP games (the AvP franchise leaves me cold) so I've nothing to compare with there.
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This is the one that had been contracted out to a game company who were pretty reliable and they in turn found themselves over burdened but had s!!* loads of concept art in place. The Subcontractors tossed out their stuff and produced a piece of crap which the initial game company decided well this is s@#+ - so they had to throw out what the subcontractor had done rush out and get it done themselves to the further detriment of the final game.
What they should have done was create a shooter where you can wander about on the planet...screw the storyline.
How does it compare to AVP ?
You mean the 2010 game? I would say it's a lot more fun in multiplayer, even after playing only one match, and the alien controls are much better. None of that lock-on nonsense and you can actually jump freely again. Marines are also a little more athletic.
I just miss the first person view for aliens.
Singleplayer is disappointing in both in my opinion.
I'm honestly wondering if I'm playing the same game as everyone else.
I've got the PS3 version, and I think it's great. Yeah, the graphics aren't awesome, but they're good enough. And graphics are far less important than gameplay.
Anyway, the sound makes up for any lack of graphical wow-factor: Henriksen, Biehn and Paxton in the voice cast, and those pulse rifles sound just right.
The solo mission has two radically different styles of combat; fighting aliens is very different to fighting W-Y mercs.
Aliens I find very tough to fight - I'm a sniper by preference, and the aliens get up close and personal all too fast. Individual aliens are not as tough as the movie, but they can be difficult if there's three or more, especially if they're being sneaky.
Health pick-ups are few and far between, and wide save points make some sections extremely challenging. There's enough wobble in the weapons to make aiming tricky.
I find it has a distinctly old-school flavour, and I like that a lot. It doesn't lead you by the hand. Keep playing, and the game will suck you in.
I haven't got the hang of multiplayer tactics yet - done persistently poorly as both a marine and an alien in deathmatches, and haven't ried the other modes - but I've only played a few rounds, so I expect to get better with familiarity. There don't seem to be any server issues, so it's smooth.
I rate it very highly - far better shooter than Black Ops 2 (which had a decent story, but totally unchallenging gameplay).
It's true that there's not much Alien suspense in the story; this is a stand-up shooter, not a bug-hunt. How much suspense can be milked out of a 27-year-old film anyway? But the first time I wandred through the goo, waiting for an alien to leap out, I was definitely nervous.
That being said, I haven't played any of the AvP games (the AvP franchise leaves me cold) so I've nothing to compare with there.
I disagree with you on AVP, but I agree on everything else you said.
I think there's a "problem" with video games of late in that they've become movies- specifically summer blockbusters. Who cares about the storyline? We need big explosions(I heart Michael Bay, even though he is a Michael), perfect graphics, shower scenes(I also heart cheesecake), snappy one liners, and references to earlier movies(games) as well as pop culture. It's great if you're going to pay 15 bucks and sit in a theatre for two hours, less so if you're paying 60 bucks and are sitting in your living room for close to ten.
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I think there's a "problem" with video games of late in that they've become movies- specifically summer blockbusters. Who cares about the storyline? We need big explosions(I heart Michael Bay, even though he is a Michael), perfect graphics, shower scenes(I also heart cheesecake), snappy one liners, and references to earlier movies(games) as well as pop culture. It's great if you're going to pay 15 bucks and sit in a theatre for two hours, less so if you're paying 60 bucks and are sitting in your living room for close to ten.
Only that my dissappointment in the game (and most of the negative reviews I have read since my second tryout) have nothing to do with the game not beeing flashy enough or it being not 'like a movie'. The story is not only lacking, it is dumb at times, and I really have not felt any old school flavor (Half life, Far Cry, AvP, Chrome, F.E.A.R., Red Faction would be reference 'old school' shooters)at all - the fact that the game essentially plays like a 'modern' corridor-level shooter is in fact one of the things I found disappointing. I didn't find the part I played challenging at all - I didn't try to play sniper style, though.
I agree with feytharn. It's easy even on hardened mode, save for a few (and far in between) moments. I would replay it on Ultimate Badass, but i don't want to bother sitting through the story again.
The game played very much like most modern day shooters, the only thing really setting it apart from Battlefield and Call of Duty during the parts where you fought WY-Mercs was the 3-section healthbar and armor.
You just ran around with your two dumb, immortal buddies and choose to shoot or wait for them to slowly and painstakingly shoot everything. Or you just rush past all enemies. Even the objectives a lot of times felt like your average COD mission. "Go shoot the big gun down while we cover you (and by cover you we mean stand around like idiots shooting whatever we see, but not actually keeping anyone off of you)", "cover me while i do this thing that takes an arbitrary amount of time to complete".
Also, did I miss something, or do you just not get any weapons aside from your Pulse rifle, shot gun, pistol and grenades except for the occasional limited use heavy weapon?
I was wondering all the time, if i ever got to pick up something like an SMG, combat rifle or one of the Assault rifles that the mercs and the other marines use?
Aliens is based off of aliens- not 3,not resurrection. It is essentially corridor shooter the movie, complete with boss fight at the end.
I am interested in people making dc for the game.
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Aliens is based off of aliens- not 3,not resurrection. It is essentially corridor shooter the movie, complete with boss fight at the end.
And that, IMO, 'is great if you're going to pay 15 bucks and sit in a theatre for two hours, less so if you're paying 60 bucks and are sitting in your living room for close to ten.'. Although that alone would have me dissappointed in the game - but it aggravates its other flaws.
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Also, did I miss something, or do you just not get any weapons aside from your Pulse rifle, shot gun, pistol and grenades except for the occasional limited use heavy weapon?
I was wondering all the time, if i ever got to pick up something like an SMG, combat rifle or one of the Assault rifles that the mercs and the other marines use?
Yes you do. As you gain ranks you unlock more weapons. You get an Assault Rifle, Battle Rifle, Sub Machine Gun, Tactical Shotgun, and a Combat Pistol. The game just never tells you there's a menu to switch loadouts. I found it completely by accident.
But honestly, I found the Pulse Rifle to be the best medium to close range weapon. The Battle Rifle makes an OK sniper rifle since it's the only weapon that's accurate at long range. But it still sucks until you can upgrade it's damage, and even still it takes a lot of shots to put anything down.
TERRIBLE. Played it on the hardest setting, finished it in a couple of nights - spent a coupla hours on multiplayer (which is a tiny bit better than the awful single player - watch Angry Joe's review, he summed it up best for me), then traded it back at the store today.
Really awful. Graphics that look 3 - 5 years out of date, woeful AI, crappy story, utterly uninteresting characters, and I only got to use the smart gun in single player for about 5 minutes!! Unforgivable.
And the story is a complete disappointment.
You know, when that guy pulls a grenade at the worst possible time, it had me thinking: "Wow this is running like some very poor fan-fic, than cannon material." Also when I heard you actually have to use the loader to fight aliens in the game...? Not sure if that is true, but that would be like fighting a velociraptor with a cat bull-dosser. While it was fine in a pinch in Aliens, it is not something you expected to actually happen with trained marines. Now we will see how they handle this if it even actually happens, but in the short time I have played it seems like the game is just filled with point after point of fan-boy/girl plugs.
*Wishing I didn't go out of my wait to get the special edition for X-box, but perhaps that statue is the only redeeming factor.
I'm seriously wondering what people wanted to see here. The entire game is *based* off of the movie. There's a rather passive agressive contingent to the people who got this game who just wanted a AVP remake.
I'm seriously wondering what people wanted to see here. The entire game is *based* off of the movie. There's a rather passive agressive contingent to the people who got this game who just wanted a AVP remake.
Look at the name, "Aliens" we end up fighting almost as much humans as aliens in this game... Plus its nothing like the earlier trailers. The graphics are very dated too. And then there is the writing...
P.S. Don't forget about the A.I.s worst in 5 years if you ask me.
This game is a crime against the franchise.
I'm a sucker for nostalgia. I'm extremely forgiving of bad games, if I can find one crumb of fun in there. Aliens: Colonial Marines is so bad, even I couldn't settle with it. And I've been an Aliens fanatic since seeing the movie in the theater when I was 6 years old. I've literally been waiting 27 years for this game(not one sharing the spotlight with Predators).
Unrealistic expectations aside, it's just a really horrible game. Textures look like a bad Doom mod, almost no physics(aliens just drop flat to the ground when they die, no objects that move around, etc).
For the first time I've ever witnessed, the absolutely horrid reviews on game sites are not exaggerations. It's that damn bad.
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I'm seriously wondering what people wanted to see here. The entire game is *based* off of the movie. There's a rather passive agressive contingent to the people who got this game who just wanted a AVP remake.
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If you try to get that 'people are just dissing this game because of their unrealisticly high expectations' notion out of your head for a moment:
The game is bad - expectations or none. I way more fun watching Aliens ressurection and playing Duke Nukem forever (no, not at the same time - that might have damaged my sanity beyond recognition), both I had high expectations for, both I think approached the 'mediocre' line from the wrong side. If you like the game for what it is, good for you, but stop pointing at those who didn't for their view of things.
I did put my thought about the good and the bad of the game out. Why don't you do the same, perhaps I will find some redeeming feature there that I missed in the game, causing me to take a second look.
Unfortunately, my copy had yet to arrive from gamefly. I've been attempting to red box, but its always sold out.
And the story is a complete disappointment.
You know, when that guy pulls a grenade at the worst possible time, it had me thinking: "Wow this is running like some very poor fan-fic, than cannon material." Also when I heard you actually have to use the loader to fight aliens in the game...? Not sure if that is true, but that would be like fighting a velociraptor with a cat bull-dosser. While it was fine in a pinch in Aliens, it is not something you expected to actually happen with trained marines. Now we will see how they handle this if it even actually happens, but in the short time I have played it seems like the game is just filled with point after point of fan-boy/girl plugs.
You use the power loader twice once to pry open a door and once for a boss fight. You are not really supposed to fight any regular aliens with it. Although i think it would have been cool to actually get to use one like in that scene from that E3 video from two years ago, that was not in the game. The boss fight is just boring and confusing.
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You use the power loader twice once to pry open a door and once for a boss fight. You are not really supposed to fight any regular aliens with it. Although i think it would have been cool to actually get to use one like in that scene from that E3 video from two years ago, that was not in the game. The boss fight is just boring and confusing.
And the story is a complete disappointment.
You know, when that guy pulls a grenade at the worst possible time, it had me thinking: "Wow this is running like some very poor fan-fic, than cannon material." Also when I heard you actually have to use the loader to fight aliens in the game...? Not sure if that is true, but that would be like fighting a velociraptor with a cat bull-dosser. While it was fine in a pinch in Aliens, it is not something you expected to actually happen with trained marines. Now we will see how they handle this if it even actually happens, but in the short time I have played it seems like the game is just filled with point after point of fan-boy/girl plugs.
I am past first impressions now.
Just finished it, literally watching the credits now as I type this. I have to say I wish the game was a free add-on from the original, same way I felt about ODST. The writing improved slightly, as I think in the start they were trying to get as many fan-boy points as possible to start things off with a bang (Didn't work). The power loader use was meh. What made matters worse was when the boss died in the loader fight, he completely disappeared into some trash, which was horrifically bad considering the size of the thing.
The game would have been good 4-5 years ago, this was just bad. I could over look everything if the game at least ran and look good.
I have been following the game for a while and all I have to say is three things; "What the hell happened?!?!", "OMG BAIT AND SWITCH, SUE!!!!!", and "I am angry"
I got the x-box version, and from what ALL the player reviews on youtube are saying is that my version is the worse of them all. I am thinking about RUNNING to the Game Stop and trading this game in while it is still worth something and save the credit for the special editions of Starcraft II: heart of the swarm, FFXIV, and Elderscrolls Online.
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Mine just arrived in the mail today. I was exceptionally disappointed at the size--in fact, the box from Amazon was so light I was surprised when I opened it.
The power loader model looks like an AMC model from the 80s. The paint job on the loader is OK, but the marine and alien are awful. The marine has stretch Armstrong legs, too. The model itself can be salvaged, and I plan to repaint it this afternoon. I'd say it's worth around $15.
The dossier packet is cool, and I actually like it more than the model. Worth around $5.
I suppose the add-on codes are worth around $10 together, though they're ultra lame, and I'd never waste marketplace points on them.
I haven't opened the game yet. I'm tempted to wait a month or so and hope a good, strong update is released for Xbox--the videos I've seen on YouTube have me pretty cheesed to say the least: I played the demo way back, and it looks like all the awesome atmosphere is simply gone. I wonder if some play with the monitor and game settings can mitigate some of the suck, but I doubt it.
I paid $75 for the collectors edition. I guess I got that in product. :-(
Game over, man! Game over!
WOW. That looks worlds better.
Why has my woorkda only just started? Now I'm itching to get home and try those out.
Game over, man! Game over!
That's Hudson's quote, not Burke's.