What i think of Aliens: Colonial Marines
When i first heard about this game i was excited, then i lost a lot of excitement when i heard SEGA was involved, then i was comforted by the fact that Gearbox, who brought one of the best co-op games of the last 5 years into existence, was making this game. With this kind of up-and-down excitement, this game is a let down on many levels. I feel i need to write something about this being that i've anticipated it for so long.
Is it worth buying? Not at all, at least not at full price. Limited Edition players shouldn't feel too bad though, i know i don't because it came with a kickass powerloader-fighting-alien statue! Any fan of the series should appreciate that and all the other little goodies the LE came with.
I feel a lot of the reviews out on this are being more brutal than they should be. Its worth a rent at least, its always fun shooting up aliens and the multiplayer isn't that bad.
My overall score? 6/10. 8/10 if you play it cooperatively, which you should.
Graphics - Subpar at best. A lot of the surface textures look unfinished, everything feels kinda bland, peoples faces before and after dieing never change and don't look too good either. Cut scenes are not all that great either. I was skeptical of this because there wasn't a lot of footage of actually gameplay released before the game came out.
Sound- Gearbox has nailed it with the sounds of the Pulse Rifle and the Motion Tracker, as a fan of the series i never tire of this aspect, though you wont be using your motion tracker as much as you think after a while. Outside of that, there is nothing too great. The music is always an upbeat marching-band style music which is ok, doesn't really excite you too much. There is no onimous music (which there should be) to really grab your attention, especially right before encountering aliens or seeing a massive ship blow up in your face. The sounds of aliens getting killed are ok but can get annoying after a while. I was kind of excited to hear the score to this because the music score in Borderlands is spot on with every situation in that game. As with the voice acting? Nothing great, and could have been done better.
Control- Easy controls generic FPS button layout not hard to get used to but the overall movement feels clunky and slow and you get easily hung up on a lot of the enviornment. Not being able to go between two boxes because a wire is hanging down? Your team mates get hung up easily too which can slow down missions because you have to wait on them to move forward. Aliens get stuck too.
Campaign - The campaign is WAY TOO SHORT. There are some good segments but nothing to write home about. I'm talking rediciulously short. Its only extended longer if you play on the hardest difficulty setting with a partner, which is why i recommneded doing this at the beginning. The events are held between Aliens and Aliens 3 and you assume the role of Winter. The dialogue and story is uninteresting at best. As for the coop partner? You are just there as a squadmate, the campaign dialogue and set-up is broken because your partner doesn't assume the role of the other players, your just there.
Enemy AI - Laughable, just laughable, even at hardest setting you can run up on these fools (by fools i mean the humans you spend half the campaign killing outside of aliens for some reason). Aliens do attack you but it all just seems so lazy and easy to fight off. The game is just made harder by having you take en extremely larger amount of damage when you get smacked or shot.
The patterns for the AI are always the same, it never really mixes up when you die and restart and your always able to just sit behind a box right in front of a baddy without him doing anything.
Multiplayer- The multiplayer consists of TDM, Extermination, Escape and Survivor. My favorite is Escape because it is set up exactly like Left For Dead. You are either the marines trying to get away, or the aliens trying to kill them. Its fun...for a while. There is a ranking system and new guns become available, you can also create your own loadouts for each mode, alien or human.
Overall - If your're an aliens fan i suggest playing this, if you like FPS's then rent it up, play it at least once through the campaign (it will really only take you between 5-6 hours) . As for me, i bought the LE and like all the cool $#!&$ so i'm sticking with it. You should also try the multiplayer, especially the escape mode.
Since writing this article, folks over at videogamer.com have released this video comparing the demo of Aliens:CM to the final product, it is SHOCKING. YOU MUST WATCH THIS.
http://www.videogamer.com/videos/aliens_colonial_marines_what_the_hell_happened_to_aliens_colonial_marines_2.html
While i am on the subject of Aliens and it being Valentines Day and all, i recieved this as a gift from my girlfriend/coop partner. This thing is HUGE:
