Co-Optimus reader rafoca comes through again with a great find of this Aliens: Colonial Marines preview from GamesRadar.  The new Aliens game from Gearbox is penned by some veteran writers of film and TV, with credits like Battlestar Galactica under their belt, so you know there's an excellent story here.  In fact, throughout the single player campaign the player will take the role of one of six space marines and their perspective on the post Alien 3 events.

Gearbox is famous for their Brothers in Arms series, and Aliens: Colonial Marines is said to borrow heavily from it.  It's a lot more tactical in some sense, but it also makes gameplay much more team oriented.  And with anything team oriented comes co-op play, Aliens is no exception.



 

You can not only set up turrets but use technicians to hack and lock or weld doors, order your team to push tables and cabinets against windows, and set up strike teams to cover weak areas of a room. You can even set booby traps to cover air vents if your explosives guy is still alive. The pulse rifles feature a ticking ammo level, Hicks’ Remington shotgun is here for close quarter escapes and the Smart Guns, as carried by Vasquez and Drake, make a welcome appearance.

Yeah...I'll have that. 

Featuring full 4 player drop-in/drop-out play this game is one we are anxiously awaiting.  According to a recent Sega press release, Aliens is set to drop in Q1 of this year.  So we won't be waiting too much longer.

Read The Full Article: Aliens Colonial Marines Q1 2009, Previews Prove It

Have we heard if this has split screen or not yet?

Q2 is about 75 days away, give or take... I'm surprised that there hasn't been much more press coverage about this...

WOW! Sounds great. If that's co-op, and you have to stop and weld a door while your teammates cover you, wow would that be unique game play. Reminds me of the old side-scrolling Alien 3 game on SNES. Good times!

This has always been one of my dream games (along with a 10 years too late Resident Evil co-op game). I always thought the idea of being in a dark, creepy environment with a few friends and having the famed motion tracker sound indicating you were about to be swarmed by dozens of aliens would be beyond fun/intense.

Here's hoping they release a quality product!

I read that there will be split-screen/online support, just like in Halo 3, Gears 1/2 and Left 4 Dead.

I cant wait for this to come out. Im hoping it will be out by my birthday in April. That should fall under Q1...

According to gamesRadar, this game will also feature split-screen:

http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/alien ... 395087/p-2

Remember you can always check our database. That's what it's there for.

http://www.co-optimus.com/game/296/XBox ... rines.html

Setting up and holding defensive positions just sounds like too much fun.

Agreed. All the fun of Team Fortress 2's classes but in a co-op aspect against the AI. Awfully promising.

If anything will cause Left 4 Dead to get some shelf time at my house, this will be it. Hopefully it lives up to expectations.

Oh dude if it has splitscreen online then this is def in my preorder list.