Aliens: Colonial Marines

[Flavoricepop]

Anyone playing this? I plan to get it once I get back from deployment! Looked really good when I left! Had been excited for it since it was announced. If you are playing it let me know how it is! I believe it has been sighted as a direct sequel to Aliens.

[warty goblin]

The indications seem to be that it's total crap. Unfortunate, but not really surprising, really.

[Zorg]

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Alien-colonial-marine-lulzy.gif


:smallconfused:

[huttj509]

Yeah, Penny Arcade Report had an article today about just how bad it is, touching on pretty much every aspect of the game. And this is not "it's not as good as we unrealisticly think it should be," it's more like "well, now we know why they had a press blackout until today."

[Somebloke]

Damn.

My 'shooty-call' co-op buddy has been hyped about playing this game with me for months.

I guess I'll just up the beer factor while we play. Worked with Haze.

[warty goblin]

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Alien-colonial-marine-lulzy.gif


:smallconfused:

I like to think that's an elderly alien going out to do her shopping. Kinda adorable. I'll bet she kvetches about the price of ground human too.

[darksolitaire]

There's a possibility that there is perfectly valid in-universe explanation to that gif.

Ok, there isn't.

I just didn't want to believe they screwed another alien game after AVP reboot. :smallfrown:

[Whoracle]

After reading a few reviews, all I have to say is: Someone please tell me this isn't true. PLEASE! *sobs*

[Hiro Protagonest]

I like to think that's an elderly alien going out to do her shopping. Kinda adorable. I'll bet she kvetches about the price of ground human too.

Aliens Are People TooTM.

[pffh]

With the crappy reviews I'm hoping it will go on steam sale soonish. So would anyone be interested in a lets play of it when that happens?

[Aragehaor]

With the crappy reviews I'm hoping it will go on steam sale soonish. So would anyone be interested in a lets play of it when that happens?

I remember enjoying your aliens versus predator let's play, so yes - color me very interested! :smallbiggrin:

[Somebloke]

There's a possibility that there is perfectly valid in-universe explanation to that gif.

Ok, there isn't.

I just didn't want to believe they screwed another alien game after AVP reboot. :smallfrown:

Wait, that gif was real???? I thought it had to be some sort of joke...

Wow...that's actually worse than Haze...

[Giggling Ghast]

"Alien: Colonial Marines is bad, guys. It is a digital nightmare (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/02/13) from which I cannot wake."

[Doc Kraken]

I'm fairly deep into the campaign now. It's...not good, per se, but I don't know that it really deserves the one-star reviews. More enjoyable than the last Alien game for me, anyway.

[Isak]

My thoughts:

Aliens: Colonial Marines is getting most of it's bad reviews because it had been hyped up so much. It's been in development since 2001, being scrapped and restarted many times in the past 12 years.

Because of that, and being partially backed by a recent TITAN of the gaming industry (Gearbox, creators of Borderlands), people expected something GROUNDBREAKING.

It is not.

The game looks and feels a bit dated. There's no getting around that. But the game is FUN. The first time I was jumped by Aliens, I was giggling in joy and a bit of terror as the bugs would attack and disappear, leaving me to have to hunt them down. The first time I was given a smart gun, I was having a BLAST walking down hallways and unloading as the pipper brought up new targets every couple seconds.

Even the Multiplayer can be a bit fun. It's certainly not Aliens Vs. Predators 2 level of AWESOME, but running around on walls as an alien is amusing. I've only played TDM, so I can't comment on the other modes just yet unfortunately.

One of the best parts though, is the detail. Who remembers in Aliens, when the team is bunkered down in the Operations Center? The Sentry Guns defend the hallway down to the last few bullets. Those are in this game. Yes, those same exact Sentry Guns. There's quite a few throwback Easter Eggs to the movies, and they are a BLAST to find.

Over all; No. It's not what it was hyped up to be. It's very clearly a copy/paste modern day shooter. But it's a fun game. Maybe it's so bad, it's good. Does it deserve the abysmal scores it's been getting? Not at all. I'd personally give it a 6.5 or 7 out of 10; but that's just me.

[t209]

My thoughts:

Aliens: Colonial Marines is getting most of it's bad reviews because it had been hyped up so much. It's been in development since 2001, being scrapped and restarted many times in the past 12 years.

Because of that, and being partially backed by a recent TITAN of the gaming industry (Gearbox, creators of Borderlands), people expected something GROUNDBREAKING.

It is not.

The game looks and feels a bit dated. There's no getting around that. But the game is FUN. The first time I was jumped by Aliens, I was giggling in joy and a bit of terror as the bugs would attack and disappear, leaving me to have to hunt them down. The first time I was given a smart gun, I was having a BLAST walking down hallways and unloading as the pipper brought up new targets every couple seconds.

Even the Multiplayer can be a bit fun. It's certainly not Aliens Vs. Predators 2 level of AWESOME, but running around on walls as an alien is amusing. I've only played TDM, so I can't comment on the other modes just yet unfortunately.

One of the best parts though, is the detail. Who remembers in Aliens, when the team is bunkered down in the Operations Center? The Sentry Guns defend the hallway down to the last few bullets. Those are in this game. Yes, those same exact Sentry Guns. There's quite a few throwback Easter Eggs to the movies, and they are a BLAST to find.

Over all; No. It's not what it was hyped up to be. It's very clearly a copy/paste modern day shooter. But it's a fun game. Maybe it's so bad, it's good. Does it deserve the abysmal scores it's been getting? Not at all. I'd personally give it a 6.5 or 7 out of 10; but that's just me.
Kinda similiar to what happened to Duke Nukem Forever.

[Isak]

Kinda similiar to what happened to Duke Nukem Forever.

Which was also developed by Gearbox. And I also found that game to be fairly amusing and fun, despite being an AWFUL game. I went in expecting a Duke Nukem experience, and that's exactly what I got. :smalltongue:

[sana]

After hearing it was total crap i looked around a bit remembering the nice demo footage...

Well:
http://www.videogamer.com/videos/aliens_colonial_marines_what_the_hell_happened_to_ aliens_colonial_marines_2.html

what the hell went wrong...

[Mando Knight]

Only way I can see this ending well is for Gearbox to go and publish a free "Oh crap, who swapped the alpha and the release candidate?!" patch (or recall) within the next week.

[The_Jackal]

There's a laundry list of developers who have hot-potatoed tihs project to death. It may not be 1 star bad, but it's a AAA developer who put their name on a bad game, so the reviewing industry is going to town. Remember it's important for review sites to throw out negative reviews every so often so they don't appear to be the slavering industry proxies that they actually are.

[darksolitaire]

On the comments of that video, third message has decent explanation of what might have happened. One other possibility is that game would have taken much longer to finish but the release date was already set, so they rolled with it. Seeing that it had been in development from 2006 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens:_Colonial_Marines#Development) perhaps they just felt that they had sunk enough resources on what was seemingly bottomless pit and decided to cut their losses.

[Giggling Ghast]

That's how The Adventures of Pluto Nash got released, I think.

[JediSoth]

The .gif is showing one of the aliens that hunts by sound only in a certain section of the game.

Having said that, every indication I've seen/heard beyond that makes me glad I didn't pre-order this and I will wait until a massive Steam sale to pick it up (like I did with DNF), just so I can see all the Easter eggs, 'cause I loves me some Aliens.

"Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen! I found 'em!"

[Doc Kraken]

Having said that, every indication I've seen/heard beyond that makes me glad I didn't pre-order this and I will wait until a massive Steam sale to pick it up (like I did with DNF), just so I can see all the Easter eggs, 'cause I loves me some Aliens.

"Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen! I found 'em!"

I'd say that's the best reaction, honestly. There's a lot of fun little touches like finding Newt's doll Casey in the sewers, coming across dog tags from members of the original squad, or looting and reusing their weapons (Gorman's pistol has a ridiculous rate of fire). It's not worth full price, though. Will definitely agree with that. Could have been an awesome game if the aforementioned hot-potatoing had not occurred...

Multiplayer's good clean fun, though, assuming the host doesn't ragequit. A surprising number of people have yet to learn to keep an eye on the ceiling. :smallamused: Escape mode's probably my favorite so far, what with all the door-welding and running battles to get to the next safe area. Very Left 4 Dead-ish, which is not a bad thing.

[Hiro Protagonest]

That's how The Adventures of Pluto Nash got released, I think.

...Did they make a video game of that?

[Tebryn]

There's a laundry list of developers who have hot-potatoed tihs project to death. It may not be 1 star bad, but it's a AAA developer who put their name on a bad game, so the reviewing industry is going to town. Remember it's important for review sites to throw out negative reviews every so often so they don't appear to be the slavering industry proxies that they actually are.

It's a bad game though. Calling a spade a spade isn't "throwing one out". It's being honest, which is what we want to encourage.


One of the best parts though, is the detail. Who remembers in Aliens, when the team is bunkered down in the Operations Center? The Sentry Guns defend the hallway down to the last few bullets. Those are in this game. Yes, those same exact Sentry Guns. There's quite a few throwback Easter Eggs to the movies, and they are a BLAST to find.

Easter Eggs are one thing. Love letters to the original are another. I don't want to play "Aliens Tries out the Family Guy Cut Away Gag." So what if that happened in the movie? If I wanted to see that I'd go and see the movie of which I own and know will be good. This game doesn't deserve to be Triple A price for what it is.

[Doc Kraken]

I dunno...I think there's a difference between a "good love letter" and a "bad love letter", which is part of the reason I prefer Colonial Marines to AvP 2010. Whereas the former lets you find and reload the sentry guns, showcases Bishop's lower half, runs you past Hudson's cocooned body and so forth, the latter does things like repeat dialogue verbatim and give this game's colony the same "Personal Noun's Noun" name scheme. One feels like an attempt at continuity while the other is soulless imitation, at least in my mind. Again, agreed in that it does not deserve to cost $50-$60, but those instances were some of my favorite parts of the game.

[Tylorious]

So glad I read this thread before going out and getting this game, I have to admit, the first few screenshots had me pretty excited about this game a year or two ago, but I'm not too heart broken to see these reviews considering that I was equally excited about the new AVP game and it was a total letdown to me, at least on console it was.

[Brother Oni]

The .gif is showing one of the aliens that hunts by sound only in a certain section of the game.

I'm wondering if they're ignoring the various lore expanded by the various Dark Horse comics where the xenomorph actually has very sophisticated sense organs that effectively lets it psychically detect other organisms at short range (I forget the technobabble for it).

The story that explored this part demonstrated this aptly by having a starved and weakened xenomorph approach two test subjects: one control, the other hopped up on combat drugs. The xenomorph went after the control subject as the sheer rage and aggression emitted by the other subject put it off.

[JediSoth]

I'm wondering if they're ignoring the various lore expanded by the various Dark Horse comics where the xenomorph actually has very sophisticated sense organs that effectively lets it psychically detect other organisms at short range (I forget the technobabble for it).

The story that explored this part demonstrated this aptly by having a starved and weakened xenomorph approach two test subjects: one control, the other hopped up on combat drugs. The xenomorph went after the control subject as the sheer rage and aggression emitted by the other subject put it off.

Probably, because they're also ignoring the part where a massive mushroom cloud enveloped and vaporized the colony at which most of the game takes place. If most of the explosion was contained underground, as I've heard the game claims, then you don't get a mushroom cloud like that.

Physics: it defines the way the world works, especially thermonuclear detonations.

But, hey, if you're going to retcon something, then the sky's the limit...as long as you do a good job.

[warty goblin]

I'm wondering if they're ignoring the various lore expanded by the various Dark Horse comics where the xenomorph actually has very sophisticated sense organs that effectively lets it psychically detect other organisms at short range (I forget the technobabble for it).

The story that explored this part demonstrated this aptly by having a starved and weakened xenomorph approach two test subjects: one control, the other hopped up on combat drugs. The xenomorph went after the control subject as the sheer rage and aggression emitted by the other subject put it off.

This post reminds me of two things - why I ignore everything in every spinoff comic ever, and oh dear lord that's painfully bad statistics.

[pffh]

This post reminds me of two things - why I ignore everything in every spinoff comic ever, and oh dear lord that's painfully bad statistics.

What do you mean n = 1 isn't good enough for science?

[warty goblin]

What do you mean n = 1 isn't good enough for science?

I have a coin in my wallet that has a nearly psychic affinity for landing heads up. I know this because I flipped it once and it landed heads up. Apparently the sheer tailishness of the ground just repels the heads side.

(Although to be fair there is actually a lot of stuff you can do with n=1 experimental designs. They usually involve a larger number of treatments with a single experimental unit per treatment however, or some other way of estimating your precision.)

[pffh]

I have a coin in my wallet that has a nearly psychic affinity for landing heads up. I know this because I flipped it once and it landed heads up. Apparently the sheer tailishness of the ground just repels the heads side.


I repeated your experiment with an n = 5 sample size.

Introduction:
Warty goblin said his coin landed heads up. We aim to check and see if his results are true.

Method:
We flipped five coins.

Results: All coins landed heads up

Conclusion:
We confirm that indeed coins land heads up.

Discussions:
Our experiment had an n=5 or a sample size that's five times larger than the original experiment and thus without doing any calculations at all we hereby declare that the statistical power of the experiment to be "Enough" and thus conclude that all coins will land heads up.

Upon further inspection it was discovered that one coin was slightly dented and that might have altered the result from its flip so we decided to exclude it from the non-existing calculations and thus the power is reduced to "close enough"

[Brother Oni]

This post reminds me of two things - why I ignore everything in every spinoff comic ever, and oh dear lord that's painfully bad statistics.

Oh the mad scientist did multiple experiments to determine the best cocktail of aggression inducing drugs and what threshold of susceptibility the various xenomorphs had. The one shown in the comic was just the latest one (besides the scientist was running out of prisoners to test with and was using 'missing' crew members of the space station he was in charge of).

A quick wiki check indicates the story arc was called Aliens: Labyrinth (http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Aliens:_Labyrinth_%28comic%29), but that synopsis has reminded me how bad the official descriptions were.

[warty goblin]

I repeated your experiment with an n = 5 sample size.

Introduction:
Warty goblin said his coin landed heads up. We aim to check and see if his results are true.

Method:
We flipped five coins.

Results: All coins landed heads up

Conclusion:
We confirm that indeed coins land heads up.

Discussions:
Our experiment had an n=5 or a sample size that's five times larger than the original experiment and thus without doing any calculations at all we hereby declare that the statistical power of the experiment to be "Enough" and thus conclude that all coins will land heads up.

Upon further inspection it was discovered that one coin was slightly dented and that might have altered the result from its flip so we decided to exclude it from the non-existing calculations and thus the power is reduced to "close enough"
The interesting bit is that against that particular null hypothesis, flipping five coins actually has very good power for the most part.

P(correctly reject H0) = P(at least one head) = 1 - P(no heads) = 1 - P(heads)^5.

The result of course depends on what your alternative hypothesis of getting a head is. For a fair coin your test has power .96875, which is crazy high. Most NIH studies are only power .8 or maybe .9.

Which really means the question comes down to correctly figuring your probability of getting a head. Personally I like the current best practice estimator from the small but growing field of Comparative Trollology. Those crazy dudes have found that the probability of a troll gaining a new head over the next year is well modeled by log(h+k)/(1 - log(h+k)), where h is the troll's current number of heads, and k a constant related to ambient temperature, daylength, and local maiden population density.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X40OcXCXjg) is the review from TGS (the reviewer actually hates it more than the rating TGS decided on). Sadly, Totalbiscuit will not be doing a WTF Is, because he's boycotting Sega.

Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGX2WE4QUw8) is Angry Joe's.

Joe's mention of the demo lends support to the "this is actually the alpha and somebody screwed up" theory. But Gearbox hasn't spoken, video reviews are being made, it might be too late.

[Starbuck_II]

Well, on a Let's play I'm watching, the guy says it feels like Borderland version.
They use the Pulse rifle sound mentioned in movies.

The aliens seem to die easier than the movies, but they zergling rush you.
Shotgun rules.

[Mando Knight]

So, looking at the Angry Joe review, this game could have been done better...

...by simply making an Aliens-themed L4D2 mod.

[Starbuck_II]

So, looking at the Angry Joe review, this game could have been done better...

...by simply making an Aliens-themed L4D2 mod.

Nah, Alien Island instead Dead Island though? That would rule.

[Alex Knight]

Okay, having JUST gone through the area shown in all those videos where the Alien slowly old-man-walks past you?

Yes, he does exactly that. But what we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a framing issue.

A.) In this sequence you are COMPLETELY unarmed

B.) You are told earlier that the Xenos down in the sewers seem to be blind and react only to noise, so *move slowly and stand still when they're close*.

C.) It's VERY unsettling when one of the blind buggers walks Right. In. Front. Of. You.

So everyone showing that video clip as an example of how Aliens behave in the game is full of ****.

[Starbuck_II]

Okay, having JUST gone through the area shown in all those videos where the Alien slowly old-man-walks past you?

Yes, he does exactly that. But what we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a framing issue.

A.) In this sequence you are COMPLETELY unarmed

B.) You are told earlier that the Xenos down in the sewers seem to be blind and react only to noise, so *move slowly and stand still when they're close*.

C.) It's VERY unsettling when one of the blind buggers walks Right. In. Front. Of. You.

So everyone showing that video clip as an example of how Aliens behave in the game is full of ****.


Just seen a let's play that got that far.
That is one of scariest sequences (other than first time alien attack) since they are all around you. Worse when you find out how they attack.
So out of context, that scene in that video looks worse than it is.

[huttj509]

My impression was that that clip was supposed to be highlighting the animation, not the AI.

[Tiki Snakes]

My impression was that that clip was supposed to be highlighting the animation, not the AI.

There is weird bit of added creepiness from being unarmed in the dark and watching a fully grown alien do a comedy Tyrannosaurus walk in front of you I suppose.

Which is to say yes, it's not an ai issue.

[MLai]

It is still an issue, except it's a concept issue.
Xenomorphs are not shambling zombies. Do not make them into shambling zombies. Do not animate them like shambling zombies. It destroys their entire theme. This game was supposed to be canon, made by "ppl who love the franchise".

Still want a stealth mission against mutated xenomorphs? It could've been done differently and better. Instead of old-geezer-walk, have them scramble around madly and randomly on all fours. Like cockroaches in constant pain. It still fits the theme they wanted.

Also, Angry Joe said the game could have benefitted from a level where you're running from a lone alien stalking you and killing off your squadmates. Like Predator + Amnesia Dark Descent. That would have made a refreshing unarmed stealth mission.

[Brother Oni]

I think it would have been creepier and more nerve racking if the xenomorph moved like it was traditionally depicted, smooth sinuous biomechanical death gliding past you.

This is ignoring the fact that they don't hunt exclusively by sound.

[JustSomeGuy]

Well obviously, the aliens are only posers; they only appear to be sleek and skulking death machines when they know people are watching - all that scrambling has given them lumbargo and arthritis, and all that cold space has given them piles.

[Starbuck_II]

I think it would have been creepier and more nerve racking if the xenomorph moved like it was traditionally depicted, smooth sinuous biomechanical death gliding past you.

This is ignoring the fact that they don't hunt exclusively by sound.

These are not normal ones. The normal ones see fine. They were research experiments without true eyes. They also explode on impact to make them more dangerous in melee

[Avilan the Grey]

This post reminds me of two things - why I ignore everything in every spinoff comic ever, and oh dear lord that's painfully bad statistics.

The point here though is that the Dark Horse comics were BETTER than the offical sequels. And that goes double for the original Dark Horse Comics "Aliens vs Predator" which would have made an AWESOME movie.

[Bastian Weaver]

These are not normal ones. The normal ones see fine. They were research experiments without true eyes. They also explode on impact to make them more dangerous in melee

Now I'm puzzled.
But aliens don't have eyes. Like, at all.

[Brother Oni]

And that goes double for the original Dark Horse Comics "Aliens vs Predator" which would have made an AWESOME movie.

Indeed. They inserted some elements from it into the first AVP movie (the friendly Predator marking the human, plus both of them ganging up to take on the queen), but it still feels like a wasted opportunity.

The AvP epilogue of Machiko staring down (well up) at a Predator before joining their bug hunt would have made an excellent after credits scene if they did adapt the series properly. :smallbiggrin:

[shadow_archmagi]

Fortunately, we can all stop wondering, because Marphy Black, the highest authority in the land, has passed judgement on ACM.

behold his video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0T_d3_dh7s)

[Giggling Ghast]

*Puts hands together in prayer*

God, you haven't given me much in this life. Poor co-ordination, a receding hairline, an irritating Kermit-voice, the sexual grace of a legless horse — let's face it, you made some pretty poor rolls when creating my character sheet. But please God, if you can permit me one favour, it's this: let Zero Punctuation review the new Aliens game.

[The New Bruceski]

And then there's http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8J8SzBhjqaQ for more bug hilarity.

[Psyren]

"Alien: Colonial Marines is bad, guys. It is a digital nightmare (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic) from which I cannot wake."

"So it's a 7?"


*Puts hands together in prayer*

God, you haven't given me much in this life. Poor co-ordination, a receding hairline, an irritating Kermit-voice, the sexual grace of a legless horse — let's face it, you made some pretty poor rolls when creating my character sheet. But please God, if you can permit me one favour, it's this: let Zero Punctuation review the new Aliens game.

While you wait for Yahtzee to take a dump on it, Jim Sterling (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6863-Previewed-Preordered-Prescrewed) has a suitably vitriolic take. Mind you, his is more aimed at the hype machine engineered to con us into preordering garbage like this sight unseen, but ACM was a tipping point of sorts.

[Somebloke]

Played it last night with a friend, some mexican food, two bottles of wine (shared) and the lights off.

We alternated between snarking the faults of the game and genuinely enjoying the atmosphere- this game has some genuinely good moments and concepts, and seems to have been let down by the 'alpha release' thing.

All in all, there is a distinction to be made by me between games that are well made, and games that are fun. A:CM is not a good game, but I had loads of fun playing it. It reminded me of Earth Defence: Insect Armageddon, which is easily the worst game I ever fell in love with.

(possibly the wine helped).

[Giggling Ghast]

*Puts hands together in prayer*

God, you haven't given me much in this life. Poor co-ordination, a receding hairline, an irritating Kermit-voice, the sexual grace of a legless horse — let's face it, you made some pretty poor rolls when creating my character sheet. But please God, if you can permit me one favour, it's this: let Zero Punctuation review the new Aliens game.

My wish! It came true! (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6912-Aliens-Colonial-Marines)