5/11/2014

Aliens: Colonial Marines Review

"A game that fails at being a game"

Aliens otherwise known as Xenomorphs the creatures designed with women's reproductive organs in mind, and make those predators look like pansies. These are the main antagonists of Aliens Colonial Marines a game set roughly around seventeen weeks after the events of the film Aliens. There was a lot of hype leading up to the games release and it's widely known that's its a big let down and didn't reach the expectations of the gaming community. I bought the game with no expectations what so ever and while the game does have its bad points there are also a few goods things grounded into it. 


This man even says that he loves the Marine Corp
It wouldn't be Aliens if no one said that

The story is one of those good points as it does a nice job of revisiting the locations of the film and describing the events that take place after Aliens and Alien 3. It even quite nicely corrects one of the things that annoyed me about Alien 3 and does so in a believable manner. The game starts off with the crew of the Sephora receive a distress signal from Corporal Hicks at which point they load their pulse rifles, grab their smart guns and flamethrowers then proceed to barrel into the unknown. Boarding the Sulaco things get from bad to worse as the walking cliche's are faced with Xenomorphs and the friendly neighborhood Weyland Yutani Mercenary's.

Eventually the story shifts to the planet below where the cast of the game take refuge in Hadley's Hope the colony from Aliens. Here is where they set up their base of operations and go about being ultimate bad asses until the Aliens start coming out of the god damn walls. The player explores various places of the colony to perform a number of tasks as there are around three hundred Colonial Marines spread across the planet and we need to get into contact with them. The player discovers dark but not at all surprising secrets about the weyland Yutani Corporation  

By the end there are a fraction of Colonial Marines left on the planet compared to the amount at the beginning and they all converge on a base. The player fights the Alien Queen by throwing her off the ship like Indiana Jones did to that Nazi in the last crusade and they all live happily ever after, due to the unlikelihood of  a sequel that's a good a prediction as any. 

The plot overall is a very enjoyable part of the game as you feel like you are part of an 80s science fiction film. Something the bad graphics and dark environment help with oddly enough. 

As for the characters there are a varied range of Cliche'd character for the player to fight alongside, there's O'Neal the bad ass, Captain "I thank baby Jesus for everyday I'm in the Corp" Cruz, Bella the Bad ass, on second thought forget the varied range of Cliches. Nope there's only only one type of character I want in my Aliens game and that's a gun wielding bad ass, names are just given to them to distinguish one from the other if you can be bothered to read the names that is.   

A few other marines also make appearances but these are the equivalent of the red shirts from star trek. You might think the odds are in your favor but soon it will be just you as those marines are all killed off in a blink of an eye. 


The voice actors include Lance Henrikson and Michael Beihn
 
Moving onto level design which is another high point of the game the designers did a nice job of recreating Hadley's Hope from the film. The state that it was left in at the film's conclusion is pretty much the state of the place when you arrive, the moment you see it come into view images from the film flood into your mind. At the start of the fourth chapter the player spends all of his or her time in the location the marines barricaded themselves in during the film. Walking around further and it becomes even clearer how much attention they spent to detail and how much they have changed because of the Nuclear blast at the end of the film. 

There's even an opportunity to explore the Engineers ship as well. while nothing really happens in this sequence in the game other than the bland formula of an FPS game its a nice throwback to the Alien & Aliens films.

Now we reach the aspect of the game that makes it a let down, the game play. I can say that for the most part it's on par with what I expect from a First Person Shooter. The gun play was tolerable and bland like any Call Of Duty game and that was fine I can't expect variation on that. The sound bites used for the weapons were also very nice as well. The variation of weapons were fine but I would have preferred it if the player were limited to two or three along with the sidearm but instead the player carries an armory with him, no wonder he can't run for long periods. 

There are also points in the game where the general game play don't match. One such instance is when a APC starts shooting at you and you have to run around diving for cover until it retreats for some reason I can't fathom. Now the key part is "run" which means moving fast for as long as you need to, the game however has a time limit on how long you can run for. This isn't bad when it is done in a believable manner, making the limit one and a half minutes just isn't believable.  

There is a part of the game that was a mix of enjoyment and frustration. Upon entering a Power Loader the player enters a grudge match with a new variant of Xenomorph. While this is a good idea it lacks in execution as the AI is so dull they can't stop the regular Zenomorphs from killing you whilst in the rig.
Colonial Marines recruitment poster

Another issue with the game I found although this could be just me being unfamiliar with PC gaming is that the buttons were too close together. "F" fires the under slung grenade launcher, "V" is the default Melee button and "C" is crouch, they all form a triangle on the keyboard. More often than I like to admit I found myself crouching in the presence of an alien or blowing myself to kingdom come when trying to crouch behind cover. Eventually I just got annoyed and changed the controls but when done right the player shouldn't have to do that.  

There is also for some reason a leveling up system that is used on the single player campaign. With every Xenomorph or Mercenary that is killed the player earns XP and levels up earning an upgrade point, if these points were used to improve the character then I would be for it. Instead however they are used on the guns and not in a good way either, instead of improving accuracy, reload time etc they are used to purchase attachments. Nothing else changes in terms of game play other than me have a scope to zoom in on the horde of fuckers that want to rip me to shreds. 

As for the games AI the less sad about that the better in my opinion. All I will say about it is that I don't remember the part of the films where the Aliens ignored and ran past the Marines like two lovers having an argument. 
  


There are also variations of Xenomorphs but while this is a nice touch they are usually used in throw awway scenes and boss battles after which they are not seen again. 

My verdict on this game is that it would be better suited for an animated film. 


6.4/10


A walk through of this game is also available on my YouTube account and all parts will be uploaded soon.




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