Despite the name, the legacy, and the uber-rich publisher behind it, Aliens: Colonial Marines has flown somewhat under the radar. I’d imagine this is, ironically enough, precisely because of the name, as for just about the past decade anything Aliens related, be it film, game or breakfast cereal, has pretty much sucked balls. I found it hard to believe that there might now finally be a game worthy of the title, Aliens, what with all the crap to have come before.
Despite positive buzz coming out of E3 (I didn’t see the game at that time) my skepticism radar was fully up and running as I entered a darkened room slap bang in the middle of the convention hall for my first look at the Gearbox developed game.
Positioned as a follow up of sorts to James Cameron’s Aliens (although chronologically speaking it actually takes place a short time after the miserably poor Alien 3), Colonial Marines follows the simple narrative path of “bad shit happened down there, go check it out and try not to get killed”. As is typically the case whenever those pesky Xenomorphs are involved, the latter half of that plan goes awry and turns what was once a fairly straight forward reconnaissance mission into a desperate dash for survival.
In a short presentation before the demo, we learned that one of the development team’s main goals for Colonial Marines was to as accurately as possible capture the look and feel of Aliens, hiring Syd Mead (the man behind the Sulaco, the ship the Marines used in the film) to better aid this goal. Another thing we learned is that Gearbox worked on a new engine for the game, specifically to allow for advanced lighting effects that not only make for an exceptionally gorgeous looking game, but will also have an effect on the way enemies react to you and your squad. Or to put it in layman’s terms, stay in light if you don’t want to die.
Based on what of the game we saw, if I were to hazard a guess from where Colonial Marines takes many of its cues, I’d point to the game (and to a lesser extent the series of games) F.E.A.R. Guns and survival horror do not always make for the best of bedfellows, especially from an action heavy first person perspective, but F.E.A.R managed it well enough in crafting a game that made you more often feel like the prey and not the hunter. This is personally the exact sort of pressure that I’d hope for in a game involving the eponymous creatures.
It will be hard to judge that idea fully until I get some hands on time with the game, and I wonder if the co-op aspect of the title might detract somewhat from the fear. Colonial Marines features drop in multiplayer, by which I mean that at any time a fellow player can hop into the shoes of another Marine to aid you in the game, and I am slightly confused to how this will work exactly. From what little we saw at PAX it was hard to tell how much of an impact the other player had on the game. Whether his or her presence would be noted in the narrative, or if the individual was just sort of ‘there’.
They felt a little like ghosts in my opinon, and during some of the games more scripted sequences it seemed odd to think that you can just pop into the game as if by magic. Wikipedia on the other hand seems more confident in its assessment of the co-op, and refers to their being four distinct personalities and each with their own personal weapons. I didn’t see nor hear of anything like that in the demo I was witness to, instead Colonial Marines feels like much more of a driven experience than something comparable like Borderlands. Basically what I’m getting at is that drop in play feels like it might detract from the overall experience.
I don’t wish to sound harsh though, as not only did Colonial Marines greatly exceed my expectations (meager though they might have been initially) but if it wasn’t for the questions and confusion surrounding the cooperative aspect of the title, this latest Aliens game would be an easy front runner for the best thing I saw at the convention. The demo was thrilling to watch, and the action tight and frantic. Gorgeous to look at and full of details big and small Aliens: Colonial Marines might very well end up being the finest Aliens game that I’ve ever seen.
Source: Aliens: Colonial Marines Eyes-On Impressions From PAX 
08-30-2011, 11:47 PM
08-30-2011, 11:47 PM
