I suppose any anticipation of a game called Aliens Colonial Marines brings expectation of a game offering realism to the Aliens film, smart guns, auto turrets, bright yellow loaders and all out alien battles.
Thoughts of amazing jaw dropping graphics, Aliens in glorified detail and battles worthy of many a competitive game.
You then realize the game is written by the same team (Gearbox) who did Borderlands and the anticipation grows even more.
Where to start, where to start?
Well I suppose it's much easier to go straight to the point and say it promised so much, it could have been everything yet it was nothing.
Memories of Doom on 8086 and 2086 processors, you walk a bit, out jumps an alien, shoot, walk a bit more, jump, shoot, walk, shoot, jump etc.
Along the way you pick up just enough ammo, not too much but just enough, you have the obligatory weapon upgrades which offer a few useful upgrades but on the whole I spent almost the whole game on shotgun, switching to an assault or battle rifle to pick off one or two enemy, or the machine gun when I ran out of ammo.
Unfortunately you couldn't turn any of these guns on yourself and end this shambles, more the shame.
I finished the game in less tha n2 days of on/off playing, perhaps 8 hours total ?
The end level being nothing more than hide, run out, flick a switch, hide, run out, flick switch 2, hide, switch 3, hide, switch 4, yawn, hide, switch 5, end of game sequence, realization I wasted so much time on this rubbish.
There are so many issues it's hardly worth mentioning them as they would take up page after page, but subtle things like you activate a switch then your character is starting straight up at the ceiling, pretty handy if you can hear an alien sneaking up on you and then find yourself trying to orientate yourself and ahh your dead.
Doors open with long drawn out struggles and groans, I supposed for the first time it adds a bit of "atmosphere" but on the 15th or 20th time its just plain annoying, some groan and stutter for perhaps 20 seconds before opening.
The motion tracker should be called boredom or shite tracker, it seems to track multiple levels of shitness, only stopping when you clear the level of aliens and start the next tedious walk through the next level.
Other doors require cutting open and that soon gets tedious , levels are linear so it's walk, shoot, jump etc, rinse and repeat.
One level demands, cut door, open, run through, close, weld shut, rinse and repeat through more doors than I believe is legal under European legislation but there we go.
The AI on your team is pretty appalling, they wander off, run at strange angles and seem to shoot thousands of bullets hitting very little, leaving you to do most of the work, even more fun they seem indestructible so you can pop off for a cup of tea while they fire tens of thousands of rounds and hit jack shit.
It's common to find yourself standing alone, looking around and no one there, you don't have way points or maps to speak of, just a vague message in the blurry heads up/status menu.
You look around and then find after 10 minutes of searching that your team was waiting for you at a door somewhere, quite often on the other side of some nasty shitter standing waiting for you.
Many a time the team run past enemy soldiers or aliens, leaving you to have a firefight, other times you sometimes turn a corner and die immediately.
I found myself placing a sentry gun with no clue why or where, then find a bit later I get killed, you then respawn at the start of the level and find .. ah no sentry gun, thanks Gearbox, did anyone test this game before releasing it ?
It feels rushed, a game prepared by an inexperienced team, poor level design, predictable enemy attacks and levels, terrible/shocking AI and aliens that appear to have no ability to be anything more than stuttering graphics on your screen.
Strangely it feels like Duke Nukem forever, a game I waited some 13 years for and found it ruined 13 years of waiting, this is much the same, a game that should have reinvented the Aliens saga, taking you into realms of Halo type "oohs" and "aahs" as you look at the amazing scenery, and gasps as you look at the amazingly detailed and intense levels.
Instead you go "ugh" and "uh" as your taken aback by the poor detail and effort.
The weapons are pretty terrible, you pick up a smart gun, have several aliens attack you and almost wake up such is the promise of some decent... ah hold on.
You use most of your ammo then your AI team mate says "use controlled bursts, you can't reload down here" - cheers for that as I'm showing 56 rounds left so I won't bother then, out comes the shotgun and off we go again.
All in all a pretty dull and pointless game, compare it say to Crysis 2 and it's nowhere near the graphics, playability or quality of that game, you're in a controlled and restricted environment and to be fair the aliens are welcome to it.
Personally I would get on the first shuttle out of there and leave the colonists to their fate, you wanted to be there, you're welcome to it.
I think the best thing to do with this is rent it just to experience how not to write an Xbox game, then put your Tea on the DVD and this will help you to stop playing it, if you have a handy shredder then pop it in there and it's sorted.
I loved Aliens on the PC years ago, it was great, I even had a patch which let me play co-op on a local lan and it was great, the atmosphere, the guns, the aliens it was great. Me and little bro played for something like 18 hours straight, being fed tea and snacks regularly, what a blast.
However, time moves on and this game seems to take you back before that time, to 286 processors, limited graphics and shoddy programming.
The only snacks you yearn for are cyanide and any other handy poisons.
Perhaps the best bit was the line "we've got a situation here", that's right, it's shocking programming and we should hunt them down and use the last 56 rounds of our smart gun on them.
Don't even get me started on the Alien Queen or the sewers, just don't.
Perhaps it's best to sum this game up in two words.
It's Shit.
