Aliens: Colonial Marines Review
Game Emblems
The Bad
Aliens: Colonial Marines is somewhat better than its reputation suggests. Somewhat.
The dull, unattractive Aliens: Colonial Marines is a functional shooter, but little more.
The Good
- Online multiplayer offers some fun, anxious moments
- Interesting stealth level brings some suspense to the single-player campaign.
The Bad
- Campaign is mostly devoid of tension and challenge
- Static pace and lack of variety lead to boredom
- Tacked-on cooperative play completely negates the narrative
- Dated visuals and assorted bugs.
The Alien franchise deserves better than this. Aliens: Colonial Marines is a disappointing exercise in bland corridor shooting, dragged down by laughable dialogue and cooperative play that makes the game worse than when you adventure on your own. Colonial Marines is unremarkable in every conceivable way: it's far too easy, generally devoid of tension, and lacking in the variety it so desperately needed. It occasionally lets you peek at the game that could have been, allowing its rare scraps of unsettling atmosphere to seep into your bones. But brief moments of dread and excitement are quickly supplanted by more shrug-worthy shooting and a general aura of "whatever"-ness.
"Tepid" isn't likely what you want from a shooter--nor is it what you look for in an Alien narrative. Easter eggs are there for the fans of the film franchise who want them, but even when the game pays homage to the films that inspired it, the results are lackluster. A gruesome event that remains Alien's most well-remembered image is replicated here without a hint of fright or gusto, and Colonial Marines frequently relies on visual and dialogue references to fill in for proper storytelling. (Hey, that guy just mentioned Ripley!)
When relieved of the cumbersome cloak of nostalgia, the story gives you little to hold onto. As Corporal Christopher Winter, you join other marines on a rescue mission to infiltrate the U.S.S. Sulaco, thus initiating your post-Aliens journey through a number of storied areas from the franchise, such as the Sulaco and Hadley's Hope. Several strained confrontations between key characters temporarily raise the narrative stakes; when anger comes to the forefront, you get a glimpse into the loyalty that bonds the marines. But most of their interactions are characterized by snippets of awful dialogue, such as, "Any thoughts on the exploding chest issue?" and "Woke up gagging on a creature like a spider, but wrapped around my face. It's dead, sir." Such lines are delivered without a hint of irony--or any other emotion, for that matter.
The awkward storytelling is hardly energized by character models and facial animations so stiff that humans look every bit as synthetic as famed series androids Ash and Bishop. Aliens: Colonial Marines is not a looker. Graphics glitches abound, fire and goo effects are unconvincing, and clumsy visual details--jittery transitions in and out of canned animations, abrupt game-over screens upon death--give the game an air of carelessness. Graphics may not make or break a game, but the success of a game in this universe relies somewhat on the atmosphere, and these flaws can make it difficult to stay immersed. And that doesn't account for nonvisual bugs, such as scripting errors, and the occasions when you spawn into the game in a nigh-unusable third-person view.
Luckily, moody lighting and some creepy environments help pull you back in, though not consistently. Outdoor exploration is given heft by the sight of burning structures dotting the horizon on LV-426, and dark corridors are lined with shiny slime and gross tendrils, keeping your eyes momentarily averted from the bare textures and poor animations. You move through these places, mostly corridors, shooting down xenomorphs, mercenaries, and little else. There's mild entertainment here and there, at least during the biggest battles. At one point, you must disconnect several fuel lines as aliens skitter across ceilings and appear along the walls, eager to close in and snatch your life away. An enjoyable rhythm can set in as you fend off waves of gross xenos before making a run for your objective. It's satisfying to gun down an alien before it makes its way to the ground from a high ledge, and watching xenos explode into gushers of goo has a grotesque appeal.
All too often, however, you just walk forward, shoot the aliens and mercs that appear with your bog-standard weapons (assault rifle, shotgun, and so forth), open a door, and do it all again. On the whole, the action lacks any sense of momentum or challenge. Aliens: Colonial Marines is exceptionally easy on normal difficulty; human enemies lack smarts, and alien arrivals aren't horrifying--just horrifyingly predictable. You're granted the requisite Alien motion tracker, but it's wholly unnecessary; you don't need it to stalk aliens hiding in the shadows, or to avoid xenomorphs on the hunt. Enemies arrive just as you'd expect, and you shoot them.
And that's Colonial Marines' biggest problem: enemies come, and you shoot them down easily, again and again. The game is remarkably light on variety. A couple of battles masquerade as boss fights, but they require no strategy and are just as easy and thrill-less as the rest. The four- to five-hour campaign has no thrust to it; it feels the same from beginning to end, and the finale just drops with a thud. And by being so easy and predictable, the game lets down the license. There's little suspense, nothing to absorb you or spur your curiosity. Colonial Marines is tone-deaf to what makes the Alien franchise what it is--and what makes the best shooters so exciting.
By
Kevin VanOrd, Senior Editor
Kevin VanOrd is a lifelong RPG lover and violin player. When he isn't busy building PCs and composing symphonies, he watches American Dad reruns with his fat cat, Ollie.
277 comments
so i just finished this on hardened.. took me about 8 hours i think... but i went out of my way and collected everything :P that being said, this is an Aliens game... and wandering off the well lit path of your comrade's supporting muzzle fire shouldn't be a good idea, so that's a huge let down right there... the tracker didnt work...(it only tracks enemies, not movement as it should - it really added tension back in AVP), i had to tweak the graphics from the ini file... and it looked decent.. and on some rare occasions the unreal 3 engine really got to shine, sadly not while you fought or blew stuff up (including yourself), the weapons are ok but dont expect too much.. the videos... buerk... the dialogue.. meh..and the ending left me thinking how many refund requests they got.. but the worst was the whole mission debrief thingie... it just took you of it... but i guess why bother with a script.
it had potential, but someone, somewhere decided "who cares?" these stupid sobs will buy anything... just stamp a logo on it..
1 Like For those that are interested in getting the most out of the visuals from this game, and are somewhat computer savvy there is a thread on the official steam forums where a 3rd party game developer, as an avid fan and out of his good heart, has an extensive guide of how and where to tweak the game ini files and enable things like dx10 textures, FoV, bloom, dynamic shadows and many other effects that for some forsaken reason the game devs chose to omit from the in game settings GUI. I followed his instructions and I saw a huge improvement, the game looked like the demo they showed us last year and was nothing like the disaster the finished product came out as.
Furthemore he has tweaks to allocate more memory to enemy AI, which results in xenos becoming more fast and bouncy on their feet and thus making them much harder to get a hit on(used walls and ceilings much more). Mild Spolier Alert: For example during the Raven Xeno encounter, in Ultimate Badass diff, I died 4 times because the Raven kept sidestepping my clunky loader swipes and hitting me from behind, behavior I didn't notice before the tweaks. It almost seems that someone purposfully chose to bog everything down in this game and actively sabotage it.
On a last note don't hesitate to turn everything to max, I have a 4 year old quad with a Nvidia GF 250 GTS and the tweaks run like a charm.
Here's the link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=127541833#25938
I completly agree with you! i recently completed the campain and the ending completely sucked! other than that multiplayer is still very entertaining. especially when you bring a friend along
1 Like I spent the last few weeks talking with people as to why this game sucks. This is all I heard, "Its a mediocore shooter, it's a corridor shooter, the aliens are funneled to you.". If you have seen the movie ALIENS then you would understand that this is the atmosphere. Everywhere you go the aliens just rush in, thats just what they do. I have also heard that there are not a lot of tense moments. Turn up the difficulty and go single player not Co-op. If you want a real aliens experience play mulitplayer! NOW THATS WHERE THE GAME COMES INTO IT'S OWN!!! This is where you will be on the edge of your seat especially if you and your squad have comms running.
With some new content coming in March I'm looking forward to some new maps and see some other features that will come along with the game. If you love the franchise get it. If your unsure rent it. There are plenty of copies at Gamestop now so I'm sure you can get you for a lot cheaper than a new version.
1 Like I actually thought the game was pretty good. sure the games AI is not the best but if you want the feeling of an alien stalking you just play the multiplayer. Also in escape and survivor it is harder to kill the marines, once me, a friend and some other alien dude attacked a single marine all at once and he killed all of us with a pulse rifle! despite this you have to learn to be patient and accept the fact that in escape and survivor your going to get cheap alien deaths. personally I would give this game a 7/10 at most.
p.s i do agree that geatbox could of done WAY better but i see the best in games.
Kevin is right. This simply IS a major disappointment. The developers of gearbox should be ashamed of themselves.
The only one I played which was descent, was Aliens vs Predator which came out on pc in 2000. It was developed by Rebellion. It was a Great game. A lot better then this garbage.
Seriously guys? I know its disappointing and as a huge fan of the movie franchise I'm sad too, but to be surprised? C'mon. Its a F'ing console port!!! Anyone expecting a great PC game from a console port after so many disappointments really needs to look in the mirror.
Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me.
being a console port has NOTHING to do with it. Gearbox took forever and dropped the ball on what should have been a slam dunk game license. The lack of surprise should have been after learning Randy Pitchford got his grubby mitts on this license. Three words..."Duke Nukem Forever"....FAIL.
1 Like @awfitzwater Clearly you haven't played the game. I just finished it and, honestly, a 4.5 is more than it deserved.
I was expecting more from Gearbox. Maybe they've been putting all of their development money into Borderlands? Still, this has me wanting to go back and play the 1999 AvP game. I wonder if they still have it on Steam . . .
1 Like WHY CANT ANYONE MAKE A GOOD ALIENS GAME?? YOU WOULD NOT THINK IT WOULD BE THIS HARD!!!!!!!!!!
I think it's worth a buy if you're a big Aliens fan and you don't play video games too often to see what this one is missing. If you're a regular gamer, probably worth a rental of the 360 version to at least sate any curiosity you have of why so many people hate it.
Damn it. I had high hopes for this game. How could they develop such mediocrity. I hope the company goes under if they keep churning out rubbish.
I was just about to buy this game and decided to go with the reviews this time, because I have been burned just about every time in the past. Thanks GS and GS members for the heads up!
1 Like @Absalomx This has been a good year for getting burned. Even more so than last year. Good plan.
Just one more thought. I do believe that Kevin VanOrd was very fair with this review. He did point out the bad points though they were more than the good. The video reviews over the past years have helped immensely. You can plainly see what the reviewer was talking about when they are narrating the video. I would like to know what they use for capturing the video! Fraps doesn't work with Windows 8!
1 Like OK, I think I know how this goes now
If Crysis 3 gets a good review from gamespot, go to 1.
If Crysis 3 gets a bad review from gamespot, go to 2.
1) Yes! I knew this game would rock better than anything ever...Blah, blah
2) I knew this game would be junk, I'm so glad I didn't pre order it it's the worst thing ever, even worse than Colonial Marines.....Blah, blah.
@samedizombie So you are saying that you are with the rest of us? Thanking our lucky stars that we didn't buy Colonial Marines?
1 Like @Absalomx Actually no. I bought the game and am enjoying it. It's just that a lot of people seem to be are saying, (reading previous comments) that because CM has got bad reviews then it must be a bad game, some of these people haven't event played it.
4 Like quote from above "Kevin VanOrd is a lifelong RPG lover and violin player."
Yea, definitely someone who should be reviewing a shooter.
@Sevenizz So someone who plays RPGs can't enjoy or play shooters? Well, I guess I better uninstall Half-Life 2 then, because I also own Skyrim, ya moron.
2 Like @Sevenizz Oh wow. I am so happy you posted this comment, as I would have thought that an average human would know what he or she likes in a game. Unfortunately I did not pay attention to the part where he said he was a lifelong RPG lover, or a violin player! OMG! How could some human who loves pizza be a person who could review hot dogs!? You are soooooo right! ...NOT! Dude, if you can't provide depth in your critiques, and if you are going to apply blanket accusations to folks like you did above, just go somewhere else. We are looking for useful reviews to help us save money in game purchases (for the most part anyway).
Are you gonna provide a psychological profile on the 20-30 other reviewers who have said the same thing as Kevin?
1 Like It doesn't look that bad. I guess they didn't buy ad space here to get the 7.0 minimum advertiser score. Looks like a decent 20 dollar pick up. Some of us enjoy the enter-room-and-clear-the-bad-guys type of game. It's an FPS - what do you need it to do...clean your laundry? Although, Kevin is a bad reviewer who probably plays way too many games and has for decades. He gave a shitty looking Japanese RPG about a 9 score a few weeks ago that I (and most people in North America) would never pick up.
@Sevenizz
Did you work on this game? You've written the same message three times now. Seems you have some morbid fascination/vendetta with Kevin.
And playing too many games is a bad thing?
@Sevenizz I bet you anything that JRPG outsells this piece of crap. Look at the actual sales numbers before you start making your idiotic assumptions. And please! I have played and seen enough of this game to know that no amount of advertising and no amount of money could ever sway gamespot to give this game a good score.
@Sevenizz Tottaly agree . The game actually is not bad at all. Ok,I expected more thrills,but the action is good and the references to the movie are very satisfying. This is a lame review by a lame FPS reviewer ."The game its too easy"...Try the higher difficulty and come speak again
1 Like @tasosk7 @Sevenizz The reviewer made some darn good points and provided video to prove his case. Just watching the video made me think the game is lame. I don't know if you have ever played games before this one, but I have, and I (and most other folks) would like a challenge at normal, and a more impossible challenge at difficulty settings above normal, in case we feel a little crazy. Game companies who don't have original design, original thought, and a taste for what makes a game good don't belong in the business. If the GS reviewers give the game a crap review, and 151 players (you and I) can't pull more than a 7.0 in the player reviews, then I am sorry, the game is crap. The people have spoken. If you like the game, then that's awesome! It wasn't a complete waste for the devs. But in this game's case, most people hate it.
@Absalomx First of all i dont take seriously SHOOTER reviews from RPG reviewers (!) .Secondly i play games for almost 30 years,thats why i play most games on higher difficulties than normal.And this game is simply a new exprerience on high diff. As a decent reviewer you HAVE to mention that.Finally,as a die hard fan of ALIENS ,this game is a very good link to the franchise,and has many decent action sequences.The graphics on pc are fine,atmosphere is great,the music sounds anxious,sound desing has being copied/pasted from movie,and the whole shooting experience is great.It may not be the AvP2 masterpiece of Monolith,but its a great shooter,a lot better than other crap around.It may not have a lot of thrills ,but the whole game is a reference to the famous ACTION-commando style Cameron's movie and not to the R.Scott's HORROR one. There, i made a decent review for you.
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Aliens: Colonial Marines
Not Following
- Publisher(s): Sega
- Developer(s): Gearbox Software
- Genre: Action
- Release:
- ESRB: M
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