We're in for some chop.
After the third Alien movie finished, Marines went back to LV-426 to investigate another distress signal. You are a member of that unfortunate band. As much as life might suck as a marine, it sure beats death. But even death might be preferable to this.
1. Gameplay
Sometimes I like to play games that I know are going to be disappointing. It’s a learning experience. I get a good perspective on what makes good games so awesome and what makes bad games so horrible. It’s easy to nitpick about certain attributes of games that I don’t like, but it’s difficult to really appreciate what makes some games so enjoyable without understanding how bad games can really be. Aliens: Colonial Marines is the low bar. It isn’t the worst game I’ve ever played, I’d even have a hard time objectively categorizing it as “one of the worst games I have ever played”. But the reality is that the developers of this game had a talented team, a solid story, and all of the story elements hashed out for them already. There’s a long history of Aliens-related games, movies, and comics that they could have drawn on for inspiration. All they had to do was come up with something new that didn’t completely piss off their core fan base (which is actually a lot easier than it sounds). They couldn’t even do that. It’s difficult to believe that I could go into a game expecting to be disappointed and still end up disappointed. I knew there were going to be major bugs, I knew that the story would be fairly boring, and I knew that no one would be playing the multiplayer by the time I jumped on board. But I was still disappointed by all of the rookie mistakes the development team made. It felt like they spent so much time concentrating on adding in the “easter eggs” to appease the fans that they forgot about all of the elements necessary for even a mediocre game. Seeing the APC that Ripley drove into the ground in Aliens was awesome, but it didn’t make up for the fact that the Aliens were so idiotic that I never felt legitimately challenged. Not even once. I believe that everyone who wants to make their opinions about games more legitimate should play this game. You may be entertained at times, especially if you enjoy shooters, but you will not enjoy the overall experience. This is what a truly bad game looks like. This is the game that took what could have easily been greatness and squandered it.
The campaign took around 7 or 8 hours to beat, and that’s being extremely generous. I took my time to find every collectible I could. If I hadn’t been doing this, I could have significantly reduced that time. Unless I’m going back to pick up the collectibles I missed, this game was not entertaining enough to warrant a second playthrough. Considering there were also no choices or variations in the campaign, I don’t expect anyone to play through it twice. There is technically a multiplayer portion of this game, but the times I attempted to play there were no people online. Players can test the modes out alone, but it’s ridiculously boring. I would have suggested that the developers add bots, but considering how poor the campaign’s AI was scripted, I’d be wasting my time.
I knew what to expect when I bought this game, so my disappointment never boiled into anger or frustration. I was extremely annoyed that this game could have been so poorly designed, but the almost ridiculously easy chapters kept me from feeling too much frustration. …except for one section. In it I had to use a loader mech to melee smash a large enemy alien. This was by far the worst section in the game. Where most of the game I was coasting without any real challenge even on the “Hardened” difficulty level, this section was almost impossible to beat. The loader is slow, does little damage, and only has short-ranged melee attacks. While the main alien I was attacking could knock down around 1/3 of my health or armor in a single hit, he wasn’t the real problem. The normal aliens would still come and attack me as I was fighting, and they would kill half or all of my armor in a single hit. The only way I could beat that section was by knocking the main alien back into a section where he was both stuck into some rubble and where his minions would attack my friends instead of attacking me. This took a number of attempts to do, and wasn’t worth the amount of effort it took to beat. 2. Parental Notices
Violence is one of the few major factors in this game. The player will have access to a number of different weapons with different effects. Most of these weapons will be projectile weapons, such as the pulse rifle, the shotgun, and the submachine gun. These will be the standard weapon types that the player will use most often over the course of the game. Hitting an enemy with these weapons will result in a small amount of blood. Distance to the target will hardly ever vary. The player will usually fight enemies at a medium range. There are no exclusively long-range weapons and enemies can be deadly if taken on at short range. Alien blood will always be easier to see since it is acid green. Hitting enemies in the limb will frequently sever that limb, leaving a bloody ragged stump and a forgotten leg or arm. However, this is sometimes difficult to see on alien enemies. While the aliens’ heads are much more easily destroyed, forcing an alien to lose a limb is almost impossible. This is mostly because high damage attacks against aliens will usually cause them to explode into blood and pieces. Human enemies can also be devastated with somewhat similar effects. Usually this results in them dissolving into bloody chunks, but sometimes the player can find human remains that indicate horrific violence. A number of the player’s weapons will have flamethrowers which, unsurprisingly, can light enemies on fire. These are only somewhat effective against aliens, since human enemies have weapons that reach far beyond the limited range of the flamethrower. There are a few occasions where the player will see the “chestburster” aliens come through a human’s chest. This is usually accompanied by a gratuitous amount of blood. In one of the chestburster scenes, one of the human characters shoots the chestburster in the head to kill it. The camera is angled in a way that captures the destroyed, ragged head area perfectly.
Sexuality is not a factor in this game.
There are a number of medkits that the player can find throughout the game that will instantly heal the player. However, because there is no healing animation and any substances inside these kits is not mentioned, substances are not a factor in this game.
Gambling is not a factor in this game. 3. Other Factors
There are no modding tools available for this game.
Religion is not a factor in this game.
While the main character and his allies are almost all US marines, and while the PMCs hired by Weyland Yutani are tasked with killing those marines, the specific rules of engagement in this sector of space are vague at best. As a result, anti-law is not a factor in this game.
When I attempted to play the multiplayer mode, I found that there wasn’t a single person online. Therefore, the online community is not a factor in this game.
Extreme sports are not a factor in this game.
Magic is not a factor in this game.
Torture One of the characters mentions that he was held and tortured by the paramilitary personnel hired by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. However, he never specifies how he was tortured, and the act is never seen.
2 Comments
10/13/2013 02:39:54 pm
Power is the ability to do good things for others.
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11/24/2013 04:41:15 am
I like your blog.Thanks for the post.I am waiting for your new post
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