Aliens: Colonial Marines Review
This review was provided by Gamester81 forum member wildbird51-50.
A lot of shit has been flying around the internet about Aliens: Colonial Marines. My twitter got hot on the release date and 99% of the posts were not as pleasant as I wished. Okay, I’m a big fan of the franchise, I love the movies, I played a lot of games and it’s obvious, that I was very excited when I pre-ordered the latest game. Actually, I bought a Wii U just to play this game. I had a lot of hopes for this title and by the time the PS3 version dropped I was beyond excited, because it was almost in my mailbox. Then the bad reviews came, most of them stated that this game can cause cancer. Thank god, it wasn’t true.
The Gameplay
Here we have a modern shooter, where you wander around different locations with your squad, killing people/xenos, saving the world, all that stuff. You’ve got plenty of guns to deliver the mayhem, including some of the guns seen in the movie, like Hick’s shotgun, Gorman’s sidearm, Hudson’s rifle etc. It’s very easy to die in this game, because when the armor is gone, you are practically dead, so don’t get cocky and use the cover. It took me almost tweve hours to beat the game and the only thing I wish is MORE of that stuff, because it’s awesome.
The Story
Here we have the official sequel to the movie, it’s all approved by the 20th Century Fox, and the writers are pros and stuff like that, but there are a few story twists that left me wondering if the writers were sane; I won’t spoil these moments for you. You start the game in the middle of a rescue mission where some of your pals are already dead and you don’t know what the hell is going on. So your senior officer orders you to support the troops on the Sulaco. You crossover the bridge and the shit just hits the fan. You’ll encounter a lot of dark humour, and sometimes the mission will be comedy just from the start. That it’s a good thing because the story is depressing and you need a relief.
The Presentation
The game looks good, but not as a good as a 2013 game should look. A lot of textures were drawn in a rush, so when you see a keyboard for example, it doesn’t look like a keyboard. Some of the flaws are visible in HD, but that’s still okay. They could have been better, but I won’t bitch about it because I’m definitely buying a Wii U version. I think that it will deliver the whole thing as it should have been in the first place. The music is so true to the source, and it’s not a copy/paste job. The original score sounds like the music from Aliens and it’s a nice touch. The sound effects of guns and doors and all the pretty shit you’ll find are awesome; I really loved it.
The Good Stuff
I really liked the story; it kicks ass. The action is fast, fun and straightforward. Some will say that it’s bad, but I hate wandering the corridors for ages just to find a key card, a switch and shit like that. The music is great, the characters are memorable and the whole game feels just like the original movie. You really feel that it’s your rifle, your platoon, your journey which I like. The suspense is good, even better if you play at night. A lot of fan-service was thrown in, even some shit from Avatar and Prometheus paved the way to this game.
The Bad Stuff
The game is glitchy. If you see your death screen, you’ll know what I mean by saying that it’s glitchy. As far as I know the Xbox and the PC owners suffer the most. I had to restart a mission just because my character froze in a pose and couldn’t kill things. The xenomorph controls for the multiplayer is bad, actually, the multiplayer is bad, a lot of lag on the servers and it’s just no fun.
I don’t know why people bash this title so hard. It’s better than a lot of shooters I’ve played. Some guys made a video comparison of a demo and an actual game stating that the actual game is nothing like the trailer we’ve seen a year ago. It’s true, we’ve seen the Wii U trailer, not the PS3/Xbox/PC trailer. It was a Wii U trailer and you can find it on Nintendo’s YouTube channel where right in the beginning a short message is easy to notice: THIS TRAILER IS SHOT WITH 100% IN-GAME FOOTAGE. What I think is that we have now a port of a next-gen game that will kick even more ass on Wii U. If you like aliens and shooters, then go for it; the game is worth your money.
7.5/10
