Summary [5.0 out of 10]

A sequel to James Cameron’s Aliens, which is apparently considered cannon, Aliens Colonial Marines is a first person shooter that takes place after the events of Alien 3 but retcons some of the events there. The player assumes the role of Marine Coporal Winter, a member of an investigation team on the USS Sephora sent to answer a distress call from the USS Sulaco that appears to have been sent by Corporal Dwayne Hicks. The Sulaco, last seen around Fury 161 is again orbiting LV 426 and is found to be infested with Xenomorphs. As Winter and his team investigate, they are set upon by Weyland-Yutani PMC troops and crash to the surface of LV 426. Using the destroyed settlement Hadley’s Hope the player interacts with several classic environments from both Alien and Aliens and comes across some new breeds of Xenomorph while uncovering a Waylan-Yutani conspiracy.

As much as I love the Alien series, I was pretty disappointed with what is offered here. The gameplay is decent but nothing particularly special and the action involved squanders its potential by offering a fairly standard shooting gallery type game as opposed to something more scary and intense. There is so much a game like this could do and while what it does isn’t terrible it also isn’t particularly noteworthy. Glitches and a bad checkpoint system do not do much to help matters. If you are REALLY into Aliens then you will find some things to like but it is not worth paying full price for.

What’s it like?

Aliens Arcade game: Back in the late 90’s there was a gun based arcade shooter based on Aliens that was pretty fun for what is was. There is only so much you can do with those sorts of games so having a constant stream of Xenomorphs and facehuggers  coming at you that you have to shoot is pretty fun. It is twitch gameplay and it used the license well. Colonial Marines feels a lot like that but whereas a short arcade experience is not meant to have much depth, the sort of game they are shooting for here is and sadly it does not. If you LOVE that kind of game then you may be happy with this but for my money, I was hoping for more.

Every FPS ever: If you have played any FPS games in your life then you will be familiar with how this plays. That is not a bad thing and it is set up competently but the thing that would keep this solid foundation from feeling boring and rote would be if it were applied to interesting material  that offers interesting things to do. Sadly, what we get is just basically every middle of the road shooter you’ve ever played. It isn’t terrible but it is nothing exciting either.

The Great:

Alien Property: Despite some cinematic missteps, I love the Alien movies and the world in which they take place. I am a fan of all of the aesthetics of it and the way the world is built. Playing a game in this world is really awesome for me as a fan. That is gives way to disappointment in what I am actually doing in that world is unfortunate but the best thing this game has going for it is that it allows you to spend time in that universe.

The Good:

Environments: Going hand in hand with the above, I really loved being in the environments from Aliens. It generally looks good and there is a little wish fulfillment involved in running around those familiar corridors shooting at Xenos. I would have rather the tone have been consistent within those environments but it was still fun to be there interacting with classic locations from the movies.

Voice Acting: In general, the voice acting is good. Having Michael Beihn and Lance Hendrickson return to voice Hicks and Bishop respectively helps this along. The rest of the voice work is pretty good and holds up well with the drama unfolding. Occasional hiccups crop up as some of the characters’ voices lack the gravitas necessary for the property but as a whole, the voice work is well done.

Collectibles and Tie ins: The game offers up some cool collectibles like dog tags for characters in the films, audio files that flesh out not just the story here but the story in the films and weapons from characters in Aliens. These are scattered around the world and can be fun to find but I also found them a little distracting as I found myself more motivated to collect this stuff than I did doing the  things the game wanted me to do. The weapons are pretty cool and offer unique versions of the standard weapons in the game and gives you a little more connection to the source material. Along the same lines, there are little details scattered around the environments that tie in with the films from the bottom half of Bishop in the loading bay to Newt’s doll in the sewer sections. These are cool to find and go further in creating the illusion that you are a part of the film series. I wish the overall game play had more in common with these elements as the whole experience would have been more engaging and compelling.

The So-So:

Story: With a story written by Battlestar Galactica alums Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, Colonial Marines’s story is a bit of a mixed bag. It is good as far as it goes but it makes some spurious moves near the end and spends too much time dealing with things the audience already knows to really be great. The material involving Weyland-Yutani is good and advances the series mythos well enough but you don’t really have much of a reason to care about Winter or any of the rest of the Sephora crew.  There are some cool and interesting turns but in general it does just enough to keep you interested in moving forward. Where it ultimately goes is kind of a let down and is more concerned with setting up another installment than it is delivering a satisfactory conclusion.

Graphics: Again, a mixed bag. The graphics here are pretty cool in terms of the environments and how everything looks around you but stumbles a bit in terms of cut scenes and character facial syncing  The xenomorphs look very good and the visual effects of weapons and explosions are impressive but the graphics never raise above good and sometimes drop as low as passable. There is a lot of potential for a great looking game here but you have to settle for just good most of the time.

The Bad:

Inconsistent Checkpoints: One of the more frustrating things in the game is the inconsistency of the checkpoints. There are a fair number of one hit kills or kill boxes set up by the WeyYu PMC forces and death often has the consequence of sending you back much farther than is strictly necessary. This makes hard to pass sections of the game even more tedious as you have to play through a lot of material just to take another shot at the thing that has you stymied. This is difficult to forgive in games that build up a lot of equity let alone one like this that is barely holding on to you.

Generic Gameplay: As mentioned previously, the gameplay here is very standard and does just enough to be competent. When the Weyland-Yutani PMCs show up the whole thing degenerates in the the most generic FPS possible. Weak AI does not help as you are forced to do things you have done time and time again with no nuance or flair and it is difficult to hold interest. There are some stealth sections that are nice and can make you feel gripped but when you understand the mechanics of those scenes they lose their danger, tension and potency. It becomes more of going through the same motions and the game bogs down in itself.

Multi-player: This could easily fit into the wasted potential category below but it needs its own point. There are a few options here and all of the competitive multi-player involves matches between Marines and Xenomorphs. This sounds like it would be pretty badass and there are some cool things that could be done with it but again the potential is squandered and you are left with an unbalanced mess. There is a progression system in place for upgrades but I found the experience far to frustrating to care terribly much. The Xenomorph controls are loose and imprecise and if there is any open ground whatsoever, you are completely screwed. If this had been implemented like the Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow versus mode then it could have been something fun and special. Instead we have a mode that is roughly as half assed as the rest of the game feels which isn’t that much of a surprise really it is just another disappointment.

Wasted Potential: This has to cover a lot of ground as I am using it as a catch all for a lot of issues. Particularly when it releases so close to a game like Dead Space 3, it is hard not to wonder what Gearbox was thinking by not making this more of an action based horror game. Sure it is kind of sketchy to penalize a game for not being what the reviewer thinks it should be and I would defer to that if what it was was good and compelling but given that it is generic and lifeless it is hard to argue for the approach taken. There is so much that could have been done here that would have improved the game like not making the Xenos so easy to cut down or not allowing the player to carry all the weapons all the time . Both of these things add to the shooting gallery feel and take away any sense of danger and tension. It is pretty hard to get tense when you have 8 guns at your disposal all the time. I have run out of ammo for particular guns but never all of them so there was never a time where I was unprepared at all. That a couple of shots drop a xenomorph like it was nothing makes it pretty impossible to worry about them. They have taken one of the scariest and most formidable alien creatures in movies and reduced them to cannon fodder and that is pretty sad. There is so much that could be done here it makes me really sad that the best they could think of was a generic FPS with a couple of alright ideas.

Glitches: There are tons of glitches here from screen tearing to character pop ins and that is absolutely unacceptable in the best of circumstances let alone when a game had as long of a development cycle as this one did. It is hard to buy into the narrative when you are talking to your companions who are right in front of you and then you turn to look a different way and they warp across the room to stand next a door or something. Likewise, it ruins the illusion quite a bit when you are walking down a corridor and there are gaps in the ceiling where you can see outer space. And no, these aren’t windows but rather tears in the environment. Not only is the game generic it is also sloppy and that is a real disappointment.

Conclusion [5.0 out of 10]

Aliens Colonial Marines is not a horrible game but it is not a particularly good or interesting one. After years of development, this game has no real excuse for turning out so sloppy and generic. It has a great license and occasionally uses that license well but more often than not it just kind of there. As much as I love Aliens and as much as I wanted this to be awesome, it just isn’t and I can’t recommend this unless you find it super cheap in a bargain bin. If you are seriously interested, I doubt it will take long to get there.