Aliens : Colonial Marines

gizmo

Sarky wrote: »

How easily Daikatana is forgotten...

Indeed, Randy Pitchford never threatened to make me his bitch.

EDIT: Were it not for the connection to the fantastic movie franchise, I'd probably rate Ultima IX: Ascension as a bigger train wreck too.

pixelburp

Reading the article just serves as a thankful reminder of why I'm glad I don't work in the games industry. Couldn't imagine the levels of stress and pressure workers would be under to build & ship in ~9months

Kirby

pixelburp wrote: »

Reading the article just serves as a thankful reminder of why I'm glad I don't work in the games industry. Couldn't imagine the levels of stress and pressure workers would be under to build & ship in ~9months

I know it will sound a bit harsh but if you put yourself in that position to begin with, you can't complain. If you accept the money that goes with such contracts, you have to accept the deadlines too. I mean, SEGA bought the rights six years ago......Gearbox had long enough to complete the game and didn't. They chose to prioritize borderlands. They have to live with the good and the bad of that decision.

Plenty of developers complete games on schedule and plenty more don't even work by schedule.....it's done when it's done.

pixelburp

Kirby wrote: »

I know it will sound a bit harsh but if you put yourself in that position to begin with, you can't complain. If you accept the money that goes with such contracts, you have to accept the deadlines too. I mean, SEGA bought the rights six years ago......Gearbox had long enough to complete the game and didn't. They chose to prioritize borderlands. They have to live with the good and the bad of that decision.

Plenty of developers complete games on schedule and plenty more don't even work by schedule.....it's done when it's done.

Absolutely & I agree with all that, but all those decisions would have been taken by middle-high management in the studios; ultimately the graft, sweat & tears would have been the artists, coders, mappers etc - they'd be the ones I feel any sympathy for & the ones pulling the all-nighters. I'm always reminded of coworkers on a mod I contributed to years back & a couple of our texture artists disappeared because (it turned out) they were on 75-96 hour weeks at work :eek: It's a crazy industry

hooradiation

Kirby wrote: »

I know it will sound a bit harsh but if you put yourself in that position to begin with, you can't complain.

Sure you can.
Nobody sets out to make a bad game, nobody wakes up and goes "today i'm really going to do the least I can to make sure this game is extra shitty". Projects go wrong, it happens in every industry and yet we've got people in this very thread saying that everyone at gearbox should be "thrown out of the industry" for A:CM.

Nobody deserves that kind of shit, especially from such a crowd of spoiled manchildren.

It's not even like they're well compensated for the hours they do either....

super_furry

gizmo wrote: »

I'd probably rate Ultima IX: Ascension as a bigger train wreck too.

To this day I have never been as abjectly disappointed by a game.

degrassinoel

pixelburp wrote: »

Reading the article just serves as a thankful reminder of why I'm glad I don't work in the games industry. Couldn't imagine the levels of stress and pressure workers would be under to build & ship in ~9months

build and ship in 9 months? A:CM was in production for years!

edit: just seen the eurogamer article you're referring to, still shameful that after 6 years of development it boiled down to this sh1tpile

Mal-Adjusted

...and the long, rich tradition of movie licences games being ****e continues

super_furry

I think it's becoming clear that as a studio Gearbox are unable to make more than one game at a time. They pump everything they can into Borderlands at the cost of everything else on their books.

Angron

super_furry wrote: »

I think it's becoming clear that as a studio Gearbox are unable to make more than one game at a time. They pump everything they can into Borderlands at the cost of everything else on their books.

At least they managed to make Borderlands a great game (imo anyway).

Kirby

hooradiation wrote: »

Sure you can.
Nobody sets out to make a bad game, nobody wakes up and goes "today i'm really going to do the least I can to make sure this game is extra shitty". Projects go wrong, it happens in every industry and yet we've got people in this very thread saying that everyone at gearbox should be "thrown out of the industry" for A:CM.

Nobody deserves that kind of shit, especially from such a crowd of spoiled manchildren.

It's not even like they're well compensated for the hours they do either....

Gearbox were exceptionally well compensated. The company. "Think of the children!" arguments don't hold any water with me. You shouldn't give a company a pass just because some poor old programmer works long hours or is underpaid. Industry standards have nothing to do with this discussion.

It's about the game. And the game was poor. Because Gearbox decided to take Sega's money, not do any work on it and string them along. I'm sure they didn't intend to make a bad game as you said......but did they intend to put in much effort either? I'm thinking not.

Thats a decision they made and they deserve flack for it. Throw them out of the industry comments are silly obviously, but lets not make excuses here. You deserve praise from your triumphs in Borderlands. You have to take the stick when you get it wrong. One bad game isn't the end of the world but shoddy work needs to be outed.

gizmo

Kirby wrote: »

Gearbox were exceptionally well compensated. The company. "Think of the children!" arguments don't hold any water with me. You shouldn't give a company a pass just because some poor old programmer works long hours or is underpaid. Industry standards have nothing to do with this discussion.

They're two separate arguments though. For one, Gearbox wouldn't have been "exceptionally well compensated", no third party developer is generally speaking. They would have have been paid for the work they were doing on an on-going basis which they then used to pay Timegate via their sub-contracting deal and if there was additional funding left over, which I'd wager there was, they would have pumped that back into the Borderlands team. In the context of the final product they, as a company, deserve every bit of (valid) criticism being levelled at them for this approach.

Hoping they get "thrown out of the industry" doesn't just affect Gearbox as a company though, it affects their ~200 employees, the vast majority of whom were just working on what they were told. It's not really different to the people who wished EA would die/implode/fall apart. Is it fair to wish they made different business decisions and criticise them when they make poor ones? Of course it is. But is it fair to hope the company dies and ~10,000 people lose their jobs? All because some people don't like some of the products they make? Not a chance.

richymcdermott

my frustration lies with randy pitchford as he was the one that was talking about making a:cm the example o making movie titles done right.

they used sega money to fund borderlands and just shift off the game to timegate studios.

they knew what they were doing and while its not the developers fault i put my blame onto ceo of gearbox

gizmo

richymcdermott wrote: »

my frustration lies with randy pitchford as he was the one that was talking about making a:cm the example o making movie titles done right.

they used sega money to fund borderlands and just shift off the game to timegate studios.

they knew what they were doing and while its not the developers fault i put my blame onto ceo of gearbox

I most certainly agree. There was a video of him talking about the project awhile back and the guy appeared to be incredibly excited about getting a chance to work on the franchise. To then go and treat the project with such, from what I've read so far, disrespect, is incredibly disappointing.

whiterebel

I got this against 2 games I had in the GS deal. Its very frustrating as most people now realise. The graphics on the early part of the game, on the ship, as good. On arrival on the planet they go very bad. Good again for a lot of the game, and now I'm coming towards the end, rubbish again. The glitches are terrible and the AI appalling. BUT, you put on the surround sound, switch on the motion track and let rip with the Pulse rifle and its not as bad as I expected. I've played worse. The frustrating thing is; that it could have been so good. Developers should really be ashamed of themselves putting out substandard stuff like this.

Pixelbastardo

gizmo wrote: »

I most certainly agree. There was a video of him talking about the project awhile back and the guy appeared to be incredibly excited about getting a chance to work on the franchise. To then go and treat the project with such, from what I've read so far, disrespect, is incredibly disappointing.

More like multiple vids over the years of that dude talking up the game to the highest degree. Just about every video preview or dev vid drip fed to us had his bs ramblings..
iv followed this game pretty closely over the years, and the guy always talked it up, going on about how cool it was that they get the chance to make a "true sequel" to the aliens movie, and the guy genuinely came across as some sort of big aliens fan who was extremely excited to be working on the game, with it basically being an honor to get the chance to work on this sequel and all this BS.
his heart wasnt in it like he made out to be, his sweat and blood was being put into working on his baby borderlands ..

Alactric

Pixelbastardo wrote: »

More like multiple vids over the years of that dude talking up the game to the highest degree. Just about every video preview or dev vid drip fed to us had his bs ramblings..
iv followed this game pretty closely over the years, and the guy always talked it up, going on about how cool it was that they get the chance to make a "true sequel" to the aliens movie, and the guy genuinely came across as some sort of big aliens fan who was extremely excited to be working on the game, with it basically being an honor to get the chance to work on this sequel and all this BS.
his heart wasnt in it like he made out to be, his sweat and blood was being put into working on his baby borderlands ..

by "guy" you mean Randy Pitchford yeah?

Pixelbastardo

lol, yep

ShadowHearth

Randy Pitchford, should get an award of best bull****er in game industry.

He made me believe in to duke nuken and he made me believe in Alliens. He fooled me once, shame on him. Fooled me twice shame on me. Good things is I did not buy it. I will be super carefull with any game in the future with gear box tag on it.

Gunmonkey

Pixelbastardo wrote: »

More like multiple vids over the years of that dude talking up the game to the highest degree. Just about every video preview or dev vid drip fed to us had his bs ramblings..
iv followed this game pretty closely over the years, and the guy always talked it up, going on about how cool it was that they get the chance to make a "true sequel" to the aliens movie, and the guy genuinely came across as some sort of big aliens fan who was extremely excited to be working on the game, with it basically being an honor to get the chance to work on this sequel and all this BS.
his heart wasnt in it like he made out to be, his sweat and blood was being put into working on his baby borderlands ..

And from the sounds of it, a lot of the cash SEGA gave them to make Aliens:CM too.....

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Got this game last week, preordered it from Play.com but it was held in customs since they move to the Isle of Man and I was stung for 14 euro in customs. So a 50 euro PC here.

Played about 60 minutes. Couldn't be bothered playing any more. I have never played a FPS where the action of shooting was so numb. It looks very last gen also. Couldn't be bothered say any more about this steaming dung pile. Never in 25 years of gaming have I been so utterly disappointed with a game.

Kiith

Why is it so hard to make a good Aliens game? Xenomorphs for god sake...just copy the AvP/AvP2 style, and do it right already!!

/rant

ShadowHearth

Kiith wrote: »

Why is it so hard to make a good Aliens game? Xenomorphs for god sake...just copy the AvP/AvP2 style, and do it right already!!

/rant

AVP 2 was fantastic, specially marine and Allien campaign. I did not cared at all about predator.
I can't remember 100%, but wasn't the AVP2, where you would start as a crawler Allien, then tiny Allien, which just bursts out of somebody's chest and then play as full grown bad ass Allien? That was freaking awesome.
Marine campaign was fantastic too. You really felt like a candy wrapped in nicest party paper and with lovely card attached, which said: "have a nice snack!!! Or a skull keyring! "

stateofflux

Kiith wrote: »

Why is it so hard to make a good Aliens game? Xenomorphs for god sake...just copy the AvP/AvP2 style, and do it right already!!

/rant

AVP 2 was an amazing game...just all round brilliant and still stands up today. they should have brought valve back in for this one...they know how to do it right

Duggy747

Seems TimeGate have had to lay people off.

hooradiation

Kiith wrote: »

Why is it so hard to make a good Aliens game? Xenomorphs for god sake...just copy the AvP/AvP2 style, and do it right already!!

/rant

Gosh, well when you say it like that it does sound simple. Almost reductively so!

pixelburp

hooradiation wrote: »

Gosh, well when you say it like that it does sound simple. Almost reductively so!

Difficult to make any quality product in a 9month cycle, but the Aliens franchise isn't such an intangible quantity that you couldn't 'easily' make a decent Aliens game. Something like Alien Infestation on the DS showed that you don't have to excise any shooting to make an effective game.

hooradiation

pixelburp wrote: »

Difficult to make any quality product in a 9month cycle, but the Aliens franchise isn't such an intangible quantity that you couldn't 'easily' make a decent Aliens game.

And yet, here we are.

Which seems to show the inherent difficulty of making a good game, regardless of the the subject matter, than most people heckling from the peanut gallery would care to acknowledge.

tuxy

hooradiation wrote: »

Which seems to show the inherent difficulty of making a good game, regardless of the the subject matter, than most people heckling from the peanut gallery would care to acknowledge.

But this was rushed out in 9 months, no effort was put into it. If one of the major companies focused on making an Alien game for 2 years or so there is no reason why they could not make something of high quality.

hooradiation

tuxy wrote: »

But this was rushed out in 9 months, no effort was put into it. If one of the major companies focused on making an Alien game for 2 years or so there is no reason why they could not make something of high quality.

Oh, you mean like the 2010 Aliens vs. Predator game, right?