Aliens : Colonial Marines

pixelburp

Well there's a new trailer out, showing 'gameplay' - though they're all clearly scripted sequences. The game looks like it's not even trying to make the Xenos some kind of terror from the shadows. Just some random swarm. Blergh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiU57B1dfss

Kiith

Hmm, hard to say from that really. It was always going to be more Aliens then Alien. As long as the Xeno's are smart, it has at least some creepy bits, and is better than the last pos Alien game, i'll be happy.

gizmo

That latest trailer is just bits of gameplay from the previous trailers chopped up and edited into a different order. Still not boding well.

Nodferatu

how genuine is this?!

Andy!!

It's real, and old.

Zillah

pixelburp wrote: »

Well there's a new trailer out, showing 'gameplay' - though they're all clearly scripted sequences. The game looks like it's not even trying to make the Xenos some kind of terror from the shadows. Just some random swarm. Blergh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiU57B1dfss

Developer 1: I have a great idea! Let's do a scene where the character is falling backwards off a ledge and an alien is falling with him and he starts punching it in the face while they are falling and then he's all, like, "arghh, take this!" and he just shoots it in the face with a shotgun!

*stunned silence*

Developer 2: No, that's a retarded idea, we're not doing that.


^ How it plays out in my imagination. I also could not possibly think of a more cliched way to do a trailer. Bet the guy who suggested that whole fade in/fade out thing got a round of applause in that brainstorming session.

Zombrex

pixelburp wrote: »

The game looks like it's not even trying to make the Xenos some kind of terror from the shadows. Just some random swarm. Blergh.

In fairness it is an Aliens game, that is more in keeping with the movie which was an all out battle when ever the aliens turned up, not an Alien like creep about.

pixelburp

Zombrex wrote: »

In fairness it is an Aliens game, that is more in keeping with the movie which was an all out battle when ever the aliens turned up, not an Alien like creep about.

With respect, you actually watch the second movie? Because to me there's only one all-out battle & the marines get destroyed. The rest of the movie was a desperate clawing for survival amid a little posturing and backstabbing. This new game seems like it's just another generic shooter & looks far too like the recent Aliens vs. Predator...

hooradiation

pixelburp wrote: »

With respect, you actually watch the second movie? Because to me there's only one all-out battle & the marines get destroyed. The rest of the movie was a desperate clawing for survival amid a little posturing and backstabbing. This new game seems like it's just another generic shooter & looks far too like the recent Aliens vs. Predator...

I too am annoyed that they didn't take the opportunity to have one battle at the beginning of the game followed by several hours of doing not very much before running away.


the fools.

pixelburp

hooradiation wrote: »

I too am annoyed that they didn't take the opportunity to have one battle at the beginning of the game followed by several hours of doing not very much before running away.


the fools.

Not really the point I was making, but hey ho

SirLemonhead

You should be made play as Bishop and have to crawl through a pipe for 40 minutes...like in the movie :pac:

Beefy78

pixelburp wrote: »

With respect, you actually watch the second movie? Because to me there's only one all-out battle & the marines get destroyed. The rest of the movie was a desperate clawing for survival amid a little posturing and backstabbing. This new game seems like it's just another generic shooter & looks far too like the recent Aliens vs. Predator...

It's two all-out battles (the one at the start and the one in Operations/Medical). There's no creeping around in the shadows from the Aliens from the moment that one grabs Dietrich. It's Marines with big guns vs swarms of Aliens, exactly as this game looks like it is going to be.

Agricola

Beefy78 wrote: »

It's two all-out battles (the one at the start and the one in Operations/Medical). There's no creeping around in the shadows from the Aliens from the moment that one grabs Dietrich. It's Marines with big guns vs swarms of Aliens, exactly as this game looks like it is going to be.

Yes but the thing the film nailed and this game will probably lack (but I hope Im wrong) is the atmosphere and tension. Aliens is a great action film but the reason its head and shoulders above 100's of other action films is because it had buckets of tension. If this game is just going to have an overpowered player character whos running around murdering endless swarms of aliens, then they will have failed. They can have all the shooting in the world, but it needs to have some build up and failure needs to have consequences. I think all the film fans on here know how this game needs to play out and we are all worried it will be just a mindless run and gun fest with an Aliens logo on the front.

pixelburp

Beefy78 wrote: »

It's two all-out battles (the one at the start and the one in Operations/Medical). There's no creeping around in the shadows from the Aliens from the moment that one grabs Dietrich. It's Marines with big guns vs swarms of Aliens, exactly as this game looks like it is going to be.

Well tbh, I've already made my views on what I've seen of the game, so no point repeating myself: I think it looks like an opportunity lost & runs the risk of being a bland, cookie-cutter shooter with QTEs & and none of the dread the Aliens franchise could have. A good aliens game should have more than simply fanboy-nods towards the hoo-rah of the second film. As the poster above mentions, it needs a sense of tension, desperation & fsck-all ammo.

hooradiation

SirLemonhead wrote: »

You should be made play as Bishop and have to crawl through a pipe for 40 minutes...like in the movie :pac:

Play as newt and spend the entire game either sitting in ops, saluting Ripley or sleeping in the Medbay.
Extra bonus rounds include screaming for Ripley to come save you.

Beefy78

Then if you survive to the end the epilogue tells you that you drowned in your sleep straight afterwards anyway.

Unlucky.

weiland79

hooradiation wrote: »

Play as newt and spend the entire game either sitting in ops, saluting Ripley or sleeping in the Medbay.
Extra bonus rounds include screaming for Ripley to come save you.

Mostly....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsx2vdn7gpY

Grumpypants

The thing is this is a follow up to Aliens (almost Aliens 2.5) so i hope it doesn't get bogged down on trying to recreate any of the films and offers what it should be offering a new take on the Marines.

Their mission in Aliens was a simple act as protection in a search and rescue mission mission that went wrong. I hope that now you are sent on a number of different missions to different locations. Some search and rescue, some kill everything that moves because at the end of the day since when have Space Marines been about sneaking around hiding.

Either way it will be hard to live up to peoples expectations because of the length of time and from looking at this thread the varying thoughts on what the experience should be. Those that want a bad ass marine will be disappointed if its survival horror and those wanting survival horror will be let down if its a kill everything that moves game.

Fingers crossed its good as i've been waiting for this game since the first time i watched Aliens. I am delighted that Ridley Scott had some input so much so it got him thinking about finally making the prequel he has been talking about for years.

hooradiation

Grumpypants wrote: »

The thing is this is a follow up to Aliens (almost Aliens 2.5) so i hope it doesn't get bogged down on trying to recreate any of the films and offers what it should be offering a new take on the Marines.

Their mission in Aliens was a simple act as protection in a search and rescue mission mission that went wrong. I hope that now you are sent on a number of different missions to different locations. Some search and rescue, some kill everything that moves because at the end of the day since when have Space Marines been about sneaking around hiding.

I'm just amazed that people have been able to divine with such amazing accuracy the entire game experience from a trailer that's shows only a tiny fraction of the gameplay.

gizmo

Grumpypants wrote: »

Their mission in Aliens was a simple act as protection in a search and rescue mission mission that went wrong. I hope that now you are sent on a number of different missions to different locations. Some search and rescue, some kill everything that moves because at the end of the day since when have Space Marines been about sneaking around hiding.

When they're being hunted by a race of deadly xenomorphs with acid for blood?

More previews are being added today, keep an eye on this thread for more details...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j64Rckx2M9g

richymcdermott

mp looks dope , more avp without the p :P

http://ie.xbox360.ign.com/articles/122/1222250p1.html

Jonny7

Grumpypants wrote: »

Either way it will be hard to live up to peoples expectations because of the length of time and from looking at this thread the varying thoughts on what the experience should be. Those that want a bad ass marine will be disappointed if its survival horror and those wanting survival horror will be let down if its a kill everything that moves game.

Yeah but it could most likely be a bad implementation of either..

All the content is there for them, all the sounds already exist, the atmosphere is ready to recreate, all the characters, the style, the insight of previous failed attempts..

It should be brilliant.. there are no excuses at this stage.. yet I just don't have much faith.. for some reason (quietly hoping though)

SeantheMan

The AI character walking from 0:55 - 1:02 is awfully animated. Very robotic, turning directions immediately, not impressed at all.

Canis Lupus

Dunno if this is new or old material but http://www.gametrailers.com/video/brian-burleson-aliens-colonial/728757 just makes me think it's a bad CoD clone with Aliens skin. Looks dreadful.

God, I remember AvP2 had me twitching at every creak and anytime the motion sensor bleeped I'd crap myself never mind when the aliens themselves showed up. It melded tension and action superbly, something I'm not seeing here at all.

pixelburp

Just looking at the multiplayer videos, it sounds like another Aliens game that won't use the facehuggers as a gameplay mechanic. It was part of the SP campaign in AvP2 - can't remember if it was in the MP though - but I think with some clever balancing would really add to the excitement and tension of the game if the huggers were part of the maps

Agricola

It seems to me it will be very Dead Spacey. I hate QTE's and situations where control in taken away from you every 2 minutes in order to show a camera panning shot or some ****. It really looks like it will be as close to an on rails affair as you can get.

BlitzKrieg

pixelburp wrote: »

Well there's a new trailer out, showing 'gameplay' - though they're all clearly scripted sequences. The game looks like it's not even trying to make the Xenos some kind of terror from the shadows. Just some random swarm. Blergh.

are you the head of creative assembly?

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-04-06-the-creative-assembly-beating-the-brain-drain

The Creative Assembly travelled a twisting path to get a shot at Alien. Indeed, it was the unexpected success of Rebellion's decidedly lacklustre Aliens vs Predator that warmed Sega to the idea, so Heaton is acutely aware of the IP's uneven track record when it comes to video games. Indeed, he believes that CA has isolated the aspect of the iconic monster that so many developers have misunderstood.

"What people get wrong is where the Alien sits in the story," he says. "With the Alien games that have been delivered recently it's an angry dog - or, rather, the aliens are angry dogs. There are many, many of them and they kind of chase you down. But that's not the way I think of the alien at all, and there's definitely a different way of thinking about it. And it's not about firepower and guns."

"The Xenomorph is possibly the greatest movie monster; it's certainly up there in the top ten, and it needs to take centre stage. The way it operates in the world is super-interesting. It's not a wild animal; it's multi-faceted, and it comes across in the movies as quite intelligent. It has a full life-cycle. I don't think people have made enough of that."

This sounds to be the more interesting of the two games. Though Colonial Marines reception will naturally affect the CA developed entry.


Actually when looking at the two studios (gearbox, Creative Assembly) Its hard to pick out two pc originated development studios with a more colourful track record. They have some of the best games of the last ten years on their records but also some of the blandest.

BlitzKrieg

...and yes a Aliens RTS has been done (well AVP) and it was rather lacklustre. Though the mechanics for the aliens were actually really cool (your *resources* were people and cows etc)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuuVA-at3s8

and the record if there was *another* aliens RTS in the works, I'd lean more to having Relic make it then Creative Assembly.

BlitzKrieg

pixelburp wrote: »

Just looking at the multiplayer videos, it sounds like another Aliens game that won't use the facehuggers as a gameplay mechanic. It was part of the SP campaign in AvP2 - can't remember if it was in the MP though - but I think with some clever balancing would really add to the excitement and tension of the game if the huggers were part of the maps

You can turn on or off a feature in AVP2 multiplayer called alien life cycle which forced any player playing alien to spawn as a facehugger and needing to to one shot a human or pred player to spawn as their chosen class (cant remember exactly but I do think you can spawn as a predalien from a marine etc) There was also a mod that allowed you to play as the Queen which I think was patched into the game officially quite a long while after release.


Sadly alien life cycle was heavily unbalanced against the alien as it was far too easy for predators to boobytrap the bodies of those who got facehugged with mines and marines using flamethrowers. But it was still very satisfying to get through the full cycle as an alien.

It would need to be reworked either into a counterstrike like round mode (to stop respawns camping their bodies) or some other structure to stop griefing.

you can see it all here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziAYdwd5-BI

pixelburp

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-04-06-the-creative-assembly-beating-the-brain-drain

This sounds to be the more interesting of the two games. Though Colonial Marines reception will naturally affect the CA developed entry.

Actually when looking at the two studios (gearbox, Creative Assembly) Its hard to pick out two pc originated development studios with a more colourful track record. They have some of the best games of the last ten years on their records but also some of the blandest.

Has there been any details released about this other Aliens title - can't seem to find any myself, albeit with minimal searching on my part. The more I'm seeing of Colonial Marines, the more I'm turning off on the whole concept, so am curious if CA might have something a little more imaginative in line with the franchise.