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- Release Date: Feb 12, 2013
- Also On: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
User Score
Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 1086 Ratings
User score distribution:
Positive: 242 out of 1086
Mixed: 123 out of 1086
Negative: 721 out of 1086
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Feb 12, 2013I would rate the first part of the game below average, That part is set on a space ship, and this is where you encounter human enemies besides aliens. The main problem of the game is the DUMB AI. This ruins the fight with human enemies, but ultimately ruins every part of the game where you are teamed up with human npcs. Team mates get stuck frequently, they are left behind, stay in front of you at the wrong times (basically they are useless and annoying...I would rather go alone, than with a marine that is not good for anything...). The second part is set on LV-426 (Aliens took place here). I would rate this part of A:CM average, with some better than average parts. It was fun to encounter the sets of Aliens (especially if you love the universe of the movies). Here the game focuses on the aliens. There is also a mission where you need to rely on stealth (it was a highlight of the game, with creepy lighting and sounds). There are some tense moment in the game, but I never felt scared (There were some intense moments, but I felt the game is lacking tension). The movement of the enemies felt clunchy. This is probably due to the small and closed spaces where most encounters with aliens took place. Many time they are spawned behind the player or just running around. Weapon customisation was a nice addition. The story is average, while characters are very "two dimensional" (with many cheesy dialogues....). Overall the game felt like a generic shooter, set in the Aliens universe, which would deserve a better game than Aliens: Colonial Marines.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Campaign: Not worth to mention: Broken AI. Story is illogical garbge. It's running in circles and shoot aliens. Let's move to the Multiplayer: Matchmaking: No dedicated Servers. "Host leaved the game" every few minutes. Not much more to say Feeling: (Alien) Switching to the third person view may be a good descision for making gameplay more smooth, but the lack of proper animations and the fact that the alien moves like your put a stick up his and now pulling some strings absolutly ruins it. Feeling: (Marine)
It's ok. I'm missing some kind of distant radio. I had a guy with his micro not muted and i could hear the dampened gunfire while catching up with the group. It was actually pretty cool. Otherwise the game lacks a proper envoirement sound set. If you spawn after death somewhere you can't hear nothing. It's so peaceful, you may settle down and have a picnic with a nearby spitter. Also the guns feel somehow cheap, like made out of lego bricks. To be honest all the models feel like i bought a 14,99 Indie game.
The maps i played so far are uther rubbish. Sorry envoirement artist and level designers, but did you play your maps once? There's no tatic. It's just "find the best spot to sit on" and stay there and shooting the aliens coming from two directions. Forget vents, they're placed almost randomly without strategic purpose.
Season Pass:
You expect me to pay 30 bucks for you to maybe fix this, really?
There are some things cool about this game but it doesnt compensate the games overall cheap feeling and bad, bad, bad, BAD map design. Just my personal opinion on this.… Expand
This game is by far one of the worst of the year, and i can say that in all confidence even though it's only February. No atmosphere, the WORST textures I've ever seen, a majority of vents and small crawl spaces that aliens sometimes crawl out of and such are actually just black squares, not real vents. Such a poorly designed game it's almost impressive. No effort has been put into this game at all. Do not buy it, especially not for the ridiculously high price on steam. this game would be somewhat reasonable at 10 dollars, but even then, do not buy it. Aliens are too cumbersome to control, the tactical sights on weapons are strangely mis-aligned, the weapon firing sounds are laughable at best. avoid at all costs… Collapse
Feb 12, 2013After 7 hours of playing I will have to write now or never. Some may complain that I haven't given the game a chance. You know what? It's not going to get any more than these 7 hours out of me and in retrospect that's probably 2 or 3 hours more than this game deserves. A dull traipse through badly designed levels with "rent and idiot" characters and so little in the way of gameplay above "it moves shoot it" that it might as well be Quake with better graphics. The difference being of course, that every game must be taken in context, and of it's time Quake was innovative and excellent but that time was 17 years ago. I was temped to give this a zero just becasue I'm so cheesed off as a massive Aliens fan. Why buy the rights to an iconic franchise and do this? Why Gearbox WHY? I got nervous when they said they were removing the single player squad system to make the game "more accessible" (i.e at best "dumbed down" at worst "we couldn't be bothered or don't have the skill to implement a system like this") But this game is just so DULL. It doesn't crash, the graphics are ok the sound, though taken from 26 year old samples it seems, is very good but that's the best I can say about the game. The old samples used for gunfire polish up well considering how old they are. That really is the best I can say about this game. The gameplay is as generic as "Jenny Generic and her Generic Geriatrics" cut and paste gameplay that is soooooooo old. How could this game have taken more than 6 months to cobble together from exising gameplay mechnics with a new lick of GFX on top? Anyway I'll give it 1 out of 10 which is 2 (yes 2... I considered minus one but I couldn't push the slider back that far) more than I wanted to give it 10 minutes ago.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013The people who saw the first 2 movies should NOT play this game. A total disgrace to the amazing movies! I returned DS3 for this, but omg does this suck on PC. Apart from the sad fact that this is as always just a simple conosoleport, it really looks poor. The world is so damn empty..... I mean "tension" and ""suspense"? Where the hell is it? Very low textures, ugly game, way to easy and full of minor bugs as in they rushed this game out. Keep you money in your pocket, because this game is plain and stupid!… Expand
Feb 12, 2013A diamond in the rough is exactly what this game is. I think the development cycle was far too long for it. It came out with too many hands in it's honey pot I think. A few patches and the game will be golden. On the other hand, this game was definitely made for fans of Aliens (the second movie in the franchise.). As fans know, Aliens was the action oriented movie out of the franchise, and focused heavily on Hicks and his marines, and a lot less on scare's and horror movie tropes as Alien, Alien 3, and Alien: Resurrection did. As such, in ASM you take the role of a marine in a squad and similar to the film, you shoot your way through dark and dimly lit areas where aliens and other things are creeping around every corner. The graphics are a mixed bag, the Aliens models look fantastic, where as the marines look quite dated. Textures in areas range from muddy to acceptable. Lighting effects are fantastic, and sound effects and music are stellar and way above par and fit with the Aliens theme PERFECTLY. I love the sound of my pulse rifle going off. The plot is dull in the first mission, but picks up quickly and steadily gets better and better as it goes. Multiplayer is truly where it's at with this one, tons of fun to be had through co-op and various player vs player modes which i can see being filled out even more with DLC in the future. As i said though the game is a DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH, and is in need of a few good patches. Some animations in the game, especailly alien ones, seem janky and disorienting, i've seen aliens get stuck in terrain and obstacles, or face the wrong way at times. Other times they crawl across walls and ceilings to drop down on you from behind which is fantastic. All these issues can be easily fixed with a few patches. Though it is frustrating when the game has been in development for over 6 years and still has these issues. Though who knows how much development actually went on in those years? In the end, the game is fun. It's a love-note to fans of the movie and the series in general, and those of you who are big fans will take note of the lovingly re-created areas, sounds, weapons, and characters from those films. It is a must play for franchise fans. If you are expecting a super polished 200 million dollar budget title in the vein of Battlefield 3? You are going to be disappointed. If you enjoyed aliens, or enjoy varied and robust co op and multiplayer (Left 4 dead fans look within!) you will find a lot to enjoy here.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Quite frankly not good enough.
This feels more like a mod or total conversion than a game of it's own. Graphics are dated, animation and blood/acid effects are very poor, sounds effects are very nice but what we have here strikes me as overall unfinished, unpolished, rushed, underdone. You would have to love James Cameron's film A LOT for this title to be salvageable, and I do, and it isn't.
Feb 15, 2013Falsely Advertised with fake "Actual in-game footage"
-Terrible AI
-Terrible Story
-Very buggy Single Player and Multi-player
-No Dedicated servers so hosts constantly leaving
- Terrible Alien pathfinding when crawling around in MP getting stuck etc.
Pathetic attempt, even replaying the recent Aliens versus Predator by Rebellion which has better Graphics, Story and AI.
1/10 at most
Feb 12, 2013This is a subpar game. A disservice of the Aliens licence. WTF gearbox? Brain-dead AI, poor textures, boring corridor shooter. This game is candidate to Worst Game of the Year 2013.
Feb 13, 2013It's sad but I think the sounds were the only thing i enjoyed about the whole game. The Aliens were difficult to track if you lost them especially the face huggers. 80's iconic symbols always seem to get ruined when created now, so sad so much more potential tech wise and I feel like I wasted $67 dollars
Feb 13, 2013Single player wise, yeah, Colonial Marines is pretty bad. There's a lack of suspenseful atmosphere (except for one level), the AI is atrocious, acting is bad, and the storyline is worse. Hadley's Hope? Un-nuked, I guess. Whatever. Multiplayer is a better experience than single player, but suffers from some major issues. Marines level up from the campaign and multiplayer, while aliens can only level up from multiplayer. This means that pretty much right out of the chute marine teams have a gigantic advantage over the alien team. 6 hours after launch I was running into marines between level 10 and 23 with fully upgraded weapons, and today all my matches have consisted of max level marines vs. level 1 to 7 aliens. Customization options are far more in depth for marines, with aliens being limited to 3 heads and some slightly differently colored skins. Finally, there are no dedicated servers, and if the host leaves before the match is over, you are kicked and lose all your progress. So, bottom line, multiplayer is the only way this game can redeem itself, but even that has a long way to go.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013I wasn't sure what to expect with this game before release, I pre-ordered it, which is something that I rarely do, and desperately hoped that it wasn't ass. Usually I will wait for the game to be released, have a look at the general consensus of online opinion, and then buy the game if I feel it's worth it. But I'm glad I didn't wait, because my opinion of this game is very different from the consensus so far and in hindsight it would have been a shame to miss out on it. Graphically, the game is solid, if a little dated at times. There is some evidence of console-porting in that the items that matter (guns, creatures, characters) are highly detailed and look pretty damn good, but many incidental environmental textures, such as certain switches, signs, monitors are quite low-res, presumably to save memory usage. At first I was a little disappointed but it stopped bothering me very quickly as the overall atmosphere, look and feel of the game drew my attention. I hope that perhaps there will be a high-res pack for PC users released as there was for Crysis 2 and Skyrim, but even if there isn't, it still looks pretty awesome. The sound design is simply amazing, weapon and creature sounds, music, and almost everything else that you can think of is taken straight from the films, and serves to completely immerse the player in the world. The sound of a battle of Xenos vs. pulse rifle-wielding marines really got my heart racing many times. While the story leaves a bit to be desired, I didn't find that a hinderance to my enjoyment. The game was rather well paced, with moments of high-tension interspersed with action setpieces at complimentary intervals. I was constantly excited to see where we were going next, what locations we would discover, and frankly, I didn't want the game to end. Complimenting this are some spectacular moments, e.g. a space battle between two FTL ships, your first sight of Hadley's Hope as rain pelts you sideways and debris falls from the sky, the eerie silence of the ruined corridors when you first set foot inside the colony, and the enormous interior of the derelict ship. Lastly, the voice acting is full of emotion and truthfulness (the only exception I felt was, surprisingly, one of the original film's actors, who sounded rather dead a lot of the time). I found all this was enough to keep me eagerly moving through my 6-hour completion time of the campaign. Now if you are inclined to complain about the length of the campaign, I ask you to think of any of the modern CoD games, which all can be completed in 6 hours or less. I'm not implying that this is a virtue, but merely offering a comparison. For example, Modern Warfare 3 was repetitive, entirely derivative of its predecessors, and poorly paced with an overemphasis on mindnumbing and relentless action, and yet it gets 80% across the board and this gets 40%? Ridiculous. One more thing I'd like to mention is the MP. The MP aspect of the game is equally as rewarding as the single player campaign. It pits Aliens vs. Marines in alternating teams, in a number of nuanced, and varied locations. At first I felt that the teams were unbalanced, as I began as a Xenomorph and had trouble competing with a skilled group of marines hiding in a corner. But after a short while I came to see how deep and rewarding the combat system was Xenos must be cunning, finding ways to surprise Marines and force them to respawn whereupon they can be tracked down and taken on 1-on-1, while Marines must work together and cover each other, blocking each possible method of infiltration. The variety of Xeno classes allows varied tactical opportunities for the skilled player. Similarly, a strong sense of team-work and one eye on the motion-tracker is invaluable to a Marine. There are bugs, tow be sure the wall-climbing is not quite perfect, and my game locked up when I used the Lurker's pounce ability, but I have no doubt that a simple patch will fix that right up. All in all, I am loving this game. I can only imagine that the nay-sayers are playing on console, or held immense expectations. I however, found it to be as entertaining, and more immersive than I had anticipated, and the MP is truly enjoyable and compelling.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013What the hell happened? The AI was one of the worst AI I've ever seen. Many Aliens won't even come after you. Sometimes they look at you and walk around you. WALK.
Feb 12, 2013The first thing that you will notice after paying 60 bucks and booting this thing up is that it is possibly one of the ugliest modern shooters I have seen in a very long time. If you are a graphics enthusiest then this will make your eyeballs bleed. I have a fairly stout computer and was hoping for some meat on this thing, there is none. The first thing that came to mind (an after reading these reviews, many others as well) is Doom 3. and not the BFG edition. Some may argue that it is uglier. Its pretty bad. It is kind of fun though, but that is comming from a guy who is not a serious FPS player. I do enjoy cod series but if thats what you look for in all shooters, dont even come near this. But if you like shooters to a degree and are tired of the hardcore ones, and reminse about the days of return to wolfenstein and the like then this may be something to try. Not for 60 bucks though. 20 at the most. If you buy it now you will feel ripped. Being an aliens fan dosent hurt either but not being one will destroy any enjoyment you hope to have. The only reason it gets a 3 is cause of the alien thing. its not a bad shooter, just not a serious one, and a very very very very very ugly one. Its so ugly you will be floored. My jaw hit the ground.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013This game is triumphant only in it's massive failure to deliver any kind of satisfaction, or enjoyable experience. It's is glaringly obvious within just a few moments of starting, A:CM is a steaming pile of crap, cobbled together from various farmyard animals. It's almost a parody of what it is supposed to be, the bugs are so amusing, you spend more time frowning or laughing than flinching in terror, in what is supposed to be the supreme horror suspense franchise, from which all others stem. Just look at the critic reviews, who are often accused of being paid to give high scores, completely denounce this product as utter rubbish. The lies spewed forth by the aggressive marketing campaign only adds salt to the wound, a developer desperate to claw back some of the money they spent over the SIX YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT that this game had. Aliens: Colonial Marines has left me feeling disappointed, ripped off and angry. SHAME ON GEARBOX! SHAME ON YOU!!… Expand
Feb 13, 2013Crap game. Bought the hype that Gearbox would actually make a good game out of a much beloved franchise. AI is you can actually run through the whole game without fighting or taking on an alien. Check on youtube for the video for proof. This is a joke game. Not worth $60.00..save your money.
Feb 15, 20131) Atrocious AI; especially the aliens. They just make a beeline for you.
2) Dated graphics; unlike what was seen in the demos.
3) First level was great with a great atmosphere and build up. It stops there, at the first level.
4) "EPIC" boss battle.
5) This is related to the second point; there's absolutely no sense of dread or "feel". Flip switch, run and gun, flip switch, run and gun.
Feb 12, 2013Played it for 3 hours in 4 people coop mode on Ultimate Badass. 6 11 missions accomplished. What can I say? What I like:
- 4 people coop makes game a lot better. While not perfect, you have sort of cooperation and tactic while killing stuff.
- Sounds and music are not bad at all. Weapons, well-timed music and big booms are all there.
- Weapons. While there are basically 3 categories (rifles, shotguns and pistols), all of them have their own style and feel.
What I didn't like:
- Story. Story is meaningless. It doesn't make you care about key figures. Who was that guy over the radio? Who cares, let's move, aliens won't kill themselves.
- Aliens and enemy soldiers AI. Well, nothing much to say here they are just plain stupid. The only way they can attack you is by jumping straight at you. Oh, they can also just stand and watch you killing them (or just running around waving their claws). And yes, they die A LOT. Packs and packs run at you and you just shoot them in the face. No challenge. Easy as that.
- Level design is lackluster. Corridors over corridors, watered with boring cut-scenes, where developers try to make you care about characters around you. Nothing spectacular here, at least so far.
- Almost no challenge. Yes, we died several times during these 6 missions only because we were running straight ahead almost all the time, shooting stuff without any problems (I did check our difficulty level twice I still can't believe it is so easy to play on the Ultimate Badass), but nothing really challenging. Aliens die in a matter of seconds, almost without any effort from our part.
As it was said before, game feels like another generic FPS. There is nothing special about this title whatsoever. Is it fun? If you play it not alone maybe, but I can't imagine playing it myself all alone (I did finish 2 missions alone, by the way). And yes, graphic is not that terrible. Of course it is quite outdated, but not that bad as many people state. While not at Far Cry or Crysis level, it doesn't make you puke either.
Overall, 5.5 (maybe 6.0) out of 10 for me.… Expand
Feb 19, 2013Unless they redo all the AI and Fix the terrible story-line, i cant see this as being worth 40 dollars. I strongly urge you to wait and see if the price goes down to at least 20-30$, and even then not go out of your way to buy it.A huge disappointment to all of the aliens fans.
Feb 12, 2013Ok for a start this game has terrible AI and its very much noticed on Mission 2 the most(1 mission out of 11). The games Graphics are Fine..Omg the amount of people moaning about the damn graphics its sending me crazy.(GFX are about the same as COD on the PC).
I have have played upto Mission 6 and i'm super enjoying it for sure i can not see what the problem is. The multiplayer is truly fun (team Death-match and survivor). Marines play completely fine to me but the Aliens are very clunky BUT after a few hours you do start to get a hang of it (upgrades help alot with speed and power)
What im tryin to say is i cant see what the problem is with this game apart from Bad AI and OK graphics and a 7hour Single player. The reviews have been well to harsh i say. My score 6.8/10… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Enjoying myself fully after 3-4 missions in the cinematic single player part of this game. Not as scary as the earlier AvP games but a solid SP experience. So far my only real complaint is the scripted pauses where the tracker is not accessible. The unlocks and leveling feels well integrated and solid and adds more game within the game.
Good: gfx, sound, control
Not as good: Scripted, interrupting pauses, tracker feels a bit scripted… Expand
Feb 12, 2013This game is not bad i see that is better on the pc because the pc versions do not have problems whit graphic.The gameplay is ok you will get scared sometimes and if you play it on a harder difficulty the game gets harder and better.My biggest issue is the stupid friendly AI it is just stupid it lets the xenos kill you without helping but they still help sometimes.The game does not deserve 1 and 4 it deserves a 7 or a 6.6 out of 10 if you do not like aliens you will not like this game a lot but if you like aliens and you have friends that have time to play co-op whit you than thee game gets better.My final verdict is a 7/10… Expand
Feb 13, 2013There is not much to recommend about this game and zero reason to play it. Everything you've likely heard is true. The plot is bland and illogical, the aliens are neither scary or believable, the level design is so linear that they might as well have sat you in a theme park ride. The animations are so sub-par as to be beyond belief. This game would be embarrassing to a value software developer. For it to be developed by Gearbox (a supposedly triple A studio) based on a can't-lose sci-fi franchise.... This will surely ruin Gearbox's reputation, at very least.… Expand
Feb 13, 2013You know what the best parts of Alien Aliens were? The tension, the terror and the characters. None of which are present in this game. The poorly textured repetitive environments are a bore, where you'll always find the same poorly programmed Xenomorphs glitching around on the walls trying to feebly slash at you, or even atrocious gunfights against humans. It's a totally rinse and repeat formula after an hour or two, there's barely any variation whatsoever. However, there is actually one good stealthy level where you have no weapons and are completely vulnerable to wart-covered, husks of Xenos. There's also a relatively good level of authenticity for the spaceships and planets, even linking directly back to the films. I really don't know why, but even on the hardest difficulty the Xenos are just not terrifying enough. There's never a moment where you have to hurry and prepare and wait for them to come knocking at the door, it's just a random sprawl of enemies jumping on top of each other and slashing at friendly AI. I do think this is meant to be a horror game, not a military shooter, and this game leans more on the latter. You can carry EVERY gun you've unlocked at once, completely knocking out the immersion factor straight away. The story is all over the place with utterly dislikeable characters who you couldn't care less about. The low resolution PS2 cutscenes don't do them any justice either. Moments of intrigue and horror are blown out with moronic dialogue like imitating the Xenos, 'They were like, oh yeah, we're gonna blow up now! What the A lot of potential, wasted.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013I totally LOVE the Alien movies, and I think this game will recive a open heart from us. For the rest of you guys that Isn´t that in to the movies, I´m sure you will find a hard time with it. Sure, they got some stuff they could have tweeked here and there, bit I´m enjoying it, and that´s what counts.
Feb 13, 2013Oh my, I don't understand wave of hate for this game. The single-player campaign is mediocre I guess, if you playing on ultimate badass mode it's pretty hard, and tense, but I've expected more. And there are bugs, lots of them, poor graphics, AI, clipping issue and so on, nothing game breaking though.
For SP I would give 6/10. But here comes the meat which is MULTIPLAYER!
Hell yeah, multi is GREAT! It's one of very few games that requires actually thinking and strategy! When you rush marines up front you will die! Fast. Maybe that is the reason for many raged cod-kids for their 0/10 reviews, because they can't win in this game. But there are also flaws in MP like lack of dedicated servers and no host migration. So for awesome MP I'm rating this game as 8/10! Since day 1 GBX is patching this game, so there's hope for bugs being ironed out soon!
PS: Hunting in pack as aliens for piss-scared marines is badass!… Expand
Feb 13, 2013Lazy game which rides the title to monetary gain rather than putting forward anything worth playing. So many times while playing this I could see broken textures on hallways, those bright blue lines you are seeing on the floor are not lights, people, they are the edges of the textures. The in lifts you can see through the world into the sky-box (and see the planets below), it is a lazy lazy game. Not only that, it is boring, dreadfully so, even the co-op has my friends and I laughing at how awful the AI is, even on the hardest difficultly, it is a lazy game with lazy writing, coding, and development. I'm not sure if Gearbox actually made this, or outsourced it to somewhere, it really makes me question and further purchases of their production.… Expand
Feb 13, 2013Seriously Gearbox? After the excellent Borderlands 2 I thought, it can't be wrong to pre-order another game produced by Gearbox. I was proven wrong. One thing I have learned for sure after this game release disaster: I will NEVER NEVER NEVER ever pre-order a game anymore!
Feb 13, 2013I am a big fan of alien movies. And even tough game has alien in its title i think they could use something else instead of aliens. aliens dont die with 1 shot of shotgun and thats at hardened diffuculty) and they dont act like they are high on drugs, they dont wander around you meaninglessy while u have the time to watch them and wonder what are those bugs doing around running above your head at ceiling. I waited intentionally for them to kill me but they just attack once and than go back wondering around. The enemy ai is terrible, but whats even worse is friendly ai, friendly ai can just watch you die and do nothing at all, also u can easily understand if u are going to get in trouble or not, thanks to obvious scripting. If you see your teammates staying behind or running forward very fast and away from you make sure you get ready because you are about to get attacked.
Another thing is the scan sound of motion tracker, whenever an enemy spawns you hear it bleeping, even tough u arent holding the tracker so all you have to do is to look around when you hear the sound. So overall Ai and scripting the scan sound is terrible.
Now those are big issues but it is not enough to give game a big 0 especially when it carries alien title. In real life you can see aroun 120-130 degrees around you. This means you can see your right 45 and left 45 with ease. In this game you cant see it, you have to turn right or left to see your 45. You have around 60 degree of view. So you have to turn right left crazy to see where the aliens are coming. This creates a very bad gameplay feeling, not because it makes the game harder but because it makes game play uncomfortable.
The graphics are ugly and i play the game with my high end pc at 1600-1200 with everything on at max using a 40 inch samsung led tv. The atmosphere the darkness of screen is well adjusted but light effects, animations just dont give you the alien feeling.
Overall i wasnt waiting much from this game, but i wasnt aware of the gameplay videos at e 2011 and e2012 either. In those demos graphic are actually great and aliens die with at least 5 6 shots of shotgun which is the way it should be. Anyhow the game promised and the game delivered are so different and this creates another negative impression. I could give a 3 maybe 4 to this game but fooling around with e 2011 and 2012 videos arent cool there goes your ZERO.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Well they ruined another aliens games. After AVP2010 I thought I had surely seen the worst. NOPE. They somehow managed to spend 6 years making a terrible game on par with bargain bin trash from 6 years ago. With an IP this great I don't understand how it's so consistently hard for these morons to make a decent or great game. Hell, they could update AVP1999 with a modern engine and it'd be 100 times better than A:CM or AVP2010. Somehow they've regressed in 14 years. The AVP1999 had environmentally deformed explosions. What does this have? Hit markers, non-location based damage, and clunky, BORING gameplay. Good job gearbox, you've managed to make a surprisingly bad game.
As far as all those people rating it 10, or higher than 3 or 4 at the most, they're just self-deluding individuals suffering from a bad case of buyer's remorse. Denial is part of their coping mechanism. Over time they too will progress to anger at how crappy this game turned out.… Expand
Feb 13, 2013This game is actually worse than Duke Nukem Forever, which has set a new standard for LOW.
Where to begin?
There is no atmosphere. If you enter a room with an AI team-mate, that team-mate sticks close to you until one or more aliens appear (scripted). Once there are no more aliens that need to be confronted, the AI runs all the way to a waypoint (near a door or something), thus, the thrill of not knowing if an alien will attack is gone.
Shooting through your team-mates as if they weren't there.
The aliens pretty much ignoring any of your team-mates, to the point of going past them, or THROUGH them, in order to get to you.
Aliens literally going through platforms, as if they weren't there.
No interaction, for example early in the game, in the passageway between two ships or whatever, the passageway breaks and you have to climb your way up to one of your team-mates who extends his arm for you to grab and pull up. All fine and dandy, except that this whole scene is a movie. I would have liked to press forward or SOMETHING, to interact, to feel like I'm struggling, like I'm pulling myself up, like I'm saving my ass, not sit in my chair like a cow and watch a stupid movie. (Yeah, cows don't sit in chairs, but with this game so forked-up, I can't even begin to describe the frustration it sets out).
The in-game cinematics are a joke, such visual low quality. The voice acting could also do better, but I'm willing to say they're relatively ok.
The animations have clearly not been finished. All the humans move like robots. There is no feeling in this game anywhere, starting from the aliens and finishing with your team-mates.
There is also a sequence where you have to hand over to one of your team-mates a clipboard or something. If you don't stay in front of him and watch him from an angle, you will see that he extends his arm into mid air, a clipboard will magically appear in his arm and he will put it in his pocket. WTF?!??! Seriously!?!?
This game is in pre-alpha stage, just a concept demo. NOTHING is finished, everything is bugged, it lacks any feeling of anything, except frustration that it could have been a LOT better, in every perspective.
I'm sure I've missed a LOT of other shi(tt)y things, but I'm already tired and this game doesn't deserve the pushing of the keyboard buttons, even to say how ridiculously lousy it is.
Avoid at any cost. If you've already paid for it, see if you can get your money back.
Now I'm seriously considering ever buying a game from this publisher ever again.
Apart from making money because it has the "Alien" word in it, and for the pre-orders, this game is the worst, nobody in its right mind would buy it after seeing the reviews.
Even if the publishers hurried publishing it because of the deadline (though the smarter thing they should have done was to postpone it), thinking they would come out with patches, fixing what is wrong or missing from the game, the game is so far off from being finished, I would think they need another 5 more years just to polish it here and there. Forshame publishers, forshame!… Expand
Feb 12, 2013There are so many problems with this game that it's not even funny. The story is so bad it's good, there are parts of the levels that are so unpolished it's embarrassing and there's too much time shooting other humans rather than hunting bugs. As a single player game, it's a dead loss. If you stop to examine it, it's really stupid on many levels.
If you want an Aliens game, as a Marine, no Predators around, you and your mates shooting aliens for about seven hours, it's okay. I mean it's not brilliant but it's a fun, reasonably challenging cooperative shooter and there aren't many of those around for the PC. I enjoyed the coop campaign in ACM more than I enjoyed my first play-through of Left 4 Dead or the Syndicate coop missions and it had a much smoother process to set it up than the latter.
It's a long way from polished but I think it offers something that is all too rare on PC, a solid coop first person shooter experience. I got seven hours out of it, which isn't much for a full price game, but they were seven good hours, so I don't think it's that bad. Wouldn't recommend getting it except on sale though really. But just to reiterate, it's only saving feature is the coop, it does that well enough to be worth a dip into a bargain bin.… Expand
Feb 15, 2013A disgrace to the Alien movies and an unfinished turd of a game. Screw you, Gearbox! This POS is barely worth $10, let alone $50. You've got some nerve trying to get garbage like this past us and I won't even GLANCE at a product with your name on it again.
Feb 20, 2013After playing the game 40 hours, and having played video games for many years, I have to conclude the professional reviewers were either being paid to trash this game by another publisher, expectations too high, or just burned out from their job of playing games all the time. From this day forward I will take anything they say with a grain of salt. I would have missed a really fun and very "Aliens" experience if I listened to them. As for the people who give it zero's etc., the days of pirating new titles is over, get used to it. If your a fan of Aliens, don't miss this game.… Expand
Feb 13, 2013Terrible 2005 era graphics, underwhelming audio, bad dialogue, bugged, uninspiring, unpolished and barely any atmosphere. A review embargo until release day got me wondering what was wrong, and now I know. This is the first game in years where I have true buyers remorse. I want my pre-order money back.
Feb 12, 2013The game is simply amazing, no idea why it get rated this bad, Not tested the multiplayer yet, however the campaign is simply an alien experience. If you are a fan of the saga you may appreciate it, if you are not, this may not be the game you are looking for, however. the fact that you can coop with your friends make the game simply better (for higher difficulties) IA may seems bugged sometimes for lower difficulty, on higher the aliens are simply relentless, as they are meant to be. the story is amazing btw, surely who ever say otherwise is a Alien: resurrection fan :P… Expand
Feb 13, 2013After laying multiplayer some more and get some more control of the alien im adding 3 points to this game review it will even go to an 8 if most problems will be adressed and when there will be new (usefull) content.
At first it was horrible now its just a game that just lacks love from the developers.
Alien controlls still are clunky but manageable.
Campaign is quite the generic walk down a hallway and shoot stuff but gets you special guns.
AI is just silly voice acting could be good only its to repetetive and should change during the campaign levels.
Graphics are okay its not bad and it isnt marvelous either.
server browsing should be added it is one of the things that keeps multiplayer alive.
Servers should be able to migrate host to counter abrupt game endings and need to search a new game again.
marine weapons feel alright altough a little overpowered in escape mode (my opinion).
weird friendly fire system no damage from bullets but explosions do so it should be changed to on or off.
Overall fun to play online, campaign could be fun on hardest dificulty.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013I'm the sort of Aliens fan that corrects the quotes of other Aliens fans. If you're after "the latest game" whose graphics have 13% more zing than your last latest game, your review will probably use harsh language. If you want another glorious day in the Corps, you came to the right place. You don't have to be an AvP marine on some dumbassed mining planet or a forest anymore, you get to step onto the Sulaco and creep through the remains of Hadley's Hope.
The writing does a good job of making the pieces fit (eg why the Sulaco is back over LV-426), but opts for an in media res approach instead of building the tension. I expected to stumble out of cryo and into a training tutorial (hell, I even hoped for cornbread), but instead you get a quick cutscene and find yourself at the airlock with your pulse rifle and shotgun. Your first xeno is a scant five minutes away, and I wasn't sure if your marine knew what they were beforehand or not.
The biggest complaints I heard have been (with my response):
1) Graphics not up to par: Yeah, I guess if picking over graphics is your thing. If you've been fighting xenos since Aliens Doom, they're fine. Around the level of the last AvP.
2) Squad AI is bad: They take cover, flank and they don't hang around waiting for you to take the lead. Haven't had a problem with them getting stuck or anything.
3) Guns are inaccurate: No, actually they feel more real. Play ArmA sometime.
4) Alien AI is bad: Yes, the one you are shooting at is running right at you. But y'know how right after that you fought another one point blank? Well, it wasn't. And I love how they sometimes stop and hiss.
5) It's too easy: If only they developed some kind of game mechanism where you could make it more difficult...
All in all, a fun romp. Doesn't live up to the "canonical sequel" tag. But honestly, how could it?… Expand
Feb 12, 2013I guess people needs to be less fan-boys. Yes this game isn't the same as previous games, it's more like action game. Graphics are good, really not bad. So I don't get some people saying that graphics are outdated. AI? I don't know... I didn't encountered stupid AI, but I'm playing on bad ass difficulty, so maybe there's no time for them to act stupid, because they kill me in one or two hits. This game is not bad and it didn't disappointed me.… Expand
Feb 16, 2013This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Overall, this was a fun game. In fact, I'm going to play it a second time on a harder difficulty because I enjoyed it so much. I do have a few "issues" with the game though... Firstly the default PC controls are poorly assigned... Push "V" for melee combat... seriously!? Melee is meant to be quick and swift, I had to constantly look down at my keyboard to find the "V" key when an alien pounced on me. Also, making "F" key the alternate fire key... seriously!? I feel like the mouse should handle all the weapon controls. Primary fire is left click, secondary fire can be right-click, or middle-click. Not pushing "F" on the keyboard... That's like having to reach down and push a button on your Hip to make your gun launch a grenade. Just doesn't make sense... So anyways, I reassigned it so that left-click was primary-fire, middle-click was alt-fire, right click was melee-attack, "F" was flashlight. The game was much better from that point on.
The next thing I noticed was a somewhat buggy AI... From time to time, I would see enemies running into walls or not moving at all while I shoot them. The "co-op" AI was also somewhat dumb, just standing getting shot in many cases... But I can look past some of it... Being a developer myself, I understand that building a good AI is super difficult.
Lastly, the end Boss battle... SPOILER ALERT... The end boss battle was LAME! You run around, push 5 buttons, and its over... Never using any weapons... Seriously? All these weapons i've been upgrading, and customizing, and I dont get to use any of them for the final battle? Not even a couple times? Nope... You literally run around a room, avoiding the queen, while you push 5 buttons, that eventually eject her from the ship... Pretty lame... You dont even get to use the Power Loader suit. In fact, you only get to use the Power Loader suit ONCE in the entire game... Why go through all the effort to have the Power Loader when you only use it once... and its a crappy battle when you do use it... I feel like they could have done more with the Power Loader and the Final Battle. At least involved using your weapons somehow.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Is Aliens: CE a great game? Not even kinda. However, if you were to ask me if it were a bad game...well then the answer is no, not really. In my opinion, the honest truth is that Aliens: CE is just an average game with an Aliens brand, and perhaps that's why it's being trashed. So lets examine the game's faults right away. First and foremost, the graphics are mediocre to downright bad. I've run the game on max settings and I'd be a colossal liar if I said it compared to the other 2013 titles. The dated look instantly made me think of Duke Nukem Forever. Up second is the AI, which isn't too bright either. Under the most ideal circumstances, there was one or two times where the Aliens made a maneuver that I didn't expect, but sadly the majority seemed content to just rush you from different angles. Granted, I myself could get past these issues fairly easily, but what really keeps me from loving Aliens: CE is the single-player campaign, which considering its title as a true canonical sequel, should be one of the most important aspects. Instead, single-player quickly becomes a shooting gallery of great set-pieces brought down by average fight sequences. Furthermore, the campaign is just too easy for any terror or tension to really emerge. I myself played on the Hardened difficulty, where the enemy could three-shot-kill-me, as it should be, but the dull AI and never ending discharge of bullets wrecks the atmosphere. That said, the campaign isn't a total miss, there are plenty of homages and tributes to the film, as well as some decent setpieces, but ultimately the atmosphere these things are trying to create just never really happens. Finally, several technical bugs have been reported in the game, though I myself have not run into any of these, it certainly isn't doing the game any favors.
And yet, Aliens: CE isn't a total loss, which is why I'm so reluctant to be complacent with a 4.5 average score. As said before, the environments and game entities have some tender love and care, and are accurate recreations of the sets from the films. At times the game is absolutely brimming with fan service, such as collecting weaponry used by the cast of the Aliens movie, or scouring the game for secrets and achievements named after movie events. All the iconic weaponry handles well enough (minus the half-baked cover system), and some of the action sequences started to make me feel like a bad-ass. Multiplayer, assuming it doesn't die in the next few weeks, was actually quite a satisfying experience and is where the game really shines. A good variety of modes, a solid mix of weapons, and some great tactics that only emerge when humans are at the wheel instead of AI's gives a pleasant glimpse into what the game should have been. In the rounds I played it was enjoyable to see xeno players find ways to lure and trick opponents, while marine players would develop strategies for staying safe and well protected. The multiplayer is also packed with customization options to fine-tune your playstyle with gun accessories, perks, armors, and plenty of cosmetics for both humans and aliens.
After six years in development, its understandably depressing that your patience has been rewarded with rather unremarkable sci-fi horror corridor shooter that sometimes grasps for greatness, and oftentimes falls flat on its face. And yet despite all the flaws, there's just enough gory, acidic goodness in the game to give me hope that an amazing aliens video game is not quite as impossible as it might seem.… Expand
Feb 13, 2013This game is not fundamentally broken (with the possible exception of the AI) but it doesn't feel like it's a finished product either. It doesn't capture the feel of the Aliens movie, it looks dated and it's short and not very interesting. In no way does it live up to the marketing and hype around it.
Feb 12, 2013Great, Great did I say Great GAME! Don't believe the retarded GameSpot review this game is amazing, yes there are a few textures in the game that don't look perfect but thats the only legitimate complaint and you don't grade a game just based on that. I am loving this game and the tension is has, it reminds me of the fear I felt while playing Dead Space 1 and 2 and the aliens are cool as They look great and the game-play is amazing while staying honest to the movies and the genre. I definitely recommend this game if you ever enjoyed any of the Aliens movies, or any of the Dead Space games.… Expand
Feb 13, 2013When I first tried this game, I was appalled by how bad it was. All the hype and promises lead up to this pile of useless garbage? How can this even happen with a 50$ game, it's mind-boggling. It is so bad, unpolished, buggy, cliche... just thinking about it makes me nervous. The graphics are very dated, it's like the developers didn't even care. The textures look like they've been taken from a 2007 game on medium settings. Animations made me want to gouge my eyes out, the way a limping man just glides over the terrain? Aliens who just die into a stiff ragdoll? The way their wounds are just yellow blood textures on the models? Concerning the gameplay, it is nothing but another lame, generic FPS that is exciting for about the first two encounters. It is the same old s**t, clear a room, move on. Hold the button to weld a door. Rapidly press the button to punch an alien and stun it(ridiculous). Multiplayer? Oh look, suicide bomber aliens. How original. The story, you won't even care for. All the shock value of aliens, chestbursters etc. is gone for any fan of the franchise. It is slightly unsettling for the first 5 minutes before your first alien encounter, when you go back to seeing them as cannon fodder that walks up to you and slashes the air, cause that's how they attack, if they don't pounce on you and initiate the same quicktime event for the millionth time. I had that exact quicktime event 3 times during my first encounter with an alien. AvP 3 Marine campaign has better atmosphere than this worthless trash, which says enough. With all things taken into account, this insult to the franchise deserves nothing but a 0.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013As a fan of the Aliens films, I was hoping for the best, but I got Colonial Marines. Not to to say this isn't a great game, I love it. Sure it has its faults, but those can be fixed with patches, such as the multilayer lag, and Campaign glitches. Obviously this series meant a lot to Gearbox, because if you actually look there are an insane amount references to the "Aliens" film. I look past the short comings this game has and see a game that, hopefully in future updates will get the TLC it needs. I give Aliens a 10 out of 10, for the effort Gearbox had put it, and for their ambitious goal they set for themselves they just quite missed. Not to mention, the Ultimate Bad-Ass difficulty adds a bit more to game play.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013I don't get it, people are freaking out over graphics, and AI, and all that. It wasn't advertised to be graphically impressive, or insanely great AI. It was advertised to be an Aliens game and that's what it is. I mean if you want to have OP multilayer with Predators vs Aliens vs Marines, play AVP. If not, and you want a game that lets you have your dream of being a Colonial Marine on LV-426, then this is for you. Oh, and on the glitches and bugs, and other things, yes they'll probably be handled in updates. Then to fix the campaign, and multilayer it will probably be DLC, so if you can stick with it, grin and bear it, and all that jazz just a while longer you might just get those extra few things you were looking for in this game.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013I don't know why there is so much hate surrounding this game....for what it is I had fun and enjoyed it thoroughly. It's just a simple scripted corridor shooter. If you wanted borderlands with aliens then yeah you'll be disappointed. I thought it was great!
Feb 16, 2013One of the weakest shooters in recent memory. I have a hard time thinking of anything good to say about this game. In spite of how archaic the visuals are (easily below offerings that are nearly a decade old, such as Doom 3, Far Cry and Half-Life 2 to name a few), graphics are far from the biggest problem with this game. Anemic, popgun-like shooting, bland levels, lack of challenge and a plethora of bugs are far more pressing concerns. I would not recommend this title, not even to hardcore fans of the Aliens franchise. There's nothing to see here, even as pure fanservice it falls flat. It's not worth enduring Colonial Marines' below average gameplay to experience this "canon" continuation of the series, as you'll probably also end up disappointed by the retcons and sophomoric writing.
Strong candidate for worst game of 2013 and we're only in February.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Oh how I wanted to love this game. The campaign for the most part is a soulless, standard FPS with wildly inaccurate guns which make trying to kill mercenaries in cover a chore. The low res textures make the game look dated, attempts are generating atmosphere are a bit hit and miss, the dialogue is nothing special, and the multi-player is a guilty pleasure, but I got to the point where all I wanted to do was play the xenomorphs and got bored whenever I was forced to play as the marines. Leaping around the arenas and crawling across ceilings and walls is mighty good fun, but often the game can't understand exactly what you're doing due to the complex nature of the terrain and your character will start doing donuts a wall or something. At least I managed to pick it up fairly cheap. Meh.… Expand
Feb 15, 2013Second review... campaign is complete crap.. multiplayer is fun at first but there isn't enough variety.. found out there were things not in the game that were suppose to be...
As a whole it's still not worth $50, more like $15
Feb 12, 2013havent played the sp campaign much but the multiplayer has a lot of potential. MP just needs a little bit of tweaking on matchmaking and lag compensation. Host does have a distinct advantage in regards to hit boxes actually registering shots. overall the balance between aliens and marines is very good, neither class feels overpowered. Definitely more fun than black ops 2... not really saying much but what else are you gonna play?… Expand
Feb 15, 2013The absolute worst game of 2013 so far. The single player is 5 HOURS, FIVE MO******CKING HOURS AND IT IS BORING, REPETITIVE AND PREDICTABLE. The characters are forgettable. The story is forgettable. The AI is they stop and wait for you and forgets that there is Xenomorphs around. And my biggest complain is that you fight Weyland-Yutani soldiers INSTEAD OF XENOMORPHS WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY DO THAT!? THIS IS AN ALIENS GAME! Ok so the story is you are a guy named Winter and you are on a spaceship when it gets attacked by xenomorphs then you find out that guess who is behind it? That is right Weyland-Yutani then the spaceship crashes on the planet then find Hadley's Hope after that the story is BULL****!… Expand
Feb 18, 2013What can I say? Gearhoax studio, I mean, Gearbox studio and Sega took a crap and voila! ACM was born! It took them 6 years and this is the turd we get. Just dig around the net and you'll see why nearly 95% of all reviews say it's absolute garbage. Screw you Randy Pitchford (and Sega), screw you!
Apr 28, 2013Very late, I know.. But let me tell you.
I pre-ordered this game on Steam. All the videos and reviews I heard of this game were pointing to one direction. That this game was going to be great! And with a fairly decent company developing it, Gearbox, I had little to worry about. Boy, was I wrong.
The Aliens in this game are dumb, static and predictable. They always charged for you, nobody else and it was always in the same direction. I know there is only so much you can do with A.Is.. But the A.Is from Aliens vs Predator in 2010 where WAY better!
I was very frustrated with this first encounter with enemy soldiers.. It felt like I was playing a poorly constructed, wannabe CoD game. It just didn't feel right running into them so soon.
I'm extremely disappointed with the graphics and the removal of the first scene where you should have ran into the Alien Queen like they showed in their Reveal demo!
The first Boss battle was really dumb too.. Getting into a power loader and smacking at this weird, Brute like Alien.. I died many times on Normal. It wasn't Challenging.. it was buggy and frustrating.
NEVER! EVER! Outsource any part of your game to another company. That is down right stupid and only comes to bite you back in the ass! The blame is on Gearbox and Sega for rushing the game and trying to place the blame on smaller, more innocent developer companies that are less experienced. Trying to kill competition huh?… Expand
Feb 13, 2013The people writing negative reviews for this game must be paid to write as negative as possible. The sound and music in this game are straight from the movies and the scenarios and environments are very well constructed and as detailed as possible to jive with the movie on which the game is based. In direct contrast to some of the other negative reviews, I have noticed no AI bugs and the game is very challenging on the very challenging difficulties, as it is meant to be. The aI for the Aliens in particular during the campaign is notable in that they are phenomenally good at flanking you based on where your field of vision is. The progression of unlocking weapons and upgrades ties directly into the multiplayer, meaning your experience with using them in the single player first transfers over right away.… Expand
Feb 13, 2013GOOD -Up to 4 player co-op -Xeno 3rd person perspective -Interesting multi-player modes -level up system for xenos -Customization of your guns BAD -Graphics are a bit rough -Alien AI is sketchy -More action less atmosphere in single player -Overall Polish -No dedicated servers? -It lets you carry too many weapons -Limited online functions (eg cannot search a game by ping) Matchmaking only
-No real feeling of terror in single player, multi player can make you fear the aliens though playing as a marine.
I don't think any parts of it are terrible (pc version) but there are plenty of things which could be improved. Which is why it was panned so bad I think, it being Alien franchise it has a lot to live up to. It being in development for 6 years is a joke really.
I would describe the game as a pick up and play decent budget game.… Expand
Feb 14, 2013Sure, the game isn't breaking new ground, and it would have benefited from a tactical shooter approach rather than a straight FPS, but it's still enjoyable, particularly if you're a fan of the source material. Multiplayer modes are quite fun if played with friends and other fans, and headphones with surround sound make a big difference in atmosphere. It could certainly use some polish, but unlike many higher-rated games, the story is at least more engaging. Expectations were very high with the game, so it's no wonder it's getting trashed. Setting up friends-only games was a breeze, and we had no trouble with drop-in/drop outs. Our friendly AI were pretty helpful, actually, and the aliens were persistent and varied in their attack vectors, though the Weyland Yutani troops were a little too quick to leave cover in search of a better angle. Other than that....
We've been enjoying it. That's my two cents.… Expand
Feb 13, 2013Yes, this game is arguably underwhelming from the expectations that everybody had set for it but then, what did you expect? The game has spent 7 years in development accumulating hype from a fan-base in what I call the Duke Nukem Effect. The game spent a good portion of it's development indefinitely postponed, and when it came to fixing it up, there really hadn't been 7 years of development put into it. Maybe two at most.
However, this doesn't mean it's a bad game. Sure, the AI is a little dumb and the graphics are mediocre, but then games with similarly poor graphics never really receive the abuse that this has. Campaign wise, yes, the story is... way off for an Aliens game, but that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable if you forget the game's relation to its source material.
There are also loads of little references to the film that are nice for fans, and the atmosphere is quite well done the lighting in this is excellent, as is the fact that you can see your own feet and shadow really adds to the immersion.
A:CM is not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but if they can sort out the AI, it'll at least be respectable. It deserves more than it got, but less than the game should've achieved.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Is it GOTY material? no.. is it better than Farcry 3? no.. is it a decent satisfying game experience set in the ALIENS universe? yes.
The hate-fest is silly and doesn't reflect reality at all. its a 7/10 game, no less and no more.
Feb 16, 2013The game is crap. - Kicking in steel doors, diving through the of a marine dropship that an Alien Queen cant even get through - Aliens that either rush right at you or stand motionless - Aliens that rush up to you, strike once, then idle - Weyland Yutani mercenaries by the boatload. Seriously, forget the Aliens. This game is about killing people. - Acid Blood doesn't hurt - Unless it's specifically chosen as a weapon, in which case it mystically hurts
- Remember the first sign Alien 4: Resurrection would suck? The alien in a glass cage that lets you see every orifice? This game does it too! WITH EVERY VARIANT, including the ones not yet seen.
- Xeno variants that couldn't have possibly been bred. What? Why are they spitting acid? How did a facehugger impregnate a rhinoceros?!
- Graphics suck, unlike the graphics they sold preorders on.
- Duke Nukem Forever made an Aliens game worse. I mean are you for ****ing real?
- Fire extinguishers react to your fire. By disappearing.
- a chestburster farm in a lab... with 0 containment for the chestbursters. What do you do with xeno infested humans? Mercy kill. Nope, not these ones. They're made of iron.
- Every single ongoing Weyland experiment fails catastrophically as soon as you look at it.
- Oh a captive queen. How quaint. Oh look, she suddenly figured out how to break free. She's smashing the glass to get at me! Uh oh, she broke through the glass! Phew, she gave up.
- Aliens for the most part cannot transition surfaces while climbing. No clue why. If you want to get onto the ceiling, you need an app for that. Oh sorry, I meant a 'perk'.
- controls randomly invert when climbing as an alien. Yes, ALL of them. Because wall movement wasn't hard enough.
- Xeno pounces have a wonderful 5% chance of failing, leaving your lurker pinning down a marine until either the match ends or another player comes along and either kills you or steals your kill.
- Claymore mines can be dropped instantly, and while in the midst of another animation. Lurker just pinned you and about to chew off your face? No problem. RETROACTIVE CLAYMORE!
- You can also sit on your claymores, because strangely they just don't hurt humies.
- Challenge order. Bizarre. Three challenge types, one of each on offer at any given time. Usually the hardest ones straight at the beginning.
- There's a mission where PMC's and Weyland techs run from your team despite superior numbers. They escape through doors in the side of the ship. Looking out a window you notice they are doors directly to space.
- Super weapon backpack. You have access to something like 16 weapons and 4 tacticals and thousands of rounds plus secondary rounds on you at all times. D&D did it first!
- There are 9 multiplayer maps split between 4 game modes. On many of the maps, you could smell an opponents fart on the opposite end.
- Mapping orbs! "Look, we can Prometheus, too!" exclaims Randy Prichford with a piggish squeal. "ugh" exclaims you, whose quite sick of the half-assed 'nods' without any obvious love for the material.
- PRE RENDERED cut scenes! WOW! Why did developers stop doing this? I mean, the gamer was never immersed in the first place so you don't have to worry about that jarring transition, the 12 frames per second of the video is TOTALLY unnoticeable if you pack in enough ACTION!!!, and frankly, We miss running a server-farm for weeks to render this junk.
Ok. I'm out of obvious things. You guys take it from here.… Expand
Feb 15, 2013I'm not going to write a long review, all I have to say about this horrid pile of steaming crab has been said before.
False marketing, bait and switch. Everyone involved should have their companies and assets seized.
Feb 12, 2013Don't believe the trolls, the game is good. I have been playing it for hours. It looks very nice. I play it on a 50" tv at max with a gtx 680..The co op is a lot of fun as well. i took HD screenshots in steam to disprove the lairs calling ti ugly.. Believe me, they are liars.. The co op and the multiplayer is fun. Gearbox is already on DAY 1 patching issues.. Who gives that kind of support? No one.. I am having a blast and if you don't buy it I feel sorry for ya.. Because you let troll cry babies ruing a good game for you. I don't trust meta critic anymore.. Their reviewers are mostly just trolls now a days it seems.. Crying constantly in every forum they can find as if it will save their life.. The game is good.. I like it.. Period..… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Well this is a game i have been waiting for a long time. And, truth be told, it's not great. First of all, the grafics are "ok" on the pc version. Not great, but ok. But they are not the problem with this game. First, the campaign is just bad. From the first 10 minutes into the game, it felt really wrong. If this is suppose, to be a direct and legit sequel to aliens, well... It sucks. The characters are all forgetable. I cared for none of them. NONE. They are a generic copy and paste from old school action game characters with no personality. If you liked Hudson, Hicks Vasq, drake, ect... None of the marines in this game come even close to them. You just DON'T CARE!!! The story was meh, the missions on the Sulaco were forgetable, but it gets better once you get to Hadley's hope. And the ending is just terrible. The campain is just 5 hours long give or take. Now... some of you might not care about the story. You just want the atmosphere and tensions from the movie right? Did gearbox pull it off? Well... To be fair, sound is good, music is accurate and yes Hadley's hope is very detailed and looks very accurate to the movie. But here is the thing where GBX messed up... And it's no small issue. The ALIENS... My god... the Aliens! They walk and move around like retards, they don't scare you, they just pop at you in (badly)scripted events. Think it stops there? I am just getting started... The AI is... It's..... I can't describe it. But Half-life 1 had a better AI then this piece of crap. Yes. HL 1, a game that came out YEARS ago, did better. ALIENS ARE RETARDS in this game. And don't think that they get smarter at higher difficulty setting... They don't, they just hit you harder. Like the motion tracker? don't bother using it! Aliens just pop in front you and try to give you a hug. What happened to the most feared monster in the galaxy? They just run at you like retarded zombies. I never felt ANY tension during the campain. (Well, except the stealth level, the only good moment in the campain). The AI is by far the kiss of death of this game. This migh just be a zombie game, it wouldn't make any difference. Co-op is a welcome addition and will definitly spice-up the experience. Provided that you set the difficulty level up, as the game dosen't scale according to the number of players in co-op. Multiplayer is probably the only enjoyable part of this game. Escape mode is fun to play as a marine as FINALLY you are facing Xenos with BRAINS. The motion tracker is usefull again. So yes it's fun and i can see myself playing it for some time... BUT........ playing as a xeno is... HORRIBLE! Wall climbing is by far the worst in ANY alien game i have seen so far. IT'S USELESS! You can't aim properly and perform attacks while you are on the wall. This is THE important part of being an alien, BEING ABLE TO ATTACK FROM ANY ANGLE!!!!! Why choose to make a 3rd person view to avoid people getting sick while wall climbing if wall climbing is broken in the first place? Screw the multiple alien races, an alien that can't climb on the wall properly is a dead alien. In short, they got the alien COMPLETLY wrong. Both in the Campain (Bad AI) and the multiplayer (Wall climbing+ attack is not much of an option). I used to have a lot of trust in gearbox games. But Duke Nukem forever, and now THIS! You have the greatest franchise of all TIME to toy with and this is what you DO with it? I swear, GBX needs to pull itself together.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013I played for five minutes which would normally not count as enough, though this might be the exception. i would have given this a 6-isch if it was 2006 now, but its 2013 and its been in developement since 2006, when i first saw this game i thought finally someone would make a kickass game, but it runs like and my comp is great. i wouldnt recommend anyone to buy this, MP might be fun but its so worthlessly done it doesnt deserve your time and money!… Expand
Feb 13, 2013It is important to remember when placing a numerical score on a game that, naturally, it must sit below better offerings in the entertainment spectrum. But it should be rated better then the crud this product out shines. In that regar, remember the movie Last Action Hero?
That movie Sucked! This game is way better then that movie. It isn't good, but it's better then that crap.
Feb 23, 2013I am a huge aliens fan, especially with the demo being shown which looked amazing, that alone made me want to get this but sadly you don't get anything that the demo shown sadly. The quality of the textures especially in some places like the truck in the 3rd level was dumbass designing 101. For gearbox to present themselves with this product is so bad and with the devs blaming each other doesn't help the franchise and IP. The AI is terrible and sadly the only time personally, I find a good AI is in ultimate badass which is the highest level. If you do play at a lower difficulty, prepare for bad AI and the characters stories and how they act are the worse and don't even expect good facial or quality character models.
Although this is negatives, there are some positives Drop in, Drop out works, Some of the levels were enjoyable especially the 5th one in but the main positive is the Modding community actually modding so fast to allow it to look better than what it is. Sadly the devs have been so unresponsive, the modders came in and actually made it look better which is a positive which is why i feel bad for console who can't get these mods....
The story which i won't go into strongly is badly written, badly executed and not good especially within many of the levels.... however there are the occasional good point throughout but its not at all AAA.
However it isn't the best, it is enjoyable to a point and playing a lot of games its not the worst... sadly that still goes to Orion: Dino Crisis and WarZ but sadly this game doesn't show the IP and Gearbox in a good way at all... and i feel bad for sega for allowing gearbox to design this Crap.
Shame on you gearbox!
Shame on you Randy Pitchford!… Expand
Feb 12, 2013A fun game I enjoyed my time with it and the coop is solid however the inescapable fact is that the campaign was only 3-4 hours long which is just unacceptable from a full price game. I do not pay £40 for a well dressed up teaser trailer for DLC it's a despicable trend and is utterly pathetic.
Feb 13, 2013After playing A:CM for about 4 hours. I can honestly say that I enjoyed it. I like the game. Its rather fun. Not the best Aliens game, but they have all had flaws. The Graphics are not the best and the AI for both aliens and friendly npc is wonky most of the time. But I enjoyed the atmosphere created by the lighting, sounds. and the levels. I'm playing on "Ultimate Bad-Ass" difficulty so I have no HUD at all. I jumped into some 4 player coop and had a really good time. Lots of aliens from all directions, one player on the motion tracker calling out locations and distances. Felt like Hudson in the movie. "We got movement, Can't lock in..." Granted its not the game I think we were all hoping for. Nor does it live up to the hype or what Gearbox promised. But it was fun. Not worth $60, more of a $30 budget title I think. Play it in co-op with a bunch of serious adult gamers and you will have fun. Role-play it up and it will be a blast, especially in "Bad-Ass" mode. You will have to use team work and share the ammo and health. Adds more tension to the game.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Pretty solid if you're a fan of the series. It's basically just a fan service game layered over a mediocre cover shooter. But it's not that bad, and it has Steamworks integration, co-op, and some novel multiplayer modes. I wouldn't drop $50 on it, but it's easily worth $20 or so.
Sound is dead on for rifles, xenos, etc. Voice acting is good.
Environment/atmosphere. They really captured the visuals from Aliens 2.
Steamwork integration party system.
FoV slider unlike many ports brought to PC.
Limited graphical options, relatively poor quality for a 2013 release.
Occasional animation bugs.
Extremely stupid AI (both friendly and hostile)
Most exciting moments are scripted.
Very easy even on hardest difficulty. ("Ultimate Badass" is about where normal should have been.)… Expand
Feb 13, 2013ok i just arived to hopefully stop your about this game ...
1. I didnt even played it because im a sick guy waiting for the dlc that is comming (if you guy's are blind then its not their fault ...)
2. I played all AVP titles AND watched the movie's the worst i played was by far the multiplayer of the new AVP wich lagged but that was the fault of those stupid jerks at our Zensoring buisness (im from germany THX YOU BASTARDS FOR ZENSORING ALL GAMES YOU COME ACROSS!)
And now the real deal:
I will play and like this game the way it is you simply forgot what a game is about not story not undyeing chars not even graphics its about fun. And what i saw (in playthroughs of this game at least) was quiet a fun Alien killing game wich has nothing to do with the movie's where a pulse rifle and its 99 shot magazin is just enogh to kill 2 or maybe 3 of the xenomorphs not to mention the sub spezies of them wich are in the game. If you want a 1 to 1 movie remake then mod it! thats what this game should be about: if you dont like something MAKE IT BETTER!
I will play it and i will like it thats for shure but dont DARE YOU to write negative things about a game just released when your just stupid or the borredness hits you cause you dont have fun with games anymore! (this too is for the stupid so called BIG REVIEW SITES/MAGAZINS I HATE YOU BECAUSE ALL YOU CAN DO IS TOO! your humans and you put people in charge of games who dont even like them!)
Thats all from me so far and i on grama or the right spelling you still can understand me if not it further prove's that there are many childs out there that dont deserve the title of GAMER!
I WRITE THE WAY I ON THE NET NOT THE WAY I DO IN REAL LIVE CAUSE THIS ISNT REAL LIVE!… Expand
Feb 13, 2013Thoroughly enjoyed this game and can imagine myself playing it for a few months to come.
Take this game on its own merit and ignore a few flaws and you're bound to get dragged into the atmosphere of the game.
But truthfully was any title going to live up to the mighty aliens movie? this could have been the best game ever released but a combination of a long waiting time and being part of one of the most successful movie franchises ever, this game was never going to start any fires no matter who developed it.… Expand
Feb 13, 20132003 AI сложности).
Не AlienBreed 20го DeadSpace1-2 высер!
Feb 19, 2013DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. It's the worst game in terms of gameplay that I've played in the last several years. If you're going to buy this game, wait a few months for it to plummet in price. I'm sure Valve will be selling it for pennies on the dollar soon enough. I've waited for this game for years, preordered based on the demos, and was really looking forward to it. What was released was a subpar shooter, with below average graphics and terrible netcode. The horror aspect? It really struck me as I realized my friends and I had spend $150 on this game.
I am so irritated about the 3 hours of gameplay in this game and the awful multiplayer that I'm not going to be buying either Gearbox or Sony for a while.… Expand
Feb 14, 2013What a genuinely awful game in a series of awful games. An iconic franchise that is so simply transplanted to FPS meets mostly awful development time and time again. Expectations were pretty low coming in. I would have been happy if this long incubated title was 'Mediocre'. It's offensively bad, and that is not hyperbole. It is offensive on every level. Rebellion must be rolling with laughter right now after their middling AvP got raked across the coals. As far as finger pointing goes, the consistent iron in the fire is Fox Interactive. Flushing their franchise down the toilet in every medium possible..… Expand
Feb 13, 2013O jogo foi feito exatamente para quem fã da quadrilogia do filme Alien! O jogo tem gráficos excelentes e não fica pesado na máquina. Tem modo multiplayer coop e PvP. Quem fala que o jogo tem uma campanha sem sentido ou reclama por não ter servidor dedicado ou por qualquer outra coisa, não sabe o que está falando ou simplesmente está acostumado com jogos de outros gêneros e cai no erro de ficar comparando um jogo com outro. Não comparem o Aliens Colonial Marines com outros jogos, os criadores do jogo fizeram um bom trabalho e estão de parabéns. Joguei toda a campanha em menos de 12 horas e não encontrei bugs, problemas ou defeitos durante o game. Vale a pena comprar. Mais uma vez, PARABÉNS AOS DESENVOLVEDORES!!!… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Horrible game from start to finish. From gfx to animation to sound to AI(artificial idiots) to pacing...everything is below average or broken. Gearbox has balls to ask full retail price and then more for "DLC's". Seriously only buy this game if you're an idiot like me who throws money anything that has Aliens in it....or steam has it for $10 or less sometime in the future. AvP 2010 is way better game than this junk. I will officially ignore all games that has "gearbox" written on it...thanks for screwing up DNF...and now Aliens.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Immense yourself in the world of Marines vs Aliens. Living in the Alien film genre this is most likely the only thing going for the game. A typical linear first person shooter with not much to offer other than a survival story line. The game features poor AI on both allies and enemies alike, weapons feel mediocre and not much use changing from the pulse rifle. Graphic detail of the game is pretty sub-par for its retail price. Easily finished from start to end in one sit through. For fans of the Alien films, its worth the play-through just to learn more of the lore and see some familiar faces but not for the retail price, wait for this title to hit the bargain bin which i can imagine it will soon be heading to.… Expand
Feb 14, 2013If your an Aliens fan like me then AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS!!! The story is so pathetically put together that it doesn't even have an explanation that links this game to the movies. It's like no research went into making it in the first place! The characters are so uninteresting and their AI is incredibly DUMB. The aliens AI is so stupid that it basically runs at you straight past the dumb NPC who is closer! Aliens even get stuck doing what they 're good at, clinging to walls! The level design is appalling! It's like a CoD game where you keep pushig forward. The graphics are so, soo, sooo dated! Even the collisions aren't working, with aliens running right through NPCs and bullets impacting on, well nothing! Coop is a joke! Other players somehow mysteriously teleport in from nowhere and have no idea what they should be doing, except shooting. Multiplayer is probably the only thing that is good about this game, but even that is flawed. No dedicated servers, imbalanced matchmaking system and in the right hands an alien can be OP because they can see through walls! From Borderlands 2 to this? Gearbox, You need to shift up to 6th because this is unacceptable!!… Expand
Feb 16, 2013"100% gameplay" demo shown in E3 expo was a lie. Look at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z2qVebxlUo
Other than that Poor AI, Jarring atmosphere and cliche story gives it a 4
Feb 12, 2013The campaign doesn't have the most cinematic quality nor does it's story seem genuinely riveting. It suffers from poor facial animations and has some low rez graphics but it is still a lovingly crafted Aliens game which is telling in it's set design, accurate to the movies and it's enemy AI and animation. NPCs are underdeveloped but this still has some of the best Alien animation, AI and avatars I've seen in any official game from the franchise. The bravado of the marines may seem distasteful or unrelated to the franchise at first but for real die-hard fans of the movie it's quite humorous and almost self-referential. The guns in this game are well crafted, compared to previous AVP outings, and feature the original sounds as well as a ton of customization.
The multiplayer looks promising, being based on asymmetrical games Like L4D and allows you the opportunity to play as a Xeno in 3rd person.… Expand
Feb 18, 2013Aliens: Colonial Marines for PC is such a fraud. This is is clearly not worth 50 euros for many reasons. The most important reason is that it is a boring game. Yes, the sets are cool in some way, but not for a 2013 game, where it should be much more creative and engaging. The single player campaign is so boring and so boring that I stopped playing after 1 hour, more or less. Obviously I did not buy the game. The internet must serve for something in that regard. Whenever I like a game, I sure buy it, but this time I am not going to. Even if this game cost 20 euros, I would not buy it. I would give 10 euros for it, and that is a lot of money for this game. I feel revolted to see that this game has a price of 49.99 euros when it is obviously worth no more than 10 euros. I know the company in charge of production took years to build it, but that is not how the game should get its worth from. First the producers must have real players test it and give their sentence about price and other things, and I am sure they did that, so why they are charging so much more? I tell you why, because when clients see a game for a good and high price, they are more likely to buy it and not research about it, so the company makes a lot of money in the first week, and in the next ones, when the heat is off, when all criticizers publish their critics, clients start realizing the game is BS.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013Short review; If you want a generic run n' gun game that just happens to be set in the aliens universe, then this is the game for you. If you however want a suspensful scary gloomy game that will bring you back to Aliens (the first movie) fear levels Then this is not the game for you. PC graphics, while not stellar, is survivable. Gearbox has paid attention to detail when it comes to recreating Hadleys Hope as it was in the movie, but everything else is lackluster, 5/10 from me.… Expand
Feb 13, 2013OK. so I've played the first 3 or 4 missions of Aliens: Colonial Marines and I love it!!! The enemy A.I. can sometimes be a bit thick and I've seen some small glitches that maybe a brand new game should not have. The Aliens in multiplayer are extremely hard to use and will need a lot of practice before I can get more than 2 kills. The marines are awesome and have access to full customization. The weapons sound like they are straight from the movie and you can play as Hudson, Hicks, Apone and Drake, who all have the original voice talent from the movie. I think it's awesome and anyone who loves the Alien franchise would be able to overlook the odd glitch and the odd dodgy choice of cover by the A.I.. I think it was well worth the money. I am a big fan of Aliens and to be able to explore locations from the movie is awesome. Don't listen to these negative reviews, It's brilliant.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013If you compare the final game to the gameplay they showed at E3 im almost convinced that this is just plain robbery ."Some called Duke Nukem Forever the worst FPS ever. That angered me and I wanted to prove them wrong." Gearbox CEO on why they made Aliens
Feb 16, 2013PC Version. Graphics looks much much better than console version. Sometimes there are very nice lighting and shadows. Story is good, First time since 1986 we can play proper story in this franchise, Most of all I like multiplayer It is much better than AVP2010, it has nice dynamic and tension, many upgrades and other combination stuff, you can build your own soldier and xenomorph, and it is much better than Natural Selection 2 also, not boring( to me NS2 became boring very soon), it has nice graphics, many ways to play it, in the begining you must uprade your xenos to make them stronger, because they are rather weak on first level. Well if you are fan of Aliens and also wanna play better multiplayer than AVP2010 and Natural Selection 2. This is the game for you.… Expand
Mar 2, 2013first i would like to say im an aliens fan so i might be bias. The campaign gives you a really good look at the scenes from the movie that fans will remember well even the hole in the ground where Hudson is captured (later found cocooned on the wall) is there so top marks for paying attention to the movie. that said the plot storyline is overall lacking and not convincing and the teammate AI is clunky they don't seem to do much at all. as for the feel of the game gave me a few good frights with aliens jumping out of the dark and facehuggers jumping from shelves's kept me on the edge of my seat. On to multiplayer player hosted servers are a pain but once you get a good group of players you can play for hours with out dropouts the push to talk option should be default on this would eliminate a lot of hassles players game sound coming through their mic. that lack of alien tutorial and single player campaign make for a frustrating first few rounds but once a few upgrades are unlocked i would go as far as to say one of the most fun multiplayer games i have played. having unlocked all the upgrades the multiplayer becomes much more intense the maps are ok some favor aliens and some marines but using the right tactics you can win with both marines and aliens. all in all im giving this game a 9 because it really did give the feel that i was in the movie and to be honest the other franchise fps haven't done any thing to better this as an experience.… Expand
Mar 8, 2013Hmm, poor gameplay, an intensive marketing campaign, a useless fat bastard as a CEO. yep, we have all been utterly scammed. People should post his home address on youtube. I seriously hope this scamming scumbag and his front company get everything he so richly deserves. I could go on to describe what this game has done to encourage piracy or damage the gaming industry etc etc. I will simply put it this way. To the development and publishing community. If you want to develop a revenue stream based upon sustainable growth. This is an example of how not to do it. Make sure this idiot and his company are relegated to the unemployment poverty stricken hell they so richly deserve.… Expand
Feb 14, 2013Can't believe the quality of this game. I played it for a few hours and I couldn't believe the bugs (no pun intended) littered everywhere. After realising how bad it is I found out that the Alpha gameplay demo is in fact a far superior version to the actual game. It actually looks like a different game. I have been scammed out of my money along with many many other supporters of this game. I loved Borderlands 1 2 and I had absolute faith that Gearbox could deliver. But this just isn't the case. If there is a game to avoid this year, then Aliens: Colonial Marines is the top contender. I wouldn't even get this out of the bargain bin, and if you are a big ALIENS fan. Then I would stay a nuclear bomb radius away from this game.… Expand
Mar 24, 2013Aliens: Colonial Marines is a sign of what the gaming industry has degraded to: pure utter Not only does this so-called 'sequel' to Aliens takes a big piece of dump on the Alien film canon, it also demonstrates how deceitful the industry can be and how easily it is for gamers to fall for its web of lies. Not only does A:CM not have any of the graphical power seen in the 2011 E3 demo nor the interesting level designs, the entire game is essentially half broken. Enemy AI is ludicrously dumb and glitchy, the friendly AI is almost broken with some of the worst pathfinding Ive seen in literally years. The plot itself starts off well and actually has some interesting aspects to it throughout the middle but after a few levels, it just falls to pieces, as if they ran out of time and had to add in a horrible, poor-executed climax and conclusion. For fans of the franchise, you will be hooked by its generic xeno-killing gameplay but this excitement only lasts as long as your love for using the Pulse Rifle. There's a wide range of weapons but in all honesty, you'll probably only use 2-3 of them. Thankfully, the Smart-Gun and Pulse Rifles have been well designed and executed with their familiar sounds and impact (though the recoil for the Pulse Rifle is a big ridiculous). Another positive is the inclusion of legendary guns from the second film including Vasquez's Smartgun, Hudon's Pulse Rifle, Norman's Pistol etc. The NPC's you meet are generic as hell and have the worst lines (though the voice-acting is solid). The game cutscenes are poorly rendered and overall, the engine has a 2005 look with excessive lighting and poor textures. Multiplayer-wise, it holds up well but ultimately, compared Natural Selection 2, its inferior. Co-op just feels tacted on and is fun for a few levels for at the end of the day, its probably one of the worst implemented with player warping and a lack of Co-op features. Aliens: Colonial Marines is a total letdown and my biggest disappointment of a game since Mass Effect 3 last year. They have recently released a new patch that does enhance the AI and graphics as well as a solid Bug Hunt DLC but all in all its like adding extra icing and fresh seasoning to a chocolate cake gone bad: too little, too late. Unless you're a big Aliens nut like myself, than avoid A:CM at all costs. Its Game Over all right. Game Over.… Expand
Feb 18, 2013Visuals are weak, getting better on LV-426, but still bad. It's not about the graphics, it's the atmosphere. And it doesn't feel like an Aliens related game at all. Aliens are weak and they seem to be missing ragdoll physics whatsoever. They get stuck inside walls and they melt like if they were vampires. Stormtroopers attack was a surprise, silencers on pulse rifles were unnecessary.
Overall it's not a total disaster, the intro sequence was good, Henriksen and Biehn presence was also a good sign, but it all ended before it started. P.S. A good game for 10-15$.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013This game is not recommended, its a bad PC port for starters, the singelplayer story is neither good nor bad, The AI is broken and not at all challenging, They introduced a expensive DLC pass with content cut from the game, that they expect us to pay for. The multiplayer has some potential, but its not worth it, considering you pay a full price for a game that you finish the singerplayer in less than 10 hours, and a multiplayer thats hardly worth it as a alone light in the darkness.… Expand
Feb 18, 2013Not wanting to discuss plot for spoiler reasons, I'll stick to mentioning awful AI, poor level design, baffling plot choices (single player), horrific balance (multiplayer, spitters ftw) and some of the worst scripting and voice acting I've heard, ever.
The game isn't worth your time, Gearbox should be ashamed.
May 6, 2013I watched trailers and gameplay videos and they looked amazing. What happened to this game? Did demo and final version switch places and final version is in a landfill?
Feb 13, 2013The trouble I find with a game like this is everyone has such high expectations and only seems to like to pick out the bad bits, completely forgetting the rest.
It's an Aliens game, its going to be limited in what it can do without destroying it's own universe (you may think all the AVP films and games did that, but lets forget those never happened), throw in that any high budget game is nearly always made for the console then ported to the PC and you have another issue, technology limitations. So why expect something that it never will be?
Starting with the good:
- You got to be a fan of the film, not the franchise, just the film. I mean the sort of fan that will watch it a few times a year and can recite most of the quotes. If you're not then you'll probably just think of it as a generic shooter. Which I am!
- Sounds and music are great, it really does sound like a pulse rifle and motion tracker, and lets face it you'll pretty much just be using those the whole game.
- Some nice touches re-creating the Aliens scenery, finding the med bay, the room where Burke let a facehugger loose on Ripley and Newt, and even the trike you see at the beginning of the directors cut.
- First time around it's great to shoot up a load of Aliens, hordes of them and even the single hunters that hide and wait for you. Can get old fast with the AI Marines with you though.
- Fun coop on Ultimate Badass mode, provided you haven't played the single player yet. "You go first", "No YOU go first"
The no so impressive side:
- Buggy AI, seems to get stuck sometimes and teleport in front of you. Not sure what that's about but there has been worse around. Give it a rest.
- Can't use the motion tracker to find enemies in the next room until you open the door and get attacked. Maybe they're just not moving, it is a 'motion' tracker and not a 'stationary' tracker after all.
- Fight too many humans, a little was fine but bleh, it's called Aliens so should have lots of them!
- Checkpoints seem to make things behind you disappear, leaving no reason to watch your six.
Non-Issues, things people whine about because they can:
- Graphics look a bit flat, but it doesn't struggle. The Sulaco and Hadleys Hope wasnt exactly build with textured wallpaper.
- Story and Voice acting. It's not the best but it's about as annoying as being forced to cut your toenails once in a while. It's minimal and you just deal with it.
- Marines get a boost in multiplayer just by playing the campaign making being an alien rather difficult to begin with.
That's all, now please stop whining.… Expand
Feb 12, 2013let's start off by saying that I've actually played through the entire campaign and spend several hours in multilayer. having said that, here's my honest opinion.
The game looks like an Alien movie, the amount of details spend in the environments is great, and you'll recognize a lot from the alien movies, but the graphics themselves are actually not up to par with recent games. if this game would have come out 2-3 years ago, it's graphics would have been good, now, not so great.
The music, voice acting, sfx sounds are all good though annoying at times, beep beep beep ).
The story feels like a decent alien story, nothing to over the top, and actually believable if you know the franchise. it tries to fill some gaps between movies and does a decent but not great job of doing so. in comparison to recent fps games coming out this was one of the better stories.
but this is where most of the praise ends.
The guns feel to strong most of the time I would heavily advice you to play on harder or impossible difficulty the aliens while decently strong please note that this is written after a harder play-through
now the game play, this is where the game doesn't hold up to expectations. there's some scare moment, but far to little for an alien game. it's not uncommon to slaughter a lot of them for as long as you have ammo. while ammo isn't infinite there's definitely enough around to play out the game with 3-4 different guns only. and there's about 12 of them depending on how you count aliens leap but rarely hits, when they attack they stand still for a moment, allowing an easy melee to stun/stop them or just blast them into heaven(?). the game feels easy and you feel like a super soldier half of the time. and while there's plenty of variety in your weapons, the aliens lack strategy and diversity.
the human characters seem to lack all facial expressions except for eyes and mouth movement, aliens move sporadically between you and your ally(s) and often only target 1 at a time. and it's not uncommon to see an alien forget you after it walks past you.
missions and area's are diverse enough that they won't bore you through the campaign. but instead of feeling like the ultimate deadly enemy humans not included they feel rather simple and dumb.
you carry all your unlocked weapons with you, and you can select 2 main, a side-gun(pistol) and a grenade at a time, and you can swap between them in real time by opening up the real time weapon menu.
you gain levels as you kill aliens which grant you unlocks to upgrade your weapons and load-out. you have an armor which you have to replenish by finding armor pieces, and a health bar which is put into 3 parts. and you generate a bar as long as it isn't fully replenished.
I actually like these systems, the game feels more like an older fps where you have to be careful with your health and armor then the modern day shooters where you regenerate your arm every 30 seconds.
for the multilayer you keep the weapons/unlocks that you build up in single player, unfortunately there's no alien single-player, so your heavily behind in as alien as you start in MP. aliens feel underpowered, and lag is a huge issue all auto matching, expect half your matches to be to bad to play still it has it's fun moment, and if you do get a good kill it feels rewarding enough to keep going.
the game has a lot of potential, and it's unfortunately that gearbox did as much perfectly right, as that there lacking in parts. it also definitely needs some balance issues for pc. i can only hope they can fix this with some patches/dlc.
so, IN CONCLUSION.
good atmosphere, but mediocre shooter with some decent alien mechanics. stands out above most modern mediocre fps due to a decent story and some more old-school mechanics.
if your an alien fan, try to buy it at a discount. if your just an average fps player, i don't advice you to buy this.… Expand
Feb 13, 2013So this is my first time ever writing a review for something.....ever. I've been a gamer ever since the NES came out. (sheesh..I feel lold). I am also a big movie buff and remember seeing Alien and Aliens when I was younger and it scared me to death! It also was one of the best forms of story telling I have ever seen in horror movies. So, for me as a gamer mixing the too is HUGE! I've played all the major titles like Gears of War, God of War, Mario Bros, etc, etc. So in this review I want to talk to the people I feel this will appeal to. Is the game worth $60....no....it is not...I payed that and it is not. Also a heads up to those of you getting the Collector's Edition...the "statute" is smaller than the game case...so I downgraded...I was hoping for something more along the lines of the Marcus statue I own from Gears of War 3. I did not get the game that was advertised....doesn't match the screen shots...or hype that we were promised....but....we did get pieces of that promised expierence...and that has been enough for me. The graphics are 1st gen 360 (Turok) and there is a lot of screen tearing in single player...but....the sound is amazing....and took me right back to the days of hiding behind the couch in fear of seeing what the aliens were going to do to people. But...back to the game....I've enjoyed this game....ENJOYED!...not like Call of Duty...Battlefield.....Gears of War......but as an Aliens game.....Yes...you do play through the same levels as the movie....and people complain....Are you telling me that you are a fan and have no interest of seeing those same scenes in PLAYABLE FORM!!! Come on! When I was a kid I dreamed of going down those corriders and shooting those aliens with every gun, gernade, and friend I have ever seen in Aliens, and here...you finally get to do it!!! This is a game for Aliens fans looking for more aliens.....not Aliens fans looking for Halo 4, Call of Duty, and Battlefield, but fans who loved the material. Yes the graphics bothered me at first....esp. when I saw there was screen tearing in the start menu...bluh...but I have become engrossed in this franchise and if you want a really "creepy, scary" version of the game the play AVP from 2010...I thought it was more edgy...but if you wanna scream "let's rock" and shootem up with a friend...DO IT!!!! I thought the story was good...not great...but not bad....but it functions! and I think pretty well. The sound....the sound is Great!!!....From the pulse rifle...to the motion tracker...its great! And for the people complaining about having so many weapons....apprently you didn't see the movies...they were LOADED!!! They had all these toys! Yea...you can't carry that many in real life...but at least you can say...oh yea....this is a smart gun moment!...too bad I can only do that on level 2....nope...now you can do it whenever....Now for multiplayer...I hated it....at first....its starting to grow on me.....and yes...the camera and controls suck for the aliens....but once you invest some time into them....it got better....and the marines were always fun to play as....but everyone will find their mode in it.....so....overall this is what I have to say rating this game....
Graphics- 6
Sound- 10
Gameplay- 7
Replay- 7
One review on here summed it up.....some people are gonna love it....some people are gonna hate it! But only review if you've played it.....I'm pretty sure a lot of the negative reviews are from those who haven't even played the game...but if you have and felt this way....then it wasn't meant for you....its generic....and outdated....but it still captures something for me that I found in the films. Curiosity and the fun that comes from the Alien universe....I play games because they are fun....its how they are supposed to be! And just for the record....these reviews you "fans" put out that people read....are the reason the game industry is failing...when investors see these numbers and comments....they make big decisions based on these....I don't want any developers to go under....cause its less product for us!! They don't play the games....and when they see this....adios developers...publishers...etc....so take that into account before you go trashing a game...especially if its one you haven't played or don't like cause its the "other guy"......if anyone reads this...thanks for your time....hope you have a great one!… Expand
Feb 13, 2013I'll try to be short and sweet with my review. I'll start by saying that this is a game that will not win any GOTY awards, however it's not nearly the train wreck that some people have made it out to be. Also I've heard alot of complaints on how easy the game is. Set the difficulty at hardened or greater and you should get a good challenge.
Audio 9
Overall the game has great audio, well done and authentic sounds from the movies .
Graphics- 7
I'd say that the graphics on this game are average to good for this console generation, that being said on PC, it would be nice to really be able to max everything, although the PC graphics are better than the console versions.
Well, they tried, unfortunately trying doesn't guarantee success. With some professional writers and a bit more thought and time they could have made a very compelling story, but they didn't
Ok, so the single player campaign isn't the best, and if this were a single player only game, that would warrant a 3 out of 10. But there is also a multiplayer element to this game that I find very entertaining and addictive(although the marines seem a bit more overpowered than the aliens, but it could be because my alien toon is low level. If they continue to develop multiplayer maps and features, then this game could turn out rather well. Let's be honest, no one is buying COD black ops for the single player, and if they did, they would be pretty disappointed. I would compare aliens CM to COD Black ops in that respect. Sure the single player is mediocre at best, but the multiplayer can pick up the slack.… Expand
Feb 14, 2013I really wanted to like this game but unfortunately I can't. Graphics and animation feel dated I swear i have games from 2007 that outshine this. Gameplay is just dull... a below average shooter at best!
I've played co-op mode with a friend and this was just plain bad. First off the clumsy menu system where you have to select "friends only" to start a game isn't immediately obvious, neither is selecting your loadout.
We got to the stage where you take 3 steps then have to let your character stand still for 2 minutes, then another 3 steps before standing still again while the Aliens sniff you (move the mouse to look and you're dead) and it was at this stage we realised that we were punishing ourselves for buying the game.
Money down the drain.
I did break my cardinal rule of never buying a game based on a movie/tv show... they're always terrible and this one is probably near the top of that tree.… Expand
Feb 18, 2013After years of anticipated waiting I was totally let down and should have burned my 50 dollars that would have provided me more enjoyment and entertainment for my dollar.
This game is chock full of bugs, clipping issues, and stuck enemies. Voice cues will trigger after you've already cleared a room. It's so bad that I was instructed to "cover the right flank" when there was nothing but a wall to my right. In larger arena-style areas, it isn't uncommon to wonder why nothing else is happening, only to find a bad guy inanimately stuck next to a box just waiting to be killed.
At least your sonar-style motion tracker will be useful in finding those stuck guys because it's pointless otherwise. You'll use it before opening a door, not see anything of concern, then enter and get attacked anyway. But it doesn't really matter because the xenomorphs are fragile idiots. Their AI is on par with the standard Infected from Left 4 Dead, but now they get to climb on walls. Xenomorphs conveniently ignore any squadmates nearby and come right at you. Sometimes they'll crawl on the ground, but most of the time I was shooting at awkward geriatric people that should be in nursing homes with walkers.… Expand
Mar 1, 2013This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It is unbelievable that people are rating this game a 9 or 10 it blows my mind don't listen to them im sure the majority of them pre-ordered, unfortunate they are making it worse for us all letting the industry get away with this crap, so shame on them. This is just not a very good game.
The story is just bad and i refuse to acknowledge it as cannon. For one it fails to explain major plot holes, and don't even get me started on the ending. A marine from the first movie survives??? what were these guys smoking when they came up with that. Any true alien fan would be disappointing with this game and I believe we expect a certain amount of quality to be involved when it comes to this beloved franchise. Yes expectations where high and rightfully so. The sound is great, love the sound effects like the pulse rifle and others such as aliens dying. The AI is bad and ruined the immersion for me on more than one occasion. For instance aliens standing in front of my AI squad mate for seconds attempting to kill him or navigating around him to get to me or like on most occasions my squad mate just firing his smart gun for long periods of time doing absolutely nothing. The graphics are bad which is something that caught me off guard. textures are terrible and character animation is amateur. the lighting ,one of the most important features in anything alien is mediocre which is extremely disappointing. i could go on but you get the idea just not much of a game here multilayer is better but doesn't make up for the terrible campaign.… Expand
This game is by far one of the worst of the year, and i can say that in all confidence even though it's only February. No atmosphere, the WORST textures I've ever seen, a majority of vents and small crawl spaces that aliens sometimes crawl out of and such are actually just black squares, not real vents. Such a poorly designed game it's almost impressive. No effort has been put into this game at all. Do not buy it, especially not for the ridiculously high price on steam. this game would be somewhat reasonable at 10 dollars, but even then, do not buy it. Aliens are too cumbersome to control, the tactical sights on weapons are strangely mis-aligned, the weapon firing sounds are laughable at best. avoid at all costs… Collapse
Jun 10, 2013Judging by the result, Gearbox could not handle the tremendous success of Borderlands 2. On the other hand, there's this erroneous notion that franchises can exploit their name and are justified to produce mediocre titles for ever. Those two facts were enough to condemn Aliens: Colonial Marines. While it's true that the console version is even worse, the competition in the PC shooter genre, is relentless. [April 2013]
Mar 15, 2013I dared to hope, but was given a game so dull and average, that is an actual achievement itself. [March 2013]
Mar 12, 2013Not as bad as the wost Aliens games, yet it's also not in the same league as the very best, leaving ACM to meandering in the space system of mediocrity. [Apr 2013, p.69]