Its a Bug Hunt and Happy to Disappoint You
Alien fans should steer clear of this. In fact, so should everyone else. I knew this fact going in and yet I played through the entire game anyway. Why? Because I am a crazy Alien/Aliens fan and I was hoping that just going through the Aliens world would be worth something, anything. And it was I suppose. But at the same time it made me think about how easy it must be for game development to go horribly wrong. Even when you have all the assets, story, and great sounds of the Aliens universe, this game clearly demonstrates how far you can still miss the mark.
Aliens: Colonial Marines feels like a sub-par FPS from about 10 years ago with great sound more detailed graphics but way more screen tearing. That game play mechanics are so basic and the companion AI so addle brained they literally just get in the way all the time. I mean all the time. I wished I could just shoot them and play the game solo. When they are not in the way they just expose the horrible AI.
Let me explain....
- Enemy AI comes out and takes cover behind a box.
- Companion AI will continue to shoot at the box (doing no damage) continuously never moving or taking cover.
- Enemy will only pop out of cover at brief moments between companion AI reloads.
So, all the companion AI does is keep the enemy in cover and most often, never really helps out in the actual, you know, killing of the enemies. Most often, the companion AI is simply an obstacle that just keeps moving between you and all the targets blocking your view and your ability to be effective. This loop of frustrating combat is just about the entire gameplay experience.
The only good parts of this game are the sounds and music and the chance to walk through some of the movie set pieces of Aliens. I have heard it called a decent FPS museum for Aliens and I suppose that is fair but not worth the time really. Just watch the movie again instead.
Their is a lot of hate being thrown around about this game due to the poor gameplay, graphics, acting, etc. But there is one thing thing in this game that is so unforgivable it cannot be overlooked. Its the reason I can't even give it 2 out of 5 stars even though in some ways it may deserve it. That is, the story starts with one complete plot hole and ends on another one. And worse, when said plot holes are mentioned in the game, they do some hand waving and never even attempt to fill out the story. Knowing they had a problem with the story, the story telling geniuses came up with these two gems...
- "I don't know how this happened.... all I know is we got to go in there and rescue those marines..."
- "How are you alive... or even here... That's another story..."
Yup, this is the best they could do. Its clear why they wanted to present certain set piece locations in the game but the fact that they could not be bothered come up with a story that made any sense is the real crime of this game. Its the typical cash-in that is so expected in the industry that it's normally just dismissed with the "yeah movie games suck" line. But this is Aliens, one of the most respected, revered, and ripped off movies of all time. It deserves so much better than this.