This First Behind-the-Scenes Look at Aliens: Colonial Marines Focuses on Authenticity

"they can handle anything, right? except for this." i can't handle it either...way too many dramatic face shots for me. and putting-on-glasses. but mainly, face shots.

aliens dont look as scary as they should, they move too slowly and you can punch them with your rifle, seriously? if alien gets hold of you, your done!

Can I get that Blade Runner game instead?

Looks cool. Looking forward to it.

@Franstone: I was wondering the same thing, its at 1:39. Maybe that guy built or had built his own left handed controller. The start and back buttons arent reversed so its not actually a mirrored image. Weird.

Just hope its not some console shit game with bulky controls and glitchy aliens.

AVP3 sucked because of the bad MP and Marine like tank movements, but at least they got the Alien movements and animations well. Not too keen on the 3rd person aliens controls in this game.

AVP2 is one of my favorite games ever. If this can capture even half of the horror and fun of that game then this might be pretty good.

Hmmm... in the age of Dead Space I'm not seeing a bright future for this game..

The new AVP was for me a huge dissapointment and as much as I loved Alien FPS's in the past I don't think it's a suited game style for this age.. unless of course they can drastically distance themselves from the typical corridor Alien game and from what we have seen so far they can't..

But I'll keep my fingers crossed - love the franchise and idea - just don't see how it's realized these days in a way that can rival other modern shooters..

@Grissefar said:

-Hey bro, our shooter here is really generic.

-No problem, brah. We'll just produce a flashy dev diary.

-Wow, great idea, cuz.

agreed :)

Now that you mention it, I would prefer a Bladerunner game over an Aliens game.

@Godlyawesomeguy said:

EDIT: Also, what the hell? Are they honestly trying to be cool with those "stylish" introductions and transitions? I sincerely hope they were attempting satire of some sort.

It reminded me of a Britain's Got Talent segment.

can't wait to play this!

"Minister of Art"? That's a new one.

Why was that Xbox controller mirrored? @_@

That middle finger bit made me cringe. Too much broeyness for my delicate sensibilities.

EDIT: Also, what the hell? Are they honestly trying to be cool with those "stylish" introductions and transitions? I sincerely hope they were attempting satire of some sort.

All these complaints are typical of the modern FPS. Look at CoD, it still sells a shit-ton of copies. So, maybe it's time we all start voting with our wallets, backing up our claims, and we wouldn't be getting the same thing over and over.

In the meantime, I can enjoy this game in peace...

I know something more authentic than Kid Rick: Anything.

@Franstone said:

Did they film that dude playing w/ the Xbox controller in a mirror?

Yo shit is backwards!

'Authentic' mirror action!

5/5

Nothing is more authentic then Randy Pitchford's glasses.

hey, its that Mikey guy that EVERYONE was hating on during the E3 giantbomb after shows! YAY!

I love the property but the gameplay vids i've seen look very scripted (guy getting pulled through the vent). I don't know..if they can nail the atmosphere and deliver the tension of Aliens, then I'd give this a go.

This game engine looks 10 years old.... using a texture map for steam instead of particle effects is just inexcusable in 2012

Boy's definitely got a corncob up his ass

The co-op sounds good but everything thing I see of the actual gameplay just makes the aliens look too weak. A alien wouldn't jump forward and try to wrestle your gun from your hands. It would throw you against a wall, skewer you with its tail then bite your face off.

If this game is just a straight forward shooter and you mow them down in there hundreds it will take any menace they have away. One alien should be more than a match for a whole troop of marines - they have to be scary and formidible or what's the point? It may as well just be Gears of War otherwise.

Dudes are talking - the trailer.

A console FPS and authentic sounds like a opposition.

4p-coop would be nice as already said.

Movement could be more dynamic, looks a bit stiff.

I'm all in for a slow paced action adventure RPG and FPS type game but I sense Call of Duty here.

And since Brothers in arms I'm very cautious when it comes down to gearbox.

May be an odd question but why at 1:39 is the shot of the guy with the xbox controller reversed?

@Incapability said:

Oh hey there Randy Pitchford! Say, how'd Duke Nukem Forever go?

Oh, oh is that so?

Huh.

You're giving shit to the wrong guy and the wrong studio here, they at least gave the 3D Realms fiasco a release and tried to polish it as much as they could. If anyone deserves shit for DNF it's George and he does deserve it, a lot of it.

Id really love for this to be a great game, but I think my chances of winning the lottery will be better.

Those close-up transitions are the WORST!

I hope it's good. I think a HUD-less mode (except for stuff the character would conceivably have in-universe, kind of Dead Space-style) would add a lot to the immersion and atmosphere.

@damnable_fiend said:

wasn't this going to be an obsidian game... or am I misremembering

You are misremembering, Obsidian used to work on an Alien themed RPG game that got canned at some point.

But it's not really easy keeping all of them apart considering that Aliens: Colonial Marines originaly started out as an PS2 game developed by another developer and originally intended for a release in 2001.

Considering i have been waiting for the Colonial Marines game since it's very first announcement back then, this kinda feels like the DNF of Alien games...

@RyenDeckard: Yes! this game looks amazing, but a blade runner game? That would be a premier next gen rpg for the masses, just imagine the level of detail that would be put into that. Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.

@Wandrecanada said:

More like Randy Pitch-man. Am I right? Huh...? Guys...?

*crickets*

wasn't this going to be an obsidian game... or am I misremembering

I love that Tekken seems to be embracing the buck wild shit that always happens in Tekken, best way I think to differentiate from street fighter and SNK

God, I hope this blows my fucking socks off. I love Aliens SO much, it would be amazing to have a great modern day Aliens game. I actually really enjoyed AvP, but the flaws really stuck out in that game.

Having Gearbox developing this eases the fears I have a lot. Hopefully they can knock it out of the park.

pleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegood

Don't let me down Gearbox. I'm trusting you on this one. I'M TRUSTING YOU!!!

@kylekrane:

Yes, ergo the "more than one reason."

@Grimhild: @Grimhild said:

I would've been more impressed on their authenticity if they interviewed Dan O'Bannon, for more than one reason.

Also, 4 player co-op.

/squee!

would that reason be because he has been dead since 2009?

Did that guy just pop his fucking lime-green collar?

As much as I love Alien, everything since has just been dumb. When I see "Aliens: Subtitle" my eyes just gloss over.

There must be a big sign over the entrance at Gearbox that says "BADASS" for all the times they use the word.

@Alexander said:

I guess that nuclear explosion wasn't that powerful... place looks remarkably intact.

Yeah, I was thinking of that the whole time I was watching this, from the point where they started talking about it being a sequel on LV-426 (at Hadley's Hope, no less). That nuclear explosion that could clearly be felt on the dropship from well outside atmo, it would have left a glowing crater miles across. 17 weeks later, nobody's going anywhere near there if you're going to claim to be even remotely "authentic".

Why is the shot at 1:38 mirrored? An xbox controller with the buttons on the left is just wrong!

I would've been more impressed on their authenticity if they interviewed Dan O'Bannon, for more than one reason.

Also, 4 player co-op.

/squee!

@Nethlem said:

Uhm actually having a plucky cast of squad members that get killed off one by one is exactly the alien movie theme. And Aliens is more then just the movies, some of the most awesome Alien stories can be found in the expanded universe of the comics where the whole thing totaly escalates. Earth getting overrun by the Xenomorphs, humans fighting back to clean it, the queens royal jelly becoming a high value drug and a whole shitton of other cool things.

People underestimate what kind of awesome stuff you can do with the premise because they are too stuck with the movies impression that it has to be "survival horror" where you constantly have to feel outclassed. But that's just one of the themes, the other one being that humans feel like the top of the food chain and always try to control nature/things they can't understand and make it do their bidding, especially if it looks like it can't be controlled/mastered.

That's a theme even the movies bring across all the time, human greed trying to profit from things they are not supposed to control. Weaponizing the Xenomorphs, trying to research them and trying to "master" them. Often they feel like they have done it (Alien Resurrection being the most obvious example) but Nature/Xenomorphs screwing them up big time by outsmarting them and ripping control from them.

It's kinda sad that people are only interested in the movies universe when comics like Aliens Berserker or Aliens Stronghold deliver such interesting and cool takes on the whole thing. Heck Aliens Berserker could be an really awesome story for an coop driven game and the artificial xenomorph Jeri from Aliens Stronghold has to be one of the most awesome Aliens characters ever.

We're not exactly disagreeing here. I've never heard of those comics, but I'll definitely check them out now.

@Tylea002: NO ONE IS MORE AUTHENTIC THAN A COLONIAL MARINE!

@Bummey said:

It's not an Aliens story if you have a plucky cast of squad members. Aliens isn't about space marines being badass soldiers fighting through a gritty campaign and mowing through hordes of aliens, it's about genetically engineered killing machines murdering the everloving shit out of every living being they come across. It's about us humans being totally outclassed by something almost completely beyond our ability to fight. That said, it wouldn't make for a great game if they followed the theme of the movies that closely.

Alien vs Predator 2 is still one of my favorite games. I hope they don't mess this up.

Uhm actually having a plucky cast of squad members that get killed off one by one is exactly the alien movie theme. And Aliens is more then just the movies, some of the most awesome Alien stories can be found in the expanded universe of the comics where the whole thing totaly escalates. Earth getting overrun by the Xenomorphs, humans fighting back to clean it, the queens royal jelly becoming a high value drug and a whole shitton of other cool things.

People underestimate what kind of awesome stuff you can do with the premise because they are too stuck with the movies impression that it has to be "survival horror" where you constantly have to feel outclassed. But that's just one of the themes, the other one being that humans feel like the top of the food chain and always try to control nature/things they can't understand and make it do their bidding, especially if it looks like it can't be controlled/mastered.

That's a theme even the movies bring across all the time, human greed trying to profit from things they are not supposed to control. Weaponizing the Xenomorphs, trying to research them and trying to "master" them. Often they feel like they have done it (Alien Resurrection being the most obvious example) but Nature/Xenomorphs screwing them up big time by outsmarting them and ripping control from them.

It's kinda sad that people are only interested in the movies universe when comics like Aliens Berserker or Aliens Stronghold deliver such interesting and cool takes on the whole thing. Heck Aliens Berserker could be an really awesome story for an coop driven game and the artificial xenomorph Jeri from Aliens Stronghold has to be one of the most awesome Aliens characters ever.

I am really excited for this game, and I want to buy it. I am a "hardcore" fan, but I am still cautious. I think it could either reach the range of 8.5 maybe 9.0 at its best, and 5.5 near the lowest. From a different scoring system of course. Also, to make a Blade Runner game, it'd either have to be an entirely new genre, which would be a little weird if they made it an action game, or it'd have to be a slower paced adventure game, almost kind of like the first one. By today's standards, you'd almost have to make it on unfamiliar grounds, that is unless they take it somewhere else and make it work that way. I just have a hard time seeing an FPS or even TPS for Blade Runner. It'd serve the setting well I'm sure, just not the overall tone I guess.

Not confident gearbox can pace a story and hold atmosphere and intensity well enough to make this succeed. I would love to see that happen though.

I think there's some fatigue on the whole "i'm a badass with a gun" design philosophy at the moment. Given the IP it would be amazing to see a more intense, scrounge for ammo, story heavy type experience. If their aim was to convey that with this trailer it didn't come across to me.

It doesn't sound like they're making a sequel to Aliens. It sounds more like they're just regurgitating pieces from Cameron's movie, in what will undoubtedly be a tired, and corny exercise.

'These aliens are gnarly, like, colonial marines are badasses, they can handle anything, right? Except for this!'

What an interesting concept for a sequel to Aliens.