I don't want to alarm anyone, but....

[CaptHawkeye]

If you modded penumbra to have aliens instead of wolves, you'd have a better Aliens game. But nobody would buy it, because they want power fantasies (aliens strong but aliens weak lol) not drama or tension or whatever.

I'd say reskinning Penumbra would give you a Ridley Scott's Alien game. Reskinning Metro 2033 would give you an Aliens game. Since the 2nd movie leaned more towards action in the action/horror balance. It wasn't total nonsense to try aiming for a tad of empowerment in this game. It was a characteristic of the 2nd movie, just not to the pathetically indulgent degree the fans think it was.

[Stark]

Good call. Having marines explore a place actually eerie with actually threatening and strange stuff occuring to create that buildup of tension Cov talked about would be choice.

Man Metro was a totally sweet game. Its a bit sad the sequel looks crap and generic by comparison.

[Stark]

So because I'm the only fair critic who doesn't pre-judge games based on what the fats are saying, I got Aliens. I figured there was a chance it was an unfairly maligned game that was actually ok, maybe even good.

It isn't.

Its actually worse than I'd heard; from the horrible balance to the no acid to the glitches and bugs and shit to the terrible fanfiction nature of the game. It even has Bishop's legs still sitting in the hangar (now horribly deformed and significantly smaller), and Hicks making a phone call while sedated. My favourite is the lightmap on the main menu planet is fucked so every time the lightning flashes (well, the horrid 16 bit texture goes white) the whole planet goes white. The ugliness and old-fashioned shit is just icing; the game actually has 'pick up hat for 10 armour, pick up vest for 30 armour' shit going on. Pulse rifles only have 40 bullets because... ? and it takes several headshots to kill aliens. Upon death they instantly drop to the ground, even in mid-jump, and acid is never a factor. You can even switch guns and UPGRADE YOUR CALL OF DUTY whenever you want. Everything has an underbarrel - even the shotgun WHICH HAS AN UNDERBARREL SHOTGUN. The mid range rifle has an underbarrel flamer, and the long range rifle has an underbarrel shotgun.

It's just amazingly bad. People should rent it just so they can look at AvP 3 and say 'wow, this is actually pretty polished'.

Did I mention aliens have almost no ambient sounds?

[Havok]

So it didn't just get hosed like AP huh?

[Stark]

I'm told it was only released to avoid being sued by Sega for using their money to make borderlands instead. And I can believe it.

I'm totally going to play AvP 1999 when I get home. :v

[weemadando]

AvP 99 still has effects that no one else has put in a game.

I can't wait for the next CoD or Destiny or what fucking ever to suddenly have this new feature and everyone talk about how creative and innovative they are, just like they did when they let you shoot through wooden fences. Again, holy shit, like games in 1999 let you do.

But '99 has lasted in a way that AvP2 didn't for my friends, mainly because it had co-op.

[Stark]

Everyone apparently likes AvP2, even though it appears to be a more conventional and fucking boring rehash. It's more like a Halflife mod than a game.

Oh, that Aliens Doom mod? Better than Colonial Marines.

[weemadando]

I played only a little of the story of AvP2.

In AvP1 the marine story went something like this:
*wake up, wonder what the fuck is going on*
Officer on radio: "Oh fuck, you're still alive? We thought you were dead, we're bugging out in 5 minutes. You can make it if you run. RUN. RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIFE."
*Run for your fucking life through stations, ships, across planets and the like trying desperately to stay alive*

AvP2:
RAH RAH RAH MILITARY TACTIKEWL SPEAK.
Full Metal Jacket quotes.
LOOK AT US, WE'RE AWESOME.
OH NO, WE'RE NOT AS AWESOME AS WE THOUGHT.
HOW COULD THEY HAVE OVERCOME OUR BRAVADO?
We need someone to do X (where X is the most ridiculous, stupid and insane suicide mission you can imagine and 99% of the time, NOT EVEN FUCKING NECESSARY).
Your character "I'LL DO X SIR! And I'll go alone, so as not to risk anyone else."
Me: "FUCK YOU BUDDY."

[Stark]

I'm pretty sure Colonial Marines uses the same blue ground texture as AvP. But man, the ridiclous crap they went through to get CLASS DIVERSITY for team fucking deathmatch is crazy.

[GuppyShark]

But its a bullet point
You don't want to upset marketing

[Stark]

They seriously have a load screen hint that is 'spitter aliens are great for destroying sentry guns'. :v

But this IS the game where after you go to ops on the colony and find the sentry guns, someone says 'hey go get one of those sentries' and it is now fully reloaded. So....

[Covenant]

I was a giant fan of AvP99 but didn't like the AvP2 that we got. It just had a different feel to it and I didn't think it was quite the product it should have been. It wasn't terrible, but not great. I also don't think it had the deformable explosions which made me sad. I never got to use those things properly, I don't think, but I did see their effects a FEW times in multiplayer and it was impressive. Its the sort of thing I could see a Tech Demo like Crysis do.

[Agent Fisher]

Well, I bought it. And while its not as good as I hoped, I still find it a fun game. Especially playing multi with my friends

[Stark]

Why would you have hoped it was good when the entire world responded negatively? I mean, that's my job.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

I'm not sure if anyone's read this article on its development but it seems like the fuck-up came not mostly from lack of development competency but from management incompetency. They outsourced a ton of work to TimeGate, which is understandable considering that they were developing Borderlands 2 as well. But apparently TimeGate produced shit work and there wasn't adequate oversight on Gearbox's part to ensure the quality of work.

I've personally have come across similar situations; unfortunately, these things do happen. Bad management or bad decisions from the top end up with terrible development cycles like these. I'm sure SEGA had every right to be pissed off for such a shit game after 6 years of investment. It only makes business sense to release it so they can recoup from their losses. Management of production fucked up really badly.

[Stark]

Welcome to page one?

Given the game is so amazingly terrible, the idea it was shipped before being finished to avoid a lawsuit seems pretty plausible. The placeholder cutscenes and terrible texture and mechanics work could probably have been fixed if Gearbox weren't massively overrated incompetents.

[Agent Fisher]

Why would you have hoped it was good when the entire world responded negatively? I mean, that's my job.

Cause I'm a huge Aliens fan, and I hadn't paid any attention to the reviews before I bought it.

[Stark]

I guess you should be unhappy how terribly the story mishandles the property. Particularly terrible is the hamfisted forcing of pop culture shit like ARMIES OF PMCS SO UNETHICAL into a story that could have been more effectively told without it.

And Bishops legs.

[CaptHawkeye]

I just lol everytime I hear it's an Aliens game that doesn't involve the Aliens at many points.

Gamespot just ran an article (which I can't be assed to link here) pointing out that SEGA tossed in the towel early in development and just told Gearbox to make a CoD clone. This is the kind of professionalism nerds go out of their way to identify with?

[Stark]

I think it's fine for there to be no aliens for heaps of the game. They just shouldn't be replaced by zero AI waves of faceless nobodies that invalidate the whole plot of Aliens and miss the whole point of even having WY in the game.

The game should have been Space Metro, not an ugly 2003 shooter.

[TheFeniX]

Cause I'm a huge Aliens fan, and I hadn't paid any attention to the reviews before I bought it.

I did the same thing with the Dungeons and Dragons movie circa 2000. There were no survivors.

Particularly terrible is the hamfisted forcing of pop culture shit like ARMIES OF PMCS SO UNETHICAL into a story that could have been more effectively told without it.

Wow, really? Even Resurrection didn't try and pull that shit. Stephano (I think, the grunt they pick up after the basketball court scene) was a solid character. The Alien series of movies has always been about grunts being kept in the dark while people in power constantly try to fuck them over. I liked AvP2 a lot as a game, but I recall the Marine story was so chock full of this "rar evil soldiers and evil because evil" which made it an extremely weak campaign when stacked up against the other 2. Maybe I'm misremembering. I should replay it because this thread and I'm kind of bored lately. It's s shame I still have both my AvP2 discs, but cannot find my copy of AvP1.

Gamespot just ran an article (which I can't be assed to link here) pointing out that SEGA tossed in the towel early in development and just told Gearbox to make a CoD clone. This is the kind of professionalism nerds go out of their way to identify with?

Is this a dig at SEGA fans (such as the horrifying group of people who still buy Sonic games) or fans of the Alien series? I have unfunny rants to cover either option.

My Xbox is in storage, was there ever a playable demo released for this game? There isn't one for PC I can find. That's usually a really bad sign, especially on game with this kind of exposure. Further, I can think of so few games that spent even half the amount of time in development Hell that release to anything remotely decent. Team Fortress 2 is one rare example and some of the shit Valve tried over the years (such as a BF2-style commander) was horrifying to read about.

[Stark]

Wow, really? Even Resurrection didn't try and pull that shit. Stephano (I think, the grunt they pick up after the basketball court scene) was a solid character. The Alien series of movies has always been about grunts being kept in the dark while people in power constantly try to fuck them over. I liked AvP2 a lot as a game, but I recall the Marine story was so chock full of this "rar evil soldiers and evil because evil" which made it an extremely weak campaign when stacked up against the other 2. Maybe I'm misremembering. I should replay it because this thread and I'm kind of bored lately. It's s shame I still have both my AvP2 discs, but cannot find my copy of AvP1.

That's why I think its crap that Aliens-licenced stuff always starts off from the position that the player LOVED ALIENS and KNOWS ALIENS STUFFS and thus jumps right into 'Weyland Yutani BAD! Want ALIENS! Aliens BAD!' instead of actually having things like suspense.

Even Colonial Marines could have been good; it could have been about the military (with nobody even willing to admit why the marines went to LV426) finding and exploring the Sulaco and constantly asking 'what the fuck even happened here' as they explore the detritus of the various movies. A really strong tension and lack of understanding could have been used to build up to the horrific reveal, with sinister motives all around and a complete lack of consideration of the dangers by those calling the shots.

Instead of literally GAME STARTS - BOSS SAYS SULACO FULL OF ALIENS! GO SHOTS THEM. The fucking TECHNICAL MANUAL has better fanfic around the events of Aliens than this game. Alien Swarm has a more interesting squad/coop mechanic.

Do I even have to mention at this point that the alien derelict is a super Weyland EVIL BASE where they HARVEST THE QUEENS? Just like in EVERY FUCKING ALIEN NOVEL AND COMIC AND GAME EVER.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Given the game is so amazingly terrible, the idea it was shipped before being finished to avoid a lawsuit seems pretty plausible. The placeholder cutscenes and terrible texture and mechanics work could probably have been fixed if Gearbox weren't massively overrated incompetents.

They probably could have fixed them if they were given more time. Gearbox aren't the best game developers in town but this is pretty fucking terrible for even them. But given that they had already invested a whole six years, there was pretty much no way SEGA was willing to give them more time to fix the botched job.

[Vendetta]

I guess you should be unhappy how terribly the story mishandles the property. Particularly terrible is the hamfisted forcing of pop culture shit like ARMIES OF PMCS SO UNETHICAL into a story that could have been more effectively told without it.

That particularly mystified me as a design decision beause, well, the Marines in the film were basically sent there by and for corporate interest anyway, so the whole point of zomg pmcs is completely redundant, that's what the CM already are.

[Vympel]

The most hilarious thing about this fiasco is that Colonial Marines hit number 1 in the UK. I love these geniuses who preorder games for no reason. Seriously, why the hell would you ever preorder a game when you haven't the slightest clue it'll be any good at all? Which is, you know - all of them?