Alien: Colonial Marines

[TheFeniX]

Ok, so this shitheap is for sale on Steam with AvP 2010 (or whatever) for like $7. Probably still a rip, but I heard the co-op was pretty fun.

First: the co-op is pretty fun. The game is chock full of aliens in closets. The game goes from "shit shit SHIT, get him off me" to hilarious as the....everything is just so fucking amatuerish in this pile of code.

Anyways, first the good. The controls are mapped... weird, but once remapped the game offers a clean and simple interface and the FPS action is smooth. I feel directly in control of my character at all times, there is no lag between inputs and character action. Game feels really solid in this regard.

Everything else you have read about this game is sadly true. It's fucking chock full of bland and "we didn't give enough shits to make this a fleshed out game." Dialog is constantly delivered at gun point. It is cliche and tiring. But it is great to laugh at how fucking bad it is with a co-op buddy. Every FPS, broshooter, tough0guy-oora muhrine cliche is hammered in the first 5 minutes and it just keeps going and going and going. Also, every Alien movie and game cliche is there: muhrines are caught up in the machinations of evil space-capitalists named Yutani. Original, I know right? Also, the graphics are there, and they will make you ask "This game was released in 2013?" And the animations do not match movements. NPCs are constantly ice-skating.

Aliens in closets are everywhere. They just keep coming after a (thankfully) short tutorial. Within 3 minutes you're fighting off waves of Aliens. Fucking WAVES of them. You can tell it's basically "dunno what to do, THROW ENEMIES at them" but it actually works, even if it is extremely lazy. The aliens animations are..... bad. Just.... bad. They are janky, unpolished. It's almost like someone reskinned Zombies from Left 4 dead. Besides them crawling out of vents, they do not move or feel like aliens.

Melee is sickeningly overpowered and you get prompts to melee nearby aliens CONSTANTLY even if, at that particular point in time, they aren't close enough to actually hit with your melee.

Oh, and the iconic motion tracker is more "picks up what we want you to." Shit not moving? No big deal, still picks them up. The gun sounds feel like they were ripped out of Aliens in glorious MONO sound. They clash horribly for some reason. Like... audio was bad in the 80s. The iconic pulse rifle sound is still iconic... but doesn't seem to fit with the game for some reason I cannot explain.

Game isn't horrible. Just bland and disappointing. Still above the reaches of amatuer shit, just very unpolished. But still fun in co-op.

PS: Fuck you Gearbox.

[bilateralrope]

For what I've heard about A:CM it would have been quickly forgotten if it wasn't for the lies in all the advertising. Lies which don't seem to have hurt Gearbox in any way.

[TheFeniX]

I'd say blatant fraud, but I'm pretty sure the lawsuit against them fell through because the courts ain't got no time for entertainment fraud unless it's jocks juicing. SEGA also couldn't sue their scumbag asses off either, but SEGA's run by a bunch of clowns anyways, still riding name recognition on a brand that hasn't been worth a shit for 20 years.

If the Borderlands franchise would just die the death it deserves, we could finally get rid of these fuckers. Honestly, I did feel a little shitty giving the worthless fucks any money at all, but let's face it: the game IS worth $4. Even if it was the product of embezzlement.

[bilateralrope]

I'd say blatant fraud, but I'm pretty sure the lawsuit against them fell through because the courts ain't got no time for entertainment fraud unless it's jocks juicing. SEGA also couldn't sue their scumbag asses off either, but SEGA's run by a bunch of clowns anyways, still riding name recognition on a brand that hasn't been worth a shit for 20 years. If the Borderlands franchise would just die the death it deserves, we could finally get rid of these fuckers. Honestly, I did feel a little shitty giving the worthless fucks any money at all, but let's face it: the game IS worth $4. Even if it was the product of embezzlement.

We are both in a position to judge A:CM for what it is. You're willing to put in the time/money to do so. I've got enough decent games in my Steam backlog that I find it a good thing when I can completely write off a game.

Jim Sterling did a video after Randy Pitchford was smug about beating the lawsuit. Pitchford seems to have been doubling down on the lies since A:CM came out. Chances are that any publisher they work with will pay them special attention to make sure that they don't produce a repeat of Arkham Knight.

[TheFeniX]

We are both in a position to judge A:CM for what it is. You're willing to put in the time/money to do so. I've got enough decent games in my Steam backlog that I find it a good thing when I can completely write off a game.

It's sad that the numerous trainwrecks actually lead to an interesting co-op experience. Co-op is in such a shit spot these days, when the early to mid 2000s promised much more out of it, a developer has to blindly stumble into it for a decent experience. It's so tacked on to the game WRT gameplay, but the implementation (actually getting a game up) is painless. This combination works well. Too many developers are concerned about some stupid narrative they are trying to accomplish and co-op would "ruin the experience." The old throwaway co-op of games like Duke Nukem 3D completely changed the dynamic of the game. Saving and Loading were no longer an issue, the game would just spawn you back at the beginning. Halo was in this same boat with the respawning. Alien: CM is kind of a throwback to this out of laziness. The dynamic of the game is changed due to the revive system and another warm body to act as a meatshield.

RPGs with any type of multiplayer almost always end up as MMOs these days and they are fucking garbage. This is why I have to go mod the shit out of a dated Bioware game to get anything in depth because games like Fable 3 are so kids-glove with their co-op.... and everything else. Not even really an RPG.

Long story short: Alien: CM is worth a few bucks to me as a co-op game because co-op is in the shitter.

I should work through my backlog of SP games, but there's no point. At least the failure of A:CM can be experienced with a friend. That makes it fun in of itself. But hand-holding simulators like Tomb Raider aren't as fun to mock while playing.

Jim Sterling did a video after Randy Pitchford was smug about beating the lawsuit. Pitchford seems to have been doubling down on the lies since A:CM came out. Chances are that any publisher they work with will pay them special attention to make sure that they don't produce a repeat of Arkham Knight.

I have to give Pitchford credit: he's infinitely punchable. He has every right to be as smug as he is because enough people keep eating up his bullshit to keep him swimming in cocaine. Him and Tod Howard have to go to bed at night laughing at impotent nerd rage while they sleep soundly on a bed of pre-order money.

[bilateralrope]

Him and Tod Howard have to go to bed at night laughing at impotent nerd rage while they sleep soundly on a bed of pre-order money.

It's true that nerd rage was impotent when A:CM came out. Steam refunds changed that on PC, as WB learned with Arkham Knight.

[Purple]

Out of curiosity just what was wrong with Arkham Knight? I have not played it but I have watched a couple of hours of letsplays of it and the game seems solid enough.

[Vendetta]

The PC version was so fucked it had to be withdrawn from sale and only just rereleased within the last week.

And people are saying it's barely working any better now.

[Zaune]

Out of curiosity just what was wrong with Arkham Knight? I have not played it but I have watched a couple of hours of letsplays of it and the game seems solid enough.

A YouTube reviewer I'm rather fond of explains. And this is the hardware he's currently using. For the uninitiated, put it like this; if you want more junk in the trunk than that thing then you'll have to talk to Cray or Silicon Graphics. And the game still chugged a bit for him.

[TheFeniX]

Him and Tod Howard have to go to bed at night laughing at impotent nerd rage while they sleep soundly on a bed of pre-order money.

It's true that nerd rage was impotent when A:CM came out. Steam refunds changed that on PC, as WB learned with Arkham Knight.

PC doesn't matter for day one releases. Batman pushed a lot of units on console. Even going back, upwards of 90% of Skyrim sales were on console vs PC. Now, NPD numbers track electronic sales horribly from what I know and PC starts to catch up later on. Pushing an extra 2 million units over the course of a few years is just easy bank. But a cross-plat release including PC isn't all that great. You're better off doing what Rockstar does: bleed money out of console, then feed the PC gamers 6 months to a year later. You can force purchases across different platforms for a single person if they are desperate enough.

On cross-plats, provided you don't fuck it up: PC releases are just extra money. Where it comes in handy is that PC purchases continue to push dollars into a dated game due to no real used market. A used copy of a console version gives no money to the publisher. But a $20 copy sold on Steam does.

If anything, this might just push shitty publishers like WB to abandon PC wholesale as I doubt the negative press is worth a 2% increase in sales. No big loss, these are the guys who brought us Microtransaction Kombat 10.

[bilateralrope]

Now, NPD numbers track electronic sales horribly from what I know

Which is why I can't trust any of their numbers for PC sales. This article states:

CNet thinks that a major driver of PC success is the Steam games market and platform. With "three out of every four" PC games sold being via Steam now, it's hard to argue with that assertion

If they have trouble tracking 3 quarters of the sales, then their data is useless.

So I did a quick googling for statements from games publishers about console vs PC sales. Because they would be able to track digital sales of their own games.

The Witcher 3 – Out Of Its 4 Million Sold Copies, 1.3 Million Were From The PC Version.
Ubisoft: PS4, PC lead software sales, while Xbox One lags
The PC Is A Really Profitable Platform For Electronic Arts.

if the earnings for current-gen consoles were equal, then the PC is THE most profitable platform for EA (20.5% for each console versus 21% for the PC). Our guess is that PS4’s sales are higher than those of Xbox One, thus PS4 is the most profitable platform for EA, making the PC the second most profitable platform for the big publisher.

PC sales look like they have quite a solid lock in second place. So not something that can be easily abandoned.

[Purple]

Out of curiosity just what was wrong with Arkham Knight? I have not played it but I have watched a couple of hours of letsplays of it and the game seems solid enough.

A YouTube reviewer I'm rather fond of explains. And this is the hardware he's currently using. For the uninitiated, put it like this; if you want more junk in the trunk than that thing then you'll have to talk to Cray or Silicon Graphics. And the game still chugged a bit for him.

One thing that confuses me is why he rants so much about 60 FPS. Like maybe it's just me but I find that the actual amount of frames per second really does not matter just as long as it's constant. I find a game running at 15 FPS smoothly;y to be more enjoyable than one jittering between say 50 and 60.

[bilateralrope]

Out of curiosity just what was wrong with Arkham Knight? I have not played it but I have watched a couple of hours of letsplays of it and the game seems solid enough.

A YouTube reviewer I'm rather fond of explains. And this is the hardware he's currently using. For the uninitiated, put it like this; if you want more junk in the trunk than that thing then you'll have to talk to Cray or Silicon Graphics. And the game still chugged a bit for him.

One thing that confuses me is why he rants so much about 60 FPS. Like maybe it's just me but I find that the actual amount of frames per second really does not matter just as long as it's constant. I find a game running at 15 FPS smoothly;y to be more enjoyable than one jittering between say 50 and 60.

Because a stable high framerate looks better than a stable low framerate.
Because the "cinematic" excuse a lot of developers and publishers pushed to justify only hitting 30 fps is such blatant bullshit.
Because if the game can run at a stable 30 fps on consoles, his hardware should be more than capable of hitting a stable 60fps. A PC port not doing 60fps is a clear sign that the port is bad.
Because if his hardware can't hit 60fps, the hardware of the average PC gamer is going to do a lot worse.
Because higher FPS correlates with players doing better in-game. This makes sense as higher FPS means less delay between you doing something and it showing on screen. Meaning that higher fps makes the gameplay better.

[Lord Revan]

I remember when back in Wrath of the Lich King had more or less constant stable(ish) 10 fps or so frame rate at the Argent Tournament (my PC was shit back then) and it was near impossible to do anything due to how unresponsive the game was once I updated my PC (and even the updated PC wasn't super great, in fact was more like on the low end of average) things changed dratically and even then I only decent framerates not 100+ ones.

And as stated Total Biscuit has a PC that has pretty much as good stats as you can get on a semi-reasonble budget and Arkham Knight was performing sub 60 on his PC, now consider how it would perform on a average PC where the stats would be much worse.

[Jub]

One thing that confuses me is why he rants so much about 60 FPS. Like maybe it's just me but I find that the actual amount of frames per second really does not matter just as long as it's constant. I find a game running at 15 FPS smoothly;y to be more enjoyable than one jittering between say 50 and 60.

Why shouldn't we hold publishers accountable for hitting a steady 60 fps? It's been shown to look and play better and is a hell of a lot more important to gameplay than throwing the extra high texture package and super amazing lighting effects onto a game so it looks better in screenshots.

[Vendetta]

Why shouldn't we hold publishers accountable for hitting a steady 60 fps? It's been shown to look and play better and is a hell of a lot more important to gameplay than throwing the extra high texture package and super amazing lighting effects onto a game so it looks better in screenshots.

As long as games are sold with canned trailers and screenshots, graphical flash will outsell stable performance.

To be honest though, I suspect most people with midrange PCs don't typically play games at 60fps anyway because they don't want to make the graphical sacrifices required, probably more like the 40-50 range depending on what's going on.

[Jub]

As long as games are sold with canned trailers and screenshots, graphical flash will outsell stable performance.

To be honest though, I suspect most people with midrange PCs don't typically play games at 60fps anyway because they don't want to make the graphical sacrifices required, probably more like the 40-50 range depending on what's going on.

Yeah, but at least on PC I can make a choice between shiny and smooth without having to deal with dynamic resolution nonsense like what many console games are doing.

[Purple]

[quote="bilateralrope"Because a stable high framerate looks better than a stable low framerate.[/quote]
That's another thing. I genuinely don't see much of a difference unless the game engine is tied to the FPS so the entire game starts running faster (like in old DOS games).

Because the "cinematic" excuse a lot of developers and publishers pushed to justify only hitting 30 fps is such blatant bullshit.

Ok? I mean, sure, you are right. But my point is that I don't see a need for said excuse to be made in the first place.

Because if the game can run at a stable 30 fps on consoles, his hardware should be more than capable of hitting a stable 60fps. A PC port not doing 60fps is a clear sign that the port is bad.

Sure, what you say is right. But thats not what I am asking about. I am asking why anyone would so desperately want 60 to be a standard for PC gaming.

Because if his hardware can't hit 60fps, the hardware of the average PC gamer is going to do a lot worse.
Because higher FPS correlates with players doing better in-game. This makes sense as higher FPS means less delay between you doing something and it showing on screen. Meaning that higher fps makes the gameplay better.

I guess it's just me not playing the right sort of games than. I basically don't play many FPS games at all. The closest thing to it is Mount and Blade. And I can play that on full difficulty capped at 15 FPS (big mods, small RAM) and not see a loss in visual quality or my skill (although I only play singleplayer). Well that and CS 1.6 with bots. But that requires about as much player skill and reflexes as a farming simulator.

[Jub]

That's another thing. I genuinely don't see much of a difference unless the game engine is tied to the FPS so the entire game starts running faster (like in old DOS games).

Either you're slower than people around here already think you are, you've never actually tried looking for the difference, or you're one of the very few people with a poor enough brain-eye connection that you can't see it.

Sure, what you say is right. But thats not what I am asking about. I am asking why anyone would so desperately want 60 to be a standard for PC gaming.

60 fps or higher should be the standard because tenths of seconds count in shooters, MOBAs, and high-level RTS games. For other slower games, it doesn't make a massive difference, but it does make the game look better; and for 3d gaming 90+fps is going to be damned near essential.

I guess it's just me not playing the right sort of games than. I basically don't play many FPS games at all. The closest thing to it is Mount and Blade. And I can play that on full difficulty capped at 15 FPS (big mods, small RAM) and not see a loss in visual quality or my skill (although I only play singleplayer). Well that and CS 1.6 with bots. But that requires about as much player skill and reflexes as a farming simulator.

So you play slower paced games against or play against bots that you admit are no challenge to you. I'd be willing to bet that you haven't run a modern game at 60 fps in years. So of course you wouldn't notice the difference.

You're like people during the early HD switch who claimed there was no change between SD and 720p in terms of picture quality.

[Purple]

Either you're slower than people around here already think you are, you've never actually tried looking for the difference, or you're one of the very few people with a poor enough brain-eye connection that you can't see it.

It's not that I physically can't observe it. I just don't "see it" as in I don't see it as being a big deal. Like look up a gaming video on youtube recorded at 60 played at 60. Open it up in old firefox versions (I actually have one, long story) and run it at 30. I can see the difference but it's such a minor one that from my perspective it's a non issue.

60 fps or higher should be the standard because tenths of seconds count in shooters, MOBAs, and high-level RTS games.

That explains my lack of understanding than. I don't much like FPS games, don't even know what MOBA stands for.

For other slower games, it doesn't make a massive difference, but it does make the game look better; and for 3d gaming 90+fps is going to be damned near essential.

3D... another thing I don't get the point of. Like maybe it can be amazing if done right. But I've not seen it. And if it's going to be anything like 3D movies than it's paying extra for added disappointment.

So you play slower paced games against or play against bots that you admit are no challenge to you. I'd be willing to bet that you haven't run a modern game at 60 fps in years. So of course you wouldn't notice the difference.

I mentioned Mound and Blade because without mods it runs at near to or at 60 FPS for me but with mods I have to keep it capped at 15 to get a consistent frame rate. And between the two vastly different rates on the same game I don't genuinely feel a difference in anything.

You're like people during the early HD switch who claimed there was no change between SD and 720p in terms of picture quality.

SD to 720 I'll give you. That one is just obvious. But beyond that once you go to say 720 vs 1080 (the two top level youtube resolutions) I actually don't see much of a change beyond the load time being slower. It's a bit more crisp, I guess? But like not enough to care.

[Joun_Lord]

I enjoyed the game but I went in with low expectations. It was fun enough, nothing special, but still fun. I enjoyed the campaign okay. Unlike alot of people I enjoyed the fact you weren't just fighting aliens because that mixed the combat up. Seeing some of the movie environments and exploring them were fun. Other then a few weird textures likes vents the game looked good enough (reminded me alot of FEAR 2 actually and that ain't a bad thing). The story was kinda dumb but serviceable. The weapons felt a bit weak but looked and sounded mostly correct.

My main complaint was just from seeing the pre-release stuff how good it could have been. It could have been a good looking game and could of had a campaign that knocked the panties off players. But instead they released just a okay game that you can tell some effort went into but not near enough.

Look at something like Alien Isolation. Not my cup of teat because I hate stealth only game and games with artificially invincible enemies but goddamn does it look great, it plays great, its a great game you can tell the people behind it put a lot of time and effort into crafting. Colonial Marines should have been just as good or better.

[TheFeniX]

Grah! The board update ate my draft. I was really drunk while writing it, so I usually avoid posting until my sobriety gets a chance to read it over. You get the short version.

If they have trouble tracking 3 quarters of the sales, then their data is useless.

SteamSpy works fairly well and only tracks about 450k active Batman games. That's still good money, but doesn't really compete with the console sales.

PC sales look like they have quite a solid lock in second place. So not something that can be easily abandoned.

EA breaks out it's PC sales into everything aside from mobile games. This means we really can't see how much money they are raking in off their shitty browser games and other content way outside the "AAA action orra-whatever" market. If Dungeon Keeper can make 100million on mobile, those have to be pulling in some decent cash.

But those games can run on a toaster oven. Your actual games requiring some horsepower usually dominate on consoles and merely do damn well on PC. The emphasis on pre-orders and day 1 sales heavily favor console as well. This means you're almost better off NOT pushing parallel releases, and making your money on PC in the long run as sales push a lot of revenue on otherwise "dead" games.

Not saying certain publishers who never abandoned PC haven't been raking in money for years. But the business model of a company like valve differs from a company like WB. I think we're already seeing a shift, but not as fast and not in the areas people think.

[TheFeniX]

I guess it's just me not playing the right sort of games than. I basically don't play many FPS games at all. The closest thing to it is Mount and Blade. And I can play that on full difficulty capped at 15 FPS (big mods, small RAM) and not see a loss in visual quality or my skill (although I only play singleplayer). Well that and CS 1.6 with bots. But that requires about as much player skill and reflexes as a farming simulator.

You made me reinstall Counter-Strike. Ugh. Anyways, start your bot game. Open the console with ~. Type "FPS_max 60". Hit enter.
Run around.
Then open the console and type "fps_max 15". Hit Enter.

If you don't notice the difference, you probably have some kind of motion blindness.

The difference between 30 and 60FPS isn't as noticable, but it is still there in spades. On my new monitor, FFXIV was pulling 60FPS but the game did not look or play right. Everything felt muddy and blurry. Turns out, Displayport 1.1 won't do 60FPS at 4K. It will cap at 30. I had to enable 1.2 (which is disabled by default due to backwards compatibility) and I was playing a completely different game. Cap your FPS in a game like Left 4 Dead to emulate the console version (30FPS): totally different game. At 60FPS you can now make out individual zombies as they mob you with a flurry of limbs.

60FPS was a the standard of PC gaming in fast-paced games for a reason, many of which other posters already covered. I even had a 75Hz monitor for a short time and that was noticeable as well. Consoles have mitigated the garbageness of 30FPS with certain tricks like motion blur, but since a large amount of console players don't bother with 60FPS, of course they can't notice the difference.

[Purple]

If you don't notice the difference, you probably have some kind of motion blindness.

As I said, I do notice it physically. I just do not consider what I see to be a big deal either way. And I genuinely do not understand why people are getting so worked up about something that for me is an insignificant difference. Like if I had to put a number on it I'd call it a 5% difference at most.

Exceptions being the cases people mentioned like fast paced FPS games that actually require so much reflexes that +/-1 in your frame rate gets you killed.

The difference between 30 and 60FPS isn't as noticable, but it is still there in spades. On my new monitor, FFXIV was pulling 60FPS but the game did not look or play right. Everything felt muddy and blurry. Turns out, Displayport 1.1 won't do 60FPS at 4K. It will cap at 30. I had to enable 1.2 (which is disabled by default due to backwards compatibility) and I was playing a completely different game. Cap your FPS in a game like Left 4 Dead to emulate the console version (30FPS): totally different game. At 60FPS you can now make out individual zombies as they mob you with a flurry of limbs.

Speaking of that, the issue seems mostly to be console games ported to the PC. Maybe it's because of the way console games are written to optimize for 30 that makes the 30 vs 60 issue more expressed?

[TheFeniX]

As I said, I do notice it physically. I just do not consider what I see to be a big deal either way. And I genuinely do not understand why people are getting so worked up about something that for me is an insignificant difference. Like if I had to put a number on it I'd call it a 5% difference at most.

That is not a 5% difference. To me, it's like watching a video vs a power-point slide-show. It's grating and it gives me headaches. And since frame-rate drops are and always have been a thing in everything since Space Invaders, going sub-30 is excruciating even with motion blur.

For the record, I notice single-digit drops in FPS when running at 60FPS instantly. It's not rocket science, I've just been playing video games that long. Depending on the source, I can also instantly tell if I'm not running 1080p. Then again, for 1080i, I have to see it in motion. But 720p vs 1080p is instantly apparent.

Exceptions being the cases people mentioned like fast paced FPS games that actually require so much reflexes that +/-1 in your frame rate gets you killed.

Tick rate is just one facet of why higher FPS is superior. And Shooters are not the only games it is desirable.

Speaking of that, the issue seems mostly to be console games ported to the PC. Maybe it's because of the way console games are written to optimize for 30 that makes the 30 vs 60 issue more expressed?

No, it's just the only thing you can compare them to. Sub 60 framerates even in RTS are annoying. I'd much rather have a smooth transition across the map, being able to make out units while scrolling, than the screen being this jumbled mess of individual frames that makes my head want to explode.

I had this issue in Starcraft 2 once. I was getting >30 FPS. I was getting nauseous. No idea what was going on. Not until I looked and saw I had left Skyrim running in the background. Fixed that real quick.

But there are certain things less experienced gamers "do not mind." Hardware vs software mouse and acceleration (software is fucking awful and lags behind your actual movements) is one of them. That you don't get it doesn't matter. That it doesn't affect you doesn't mean it's not a huge issue to some people. No offense, but when you say "not a big deal, it's only 5%," you're basically saying "I have no idea what I'm talking about."