Aliens: Colonial Marines (video game) - Oh dear!

[AcesandEights]

So glad you guys compiled info here, it saved me from possibly making a bad impulse buy.

[Rancid Carcass]

This Inc Gamers article might explain how thing got so F.U.B.A.R. - in a nutshell, it looks like Gearbox mostly outsourced it to make Boarderlands, SEGA weren't happy, threatened to sue, Gearbox new it sucked but couldn't ask more time due to possible legal action, game shipped and here we are. Roughly. http://www.incgamers.com/2013/02/all...nt-problems-2/ Or maybe Randy Pitchford's Arcturian poontang was a male...

[Neil]

This Inc Gamers article might explain how thing got so F.U.B.A.R. - in a nutshell, it looks like Gearbox mostly outsourced it to make Boarderlands, SEGA weren't happy, threatened to sue, Gearbox new it sucked but couldn't ask more time due to possible legal action, game shipped and here we are. Roughly. http://www.incgamers.com/2013/02/all...nt-problems-2/ Or maybe Randy Pitchford's Arcturian poontang was a male... That certainly explains it!

[Neil]

It's the top selling game in the UK at the moment

[Rancid Carcass]

It's the top selling game in the UK at the moment Unfortunately that vindicates every bad decision made during the games development - which is ever so slightly depressing... Talking of depressing on a related note, seems Obsidian were working on an Aliens RPG: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ns-rpg-appears What might have been...

[MinionZombie]

I'd imagine the reason for it going to the top of the charts has nothing to do with the quality of the game - most people won't bother reading reviews or seeing all the fuss online - average punters will just blunder into their supermarket and drop forty quid on this assuming it'll be good. More money than sense, in that case ... perhaps they'll do a bit of research before their next purchase? No doubt used games shops will be inundated with copies of this.

[Tricky]

I'd imagine the reason for it going to the top of the charts has nothing to do with the quality of the game - most people won't bother reading reviews or seeing all the fuss online - average punters will just blunder into their supermarket and drop forty quid on this assuming it'll be good. More money than sense, in that case ... perhaps they'll do a bit of research before their next purchase? No doubt used games shops will be inundated with copies of this. Yep, my Facebook & Twitter feed has been full of excited fans of the films who have seen the advert for the game on TV & gone wide eyed & frothy mouthed at the prospect of playing it without even thinking to check the reviews out. I've tried to tell them but they won't listen.....

[Neil]

Unfortunately that vindicates every bad decision made during the games development - which is ever so slightly depressing... Talking of depressing on a related note, seems Obsidian were working on an Aliens RPG: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ns-rpg-appears What might have been... If it was 'ready to ship', what on earth happened?!

[MinionZombie]

Yep, my Facebook & Twitter feed has been full of excited fans of the films who have seen the advert for the game on TV & gone wide eyed & frothy mouthed at the prospect of playing it without even thinking to check the reviews out. I've tried to tell them but they won't listen..... There's occasions where you can trust a game is going to be top drawer without looking at reviews, or will live up to a certain standard. Rockstar games for instance - you can trust that they won't be broken pieces of shit, and you can trust that they're going to be total time sucks in the best way possible. Similarly, when it comes to a Call of Duty, or even a Gears of War (in certain ways - 2 was a big improvement on a flawed-but-good-start GoW1, and 3 continued to up the quality), because you know what you're going to get. You've seen the development of the series over the years and if you're into those games (as I am) then you can be confident in a purchase being what you expect it to be (fair enough if you don't like the CoD games also - let's not all get into boring and pointless CoD battle ... YouTube's comment feeds have seen enough of that for the entire Internet, nevermind the entire Internet itself ). However, with something like this, Gearbox haven't earned the right to blind purchases, and this will do their reputation no good at all. Even if they did farm out most of the game to someone else whose track record was pants, Gearbox made that decision (as well as deciding to, more than once, halt production in favour of other games such as Borderlands 2) and so they're ultimately responsible. Even when I can be confident in a purchase, I still keep tabs on previews and early reviews to be safe rather than sorry. Occasionally you can get it wrong and blind buy and be scuppered (as, no doubt, your friends will be ), and other times it can be okay but you would have preferred to pay less. I got Saints Row on the cheap when I first got my Xbox360 and it was decent fun, but flawed, and then I got Saints Row 2 brand new and I don't think that game was worth full price. It had several annoying bugs (for example, I had numerous freezes that cost me mission progress, not to mention frustrating gameplay bugs and vastly inconsistent design and difficulty) ... however, I then went on to buy Saints Row The Third brand new anyway because SR2 was a good old step up from SR1 and the buzz on SR3 was very good indeed, and so it proved when I got the game - as such I'll be very open to buying SR4 straight away as they've earned my higher opinion of them by consistently improving their output. Even still - reviews consistent with the prevailing opinions (i.e. not those 'paid for' reviews Danny mentioned earlier) definitely have an important role to play. Now and then you'll still play a game that has had horrid reviews ... I bought Duke Nukem Forever for six quid just to finally play it. It was hugely flawed but there was fun to be had amongst all the problems. £3 would have been a fairer price, mind.

[Rancid Carcass]

If it was 'ready to ship', what on earth happened?! From what I can gather, SEGA simply changed their minds and decided they'd prefer an Aliens game as an FPS.

[shootemindehead]

To me this just looks like another FPS game suffering from consolitis. Sounds good, looks good (well ok), plays like it's made for a feckin child. I've never had a good FPS gaming ecperience on a console. They're all dumbed down, "rail shooting", "target assisted" idiot fests. Playing an FPS with an xbox/PS3 controller is a joke anyway. It's no match whatsoever for a mouse/keyboard combo and it never will be. It's always the same, from 'Die Hard' on the Playstation in the 90's, to whatever...and yet I can still load up 'Doom 3' on the PC andl have a blast. I always feel like I'm playing something that's been dumbed down on a console and it always feels like a cut short gaming experience. I can't help but get the feeling that this game would have been a winner if it was designed for the PC first and foremost.

[Neil]

Playing an FPS with an xbox/PS3 controller is a joke anyway. It's no match whatsoever for a mouse/keyboard combo and it never will be. I used to agree, but watching my son (& his friends) playing on an XBox, they sure move and aim fluidly and quickly... Maybe not as quick as a keyboard/mouse, but not that far off! I can't get the hang of it, but then I've not put the time in, and have year and years of keyboard/mouse experience burned into my brain!

[MinionZombie]

While I do agree that FPS games are superior on PC due to the mouse+keyboard combo offering the best control, although consoles do offer greater variation on walking speed movement (as opposed to the on/off walk/run binary situation on a keyboard) ... however, I'm not convinced that Colonial Marines' problems can be blamed on "consolitis" - it seems far more to do with management problems as a result of Gearbox screwing around with it. Multiple delays in production due to stoppages so they can work on something else, handing off work to inferior devs, and by the looks of things working with an engine that either wasn't up to the task, or was years ago, but which hasn't been updated properly. It's amazing how CoD has managed to maintain and upgrade their engine since CoD4 (or even CoD2?), achieving some rather spectacular results from rather old tech (now heavily modified), so you do wonder if whoever was in charge of ACM's engine either couldn't get it up to snuff, or it was just flat-out dated (kind of like with DNF, come to think of it). However, like I said, the biggest problem(s) for the game seem to really be down to piss poor management.

[shootemindehead]

I used to agree, but watching my son (& his friends) playing on an XBox, they sure move and aim fluidly and quickly... Maybe not as quick as a keyboard/mouse, but not that far off! I can't get the hang of it, but then I've not put the time in, and have year and years of keyboard/mouse experience burned into my brain! Aye, but I bet that they're playing with aim assist on. To me, that's half a game, especially for a shooter. But, I agree, with a bit of practice, the player can get quick enough, but you absolutely never beat the mouse for precision. - - - Updated - - - While I do agree that FPS games are superior on PC due to the mouse+keyboard combo offering the best control, although consoles do offer greater variation on walking speed movement (as opposed to the on/off walk/run binary situation on a keyboard) ... however, I'm not convinced that Colonial Marines' problems can be blamed on "consolitis" - it seems far more to do with management problems as a result of Gearbox screwing around with it. Multiple delays in production due to stoppages so they can work on something else, handing off work to inferior devs, and by the looks of things working with an engine that either wasn't up to the task, or was years ago, but which hasn't been updated properly. It's amazing how CoD has managed to maintain and upgrade their engine since CoD4 (or even CoD2?), achieving some rather spectacular results from rather old tech (now heavily modified), so you do wonder if whoever was in charge of ACM's engine either couldn't get it up to snuff, or it was just flat-out dated (kind of like with DNF, come to think of it). However, like I said, the biggest problem(s) for the game seem to really be down to piss poor management. Consolitis™ is endemic within the gaming would though. It's plain to see in the basic Aliens game. Enemies have to jump in front of you, you're on rails (because with a controller 360 movement within a game is a bit of a pain in the arse), it's more of an interactive movie than an actual game (where they player gets shunted from cut scene to cut scene) and there's nothing terribly challenging in the content. These are all symptoms of the console market disease. Sure, there also is the extra layer of Suit Fuckery going on to and that malaise has been destroying the games industry for decades too, but as long as developers and publishers keep gearing their releases towards consoles, everything is just going to be same old, same old. I can honestly say that the only truly great gaming experience I've had on the xbox has been 'Red Dead Redemption'.

[Rancid Carcass]

Seems Obsidian were working on an Aliens RPG: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ns-rpg-appears What might have been... Gentlemen, get ready to sob uncontrollably into your pillows... 13 minutes of gameplay footage, (low rez video though): http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...gameplay-video