You probably know Aliens: Colonial Marines as a chance for games journos to bust out the quips from James Cameron's genre-defying 1986 movie. You might also have heard it's a canonical sequel to that movie, and that its six-year dev cycle has been long enough for the darker voices in your head to start whispering: "Duke Nukem Forever." So now the Texas studio is finally dishing out precious hands-on time with Colonial Marines, what have we learned about those six years? Is it less of an Alien and more of a dinosaur?
Not even a little bit. Somewhere deep within Gearbox the coders have produced a very contemporary-looking bespoke engine, with some bleeding edge graphical tech in the form of a deferred lighting system. While you're walking around the Sulaco, the surface of LV-426 or anywhere else Colonial Marines will take you, the engine's rendering the out-of-frame part of that level before you arrive. When you do rock up to that pre-rendered area, all the cogs and pistons inside your Xbox 360 can focus solely on lighting in real-time. Cue tons of scary silhouettes dancing across walls, realistic light beams and a metric ton of atmosphere.
Life's much simpler as a marine. Poking out reassuringly in front of you is an iconic pulse rifle, complete with authentic high-pitched burst fire. You also have a motion tracker which uses the original skin-crawling beep sounds from the 1986 movie. It's far from a simple nod to the film, though - constant flipping back and forth between weapon and tracker is vital. It only takes a few dozen sneak attacks from behind to realise that.
What's really striking about the action, as we trade kills with the Gearbox devs playing as Xenos, is how the game's mechanics brutally guide both teams into behaving like their movie counterparts. Marines really do need to watch those corners, stick together, and anything else you might imagine Apone saying. Shotguns really do come in handy for close encounters - along with a brand new weapon we're given the option to use in the weapon loadout screen after each death. It falls somewhere between a pulse rifle and the super-powerful S.M.A.R.T. gun (which comes with an auto-aim function and can only be picked up from hard to reach locations in each level like a Quake railgun). It's the first taste we get for the level of creative licensing Gearbox is allowing itself with this game. So far, so safe.
Large and in charge
Our second taste of Gearbox's expansion of the Aliens universe is a little more controversial - and a lot smashier. It's a new alien type called the Charger, which introduces itself by filling the screen with its triceratops-like form, then pounding it into a pulp of failure and humiliation - much like L4D's Tank. He spawns every two minutes, turning the tide of what's otherwise a really close battle - there's never more than three kills in it as both teams race to 50. The other new alien type we're treated to (read: callously mutilated by) is the Lurker, a much closer relative than the Charger to the Xenos we're used to from the movies. His angle is stealth - moving quickly and silently before closing in for the melee kill.
10 comments so far...
Bezza89 on 7 Jul '12 said:
How's the blood coming along? Is it acidic yet?
Clanger67 on 7 Jul '12 said:
Surely they won't omit that though Bezza.All the Gearbox interviews i have read they are recreating a game that panders to fans of the first three films.How many are they gonna alienate by omitting acid blood.Always had faith in Gearbox as a dev. i will lose faith if they cock this up.
Thos. on 7 Jul '12 said:
Prometheus kind of explains the 'giant space jockey thing', but to be fair it contains more questions than answers.
Decent_Jam on 7 Jul '12 said:
Prometheus is in so many ways a separate entity I think it ends up getting short-changed by being compared to the Alien legacy, not that it isn't Ridley's own fault of course.
The blood is a must and I'm sure they realise that, particularly after that was all over the initial reaction to the footage we saw.
I'm still intrigued by this because of the MP aspect, not sure it will grip me enough in SP, may even be too chilling for me to cope with, who knows.
mistergrimm on 7 Jul '12 said:
IMO Prometheus was very definitely an Alien film. It had the potential to go in a different direction but the forced references to the xenomorphs - which were rather unnecessarily made a pretty crucial part of the plot and were far from subtle winks - made it little more than a shameless cash-in.
Any way, on a more relevant note, I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS GAME.
ItchyRash on 9 Jul '12 said:
[quote="Clanger67"a game that panders to fans of the first three films.
I didn't think fans of the third film existed. Fingers crossed it sticks more to 2nd in terms of gameplay.
Clanger67 on 9 Jul '12 said:
I didn't think fans of the third film existed. Fingers crossed it sticks more to 2nd in terms of gameplay.
There are a few fans of the third on here,including me.Directed by David Fincher one of my favourite directors but taken out of his hands for a lot off it,not his first film that has happened.Some great english talent in it.Plus i didn't mean the setting or whatever for the game,just that in ideas it wasn't bad not as stupid and pointless as the cash in last film.
bamozzy on 9 Jul '12 said:
So far EVERY video etc has shown that the Alien Blood is NOT acidic! It still evaporates into thin air and does little (if any) splash damage. You could very easily melee or shotgun blast the Alien at very close range and NOT be hurt/damaged in any way from the resulting Alien Blood.
They still have time to get this right and although the look may be authentic and true to the 'universe' - with out the Acidic Blood it will not feel real and FAIL. It is probably the MOST important aspect of the Alien (probably more so than the look!) It is one of the most known and vital part of what makes these Aliens what they are. I think they need to have a kick/push action to knock the Alien back from you before you can kill it. If you kill it when it is too close, you yourself die or at least get severely injured/damaged - Maybe you have to take off your body armour (quickly) and put a new one on! They could also use it to open up areas or something - i.e. Kill an Alien in a specific area and the Blood eats through to another area - destructible environments!!
Bezza89 on 9 Jul '12 said:
Definitely - L4D has the spitters that die in a cloud of acid so it's very doable (that's a word?!?). I'm quite new to alien (3 years ago I first watched them) and before that I knew the aliens had acid blood and drooled a lot. Not sure if it's acidic drool... anyway I can sort of see grunt class aliens not having acid blood because they're so weak, but if Gboxs' excuse is creating new enemy types they've lost a sale from me, and I'll grab it preowned if at all if it's critically good.
Plamsa wing on 9 Jul '12 said:
I'm pretty sure all Xenomorphs have acidic blood.
It also has to be scary. When I first watched it all those years back, it scared the crap out of me, in fact it's only recently (last year), that I could watch the entire thing through.