Aliens: Colonial Marines and Gearbox Software are being treated to a thorough roasting this morning, as less-than-appreciative reviews and scores go live. According to one source, who describes himself/herself as a former Gearbox employee, the bulk of Colonial Marines development was carried out not by the creators of Borderlands, but by less-sung Section 8 developer Timegate Studios.
"Hate to say it, but I wouldn't get your hopes up too high for Colonial Marines," the unnamed developer commented over at TexAgs last year, via Eurogamer. "I used to work at Gearbox, and the development of that game has been a total train wreck, going on what, 6 years now?"
The game's Metascore currently sits at a dismal 49 on Xbox 360.
In Gearbox's defence, the studio has been reasonably upfront about the role played by external developers. "It's a big, ambitious game," bossman Randy Pitchford told IGN yesterday. "Some of the other studios involved, we decided that these guys are awesome. They did a lot of really valuable work.
"We're not contractually obligated to put anybody's credits there, but we value talent and respect talent. We wanted to make sure that those logos were there and that work was represented. In big efforts, that's not an uncommon thing. You don't usually see it up front."
TimeGate, Shoot Many Robots outfit Demiurge Studios and Nerve Software get namechecks on the Alien: Colonial Marines credits reel, presented at the start of the game. According to Pitchford, Demiurge "with us at the very beginning, helping us to explore networking and multiplayer" while TimeGate accounted for "probably about 20 or 25 percent of the total time" - on par with Gearbox's input less the preproduction work, although as Pitchford notes "it's not fair to take preproduction out of it, but that says a lot about how much horsepower those guys put into it."
"We wanted some more multiplayer stuff, more content and more features for the game that we shipped rather than parceling it all out for downloadable content," he added. "We wanted to put more in the game that shipped. Nerve had some time and those guys are badass. They're right down the street. That just made sense. They got some of their awesome guys to do some cool sh*t. Some of my favorite multiplayer maps came out of that group.
"They're good guys. They care," Pitchford went on. "We know the mission. It's about building the game. Let's say you imagine the house you want to build. You have the blueprints, and you want to get someone that's really awesome at making stairs to help make the stairs. You want to get someone that lays carpet like a mother**ker to come down and lay some carpet.
"These guys are hardcore. They have talent. If I was going to lay all that carpet myself and build the stairs myself and do all the countertops myself, that house would never get done."
Four studios. Six years. 49. Read our Aliens: Colonial Marines review for more.
8 comments so far...
GHOSTY05 on 12 Feb '13 said:
Great another alien game destroyed!
It's like finding out your Audi was made in taiwan.
Glad I cancelled my preorder as this will half price in a few weeks
7 years for them to make this mess, one day someone will make a proper alien game
OXM ETboy on 12 Feb '13 said:
I have layethed the smackdown upon your duplicate post, Ghost.
GHOSTY05 on 12 Feb '13 said:
Thanks Edwin, I thought I had deleted the original
Plamsa wing on 12 Feb '13 said:
Really hope Timegate don't get shafted by this game. While the player base is almost dead, both Section 8's are really great FPS that deserve more attention than they get.
They also made Kohan, which too is a great RTS.
The game is still mostly a Gearbox production and it's they who make the call on any final content.
Sadly though, I can see this doing more harm than good to alot of parties. If I were SEGA, I have scrapped this before it began. Get someone proper on it, maybe Rocksteady?
Get an open world Aliens game on the go.
CunningSmile on 12 Feb '13 said:
Some times you can have multiple studios working on a game a produce a gem but you need to have someone at the top who is making sure everything integrates well.
AC: Brotherhood is a prime example. One team working on the Liars, one on multiplayer, one on the present day stuff and at least two producing the bulk. The end result flows beautifully and whilst not my favorite Assassins Creed game it was certainly impressive for a years work. But it only works because someone was able to corral all those studios and say "This is the game we are making!" Without that you get Aliens, a disjointed affair that doesn't really work together, good game mechanics that are in MP but not SP, and more importantly no one willing to hold up a hand and say mea culpa.
Baryonyx on 12 Feb '13 said:
The dismal mess that Colonial Marines seems to be is quite depressing. When you think, the Aliens RPG was cancelled yet this was kept alive. Why couldn't we at least have both? It was even worse when the footage of the Aliens RPG was leaked onto the 'net, because it looked quite compelling. A damn shame.
Not every Aliens game has sucked, mind. I had Alien 3 for the Megadrive, a truly fantastic platformer featuring the best soundtrack ever in a game. Aliens Trilogy was also quite good (I had it for both the PS1 and the Saturn). Alien Ressurection for the Playstation was fairly amibitious and pretty damn good. I have fond memories of playing that at Christmas. I've got a copy of Colonial Marines sitting on my coffee table. I'll crack it open when I finish work on Saturday, then we'll see if it's worth playing. Much like Duke Nukem Forever, I am hoping there will still be some charm amongst the flaws.
GHOSTY05 on 12 Feb '13 said:
I say take this game and nuke it from orbit!
CunningSmile on 13 Feb '13 said:
It's the only way to be sure.