Aliens: CM: Did I miss something?

[Omniponent]

Now let me preface my question to you all with a brief summary of my relationship with the Alien series. I have seen Alien twice, I have seen Alien 3 once, I have seen AvP but not the sequel.I have seen Alien 4 once. I Have seen Prometheus once. I played Aliens Vs Predator on the xbox 360.
It's not that I don't like the Alien series, it just doesn't connect with me the same way, say, Star dance contests does. It never has, I think its cool and the Alien is bad ass, but I get names of characters mixed up, I don't understand a lot of stuff about the series and thought Prometheus kind of stunk. But I digress.

Why is there so much hate, critically, for Aliens: Colonial Marines? I went to a pre-release party and played some multiplayer before it came out, and I liked it just fine. Then I played the crap out of the game's single player (hardest difficulty) and since have been playing multiplayer. I don't get why every review I've seen of the game, or even mention of the game, is so negative.

IGN, Gamespot, and GamesWeasel, all bad or horrible reviews. Now I don't always agree with reviews online, but usually they're in the same ballpark as my experience. But I've had two friends on separate occasions come over to my house, pick up the game and play it, and say
"I don't understand why this game got slammed in the reviews."
If I were to review the game I'd say, the game isn't a revolutionary FPS, and its controls are stiff compared to CoD and Halo. The story isn't all that bad. Its one of those games that's dialogue is better than its story. Im my opinion, the lighting effects were really cool and while not scary, the Aliens are gross and threatening. I wouldn't take this game on a desert island, and I'm not saying its a fantastic game. I'm just confused that a game that plays well, on both multiplayer and single player fronts is getting crushed by the critics.

What do you think? Are you a fan of the Alien series and did you enjoy the game? Why or Why not? Is there something I'm not seeing? Do you have to be a big Aliens fan to see these flaws?

 

[Tanis]

This is based off the PS3/PC version:
The demo was LIE.

The AI is so retarded, even goombas are smarter.

The story pisses on established canon.

While multiplayer CAN be fun, most folks didn't buy it for the MP.

Dead Space 2 is more 'Survival/Horror' then a game based around ALIENS.

 

[WoW Killer]

I think I've been seeing a lot of this...

Posts: 15
Joined: 19 Nov 2009

...recently in relation to this game.

Never played it. I wasn't looking forward to it because it's not my sort of game. Maybe people are being over critical because they're hungry for something to hate. You saw that recently with the likes of DMC and DS3, which apparently weren't anywhere near as awful as people first suggested. The new Sim City is bound to be meta-bombed. That's gaming culture for you.

 

[Omniponent]

I think I've been seeing a lot of this...

Never played it. I wasn't looking forward to it because it's not my sort of game. Maybe people are being over critical because they're hungry for something to hate. You saw that recently with the likes of DMC and DS3, which apparently weren't anywhere near as awful as people first suggested. The new Sim City is bound to be meta-bombed. That's gaming culture for you.

Unfortunately I believe you might be right. If it's not a game, it's a movie.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

Woo-hoo, it's this thread again.

Now let me preface my question to you all with a brief summary of my relationship with the Alien series. I have seen Alien twice, I have seen Alien 3 once, I have seen AvP but not the sequel.I have seen Alien 4 once. I Have seen Prometheus once. I played Aliens Vs Predator on the xbox 360.

Sorry, one thing.

You've watched literally every Alien-related movie in existence except Aliens.

I . . . it . . . what? How?

I'm legitimately curious. You seem pretty well-versed in the Alien series aside from that.

Why is there so much hate, critically, for Aliens: Colonial Marines? I went to a pre-release party and played some multiplayer before it came out, and I liked it just fine.

If I had to guess, either you didn't see everything that was wrong with the game or you were capable of overlooking/forgiving it, and enjoyed yourself nonetheless.

Doesn't make it a good game. Doesn't make it anything but what it is, and what it is is atrocious.

Then I played the crap out of the game's single player (hardest difficulty) and since have been playing multiplayer. I don't get why every review I've seen of the game, or even mention of the game, is so negative.

Spoiler: Oh, I don't know, maybe because . . .

The AI is terrible on all but the highest difficulty, at which point it graduates to passable?
Gearbox had six years to make it work and it still runs like Bethesda programmed it?
The trailer they released a week before launch presented a Cadillac and we got a Pinto with the tires slashed?
They completely miss the satire of military and macho culture present in the movie and instead plays it straight?
It's glitchy as all hell?
It attempts to play with Alien canon but instead hits it in the face with a shovel?
Gearbox lied about it?
Gearbox lied about it?
Gearbox lied about it?

IGN, Gamespot, and GamesWeasel, all bad or horrible reviews. Now I don't always agree with reviews online, but usually they're in the same ballpark as my experience. But I've had two friends on separate occasions come over to my house, pick up the game and play it, and say
"I don't understand why this game got slammed in the reviews."

Tell me, were you and your friends laughing, talking to each other, and generally socializing whilst playing the game? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you guys have souls and estimate that the answer is probably yes.

Also, were you and your friends thinking critically about the game as you played it? Did you take notes about how the game conveys information, how much it holds your hand, what it's trying to say thematically, how in-character the characters are, and the like? Did you thoroughly research the game beforehand and look in to what happened during its development? I think it's a safe bet that you aren't a professional reviewer, so I would think the answer is no.

This might be a radical notion, but I think you just might have been having fun with your friends instead of critically analyzing the game.

Look, if you enjoyed A:CM, then enjoy it and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. However, personally enjoying a game does not make it good or absolve it of its sins. That's a subtle distinction, but it's an important one to remember.

 

[Omniponent]

This might be a radical notion, but I think you just might have been having fun with your friends instead of critically analyzing the game.

Look, if you enjoyed A:CM, then enjoy it and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. However, personally enjoying a game does not make it good or absolve it of its sins. That's a subtle distinction, but it's an important one to remember.

I get that too. I do myself draw the line between a fun game and a good game. Earth Defense Force 2017 amiright? I mean playing the game with friends always helps, we're all a bunch of critics, me especially. I dislike a lot of games that other people just darn love. I get not liking a game, that's just taste, but people seem to be waging war against this game. That's what I'm not seeing.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

This might be a radical notion, but I think you just might have been having fun with your friends instead of critically analyzing the game.

Look, if you enjoyed A:CM, then enjoy it and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. However, personally enjoying a game does not make it good or absolve it of its sins. That's a subtle distinction, but it's an important one to remember.

I get that too. I do myself draw the line between a fun game and a good game. Earth Defense Force 2017 amiright? I mean playing the game with friends always helps, we're all a bunch of critics, me especially. I dislike a lot of games that other people just darn love. I get not liking a game, that's just taste, but people seem to be waging war against this game. That's what I'm not seeing.

I don't think anyone today could honestly call EDF 2017 a bad game. That's in the same league as criticizing Godzilla for having bad special effects.

Anyway, I think that the main thrust of the whole thing is that Gearbox were stunningly dishonest about how they marketed it. Seriously, have you seen that trailer? It's staggering how much bullshit they crammed into ten minutes and how little of the demo is actually in the finished product. They were totally aware of it, too, so the whole thing was just them realizing that this six-year-old project they had was going to bomb, hard.

There's plenty wrong with what Gearbox did, but perhaps the reason it's kicking up so much is that people are sort of coming to a head about how they want game companies to treat them like people instead of mindless consumers. It might be that people are just getting fed up with all the bullshit they're handed by publishers and developers.

 

[daveman247]

snip

Ehhh. A mixture of a long development and hype time. To produce a pretty standard shooter. Add the license its based on and the love fans have for it, standard just won't cut it.

Most of the problems that have thrown at it are forgivable in my opinion. Except the AI, it completely failed to capture how intelligent and dangerous the aliens are supposed to be. Its supposed to be - if they get in close you are pretty much dead- Here they are not, sometimes the aliens won't even acknowledge you are there... And a very forgiving "shove" mechanic to keep them at bay aint great either.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

My favorite part of the whole Aliens: Colonial Marines tragedy is the game's writing staff.

I love how the video press releases had them talking about how they were going to have this brand new way of telling a story, and a brand new way of using dialogue in a game that'll make people's jaws drop in awe.

I love how when that trailer launched with the incredibly corny speech delivered by Duke Nu...er... Jon St. John... and everyone criticized how bad the speech was, the writers were quick to jump on Twitter to make sure everyone knew that they didn't write it! That their dialogue was sooo much better!

And it turned out to be one of the most generic and bland stories in existence, accompanied by dialogue barely on-par with SciFi Channel original movies. And to top it all off, it did NOTHING new for either storytelling or dialogue. Failure on all fronts.

Added:

I think I've been seeing a lot of this...

Posts: 15
Joined: 19 Nov 2009

...recently in relation to this game.

Funny, that. You're getting a Star Wars: The Old Republic vibe too, I presume?

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The game gets a poor review because of several things. For example, it is a storied universe that has managed to produce two of the finest movies ever made (and two of the worst but that's a discussion for another thread). It also has problems with pacing, the design does not appear to fundamentally know what kind of game it wants to be, poor AI on all fronts, bugs left and right, bad animations, unsatisfying weapons, bad level design and so on.

The real problem though is that one can see a good game there. Making ACM into something at least acceptable wouldn't require much beyond fine balance adjustment and some bug fixes. Making it into something excellent would require they also decide if they want the game to be an action shooter or if they want to go the horror route.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Well the demo was actually a full on lie. I wish I was exaggerating, but as much I don't really like him watch the Jimquisition episode on it he goes through it point by point

The enemy movements and AI were broken, people would stand there waiting to be shot, Aliens flat out do not act like Aliens, the graphics are horrible, especially on consoles... The list continues.

This game is literally THE perfect example of graphics /=/ aesthetics. The game pulls off the Alien world aesthetic really well, with all the guns and motion sensor and famous locations faithfully recreated and generally feels Alien-y. However the textures are horrendous, there's screen tearing, horrible FPS, the facial animations are laughable and a fuckton of other mean words.

Oh and the Aliens are not scary. Like at all. Wat?

The game is the definition of unpolished. With over a decade of work put into it that is really damn bad... I think Gearbox should stop helping vapourware like DNF and Aliens come out before their brand gets completely ruined. Their own games are actually good...

 

[Maximum Bert]

I also cant believe you havent watched aliens the special edition one in particular is by far the best film in the series I wasnt to keen on 3 and 4 and havent watched prometheus.

As for the game I havent played it but I watched a playthrough of it and it was laughably bad the a.i is totally retarded theres way to many glitches and the animation is atrocious especially of the aliens they just seem to glitch from place to place because they dont seem to have enough frames of animation to make it look fluid oh and that ending lol yeah that was satisfying.

If I was a hardcore Aliens fan there is no doubt a lot of plot holes I could talk about but im not so I cant and I dont want to repeat what I have heard parrot fashion.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Honestly, go watch Angry Joe's rev--

I haven't played the game, but I feel Angry Joe probably sums up most of the anger and problems with the game quite intelligently.

<youtube=UGX2WE4QUw8>

Honestly, from what I've seen the game has a poor story, poor AI, and it's overall low quality.

...oh. Yeah, watch that. That explains a lot of the anger. I too have enjoyed the game, but I do regret that I paid full price for it. Still, I needed to kill until other games came out, so it's served its purpose. If you want to understand some more, go watch "What the Hell Happened to Aliens: Colonial Marines?" That video put into words a lot of the things that were bothering me about the game.
And seeing the demo again in that video, side-by-side with the actual game, made me suddenly hear that small voice in the back of me head saying, "There's something missing!" Remember that part in the demo, or early trailers, or whatever it was, where it showed you running through what looked like a junkyard, following another marine? Every twist and turn you'd meet up with another marine, only to have him get brutally killed seconds later and your commander would take off in another direction and you had to follow or get torn to shreds. That's never in the game. Some much potential from the demo, all ruined.

 

[Something Amyss]

Why don't people like what I like?

I don't think anyone today could honestly call EDF 2017 a bad game. That's in the same league as criticizing Godzilla for having bad special effects.

I don't know that that's fair, given the fact that Godzilla was once heralded for its effects. Was EDF never NOT schlock?

 

[Something Amyss]

I haven't played the game, but I feel Angry Joe probably sums up most of the anger and problems with the game quite intelligently.

<youtube=UGX2WE4QUw8>

Honestly, from what I've seen the game has a poor story, poor AI, and it's overall low quality.

You lost me when you said "Angry Joe" and "intelligently" in the same sentence.

 

[Lucid_Camel]

If it wasn't Cannon I wouldnt have taken the time to watch all the cutscenes on youtube. Honestly I cant tell you what hasn't been said already about the game. Not sure if it takes place shortly after alien 3 .Alien 4 being the last in the series of movies thankfuly renders the A:CM moot.The biggest problem to me as a greasy fanboy was the Story, they could have just used a fanfic and it would be better.

On the brightside Id love to see the Boiler alien in a movie, online is ment to be decent

 

[IronMit]

I'm with the OP with this one....not that people don't have a right to be annoyed. I have not played the game and never will but I feel like sharing my perspective

The demo/preview was misleading..the graphics looked much better, more eerie lighting and build up moments were more tense....
But when I saw that preview I just thought how long can a game keep this up from area to area. There are only so many times your squad mates can be picked off in live action scripted sequences before there's no-one left and the game turns into a shooter or into a stealth game.

Yh the game is bad but it's the hypocrisy of IGN, gamespot etc. that really annoys me
Mass effect 3 was misleading...anyone forget?..weather you enjoyed the game or not..rpg mode had a crap load or auto dialogue, pre release statements, interviews and marketing told us there wouldn't be an A.B,C ending..that all the questions will be answered ... and it was the exact opposite. There were some massive cutscene errors where the npc heads would do a 180.

Far cry 3 preview anyone? There are videos online of how much better the graphics were in the preview videos.

And all these sites disregard fan complaints...but apparently this one is a bigger deal and they jump on this band wagon.

 

[upgrayedd]

Would like AI in the game, I shot the freaking Textures off the aliens 3 times during the game, One of them was stuck in a wall. The points where you fight the Humans turns into a terrible cover based combat, even when the levels are NOT designed for this shit

Also the point where i was being flanked by a guy with a rocket launcher, flame thrower while having grenades being lobbed at me...While MY BUDDY JUST WATCHED THIS HAPPEN

WHY WOULD HE DO THAT TO ME?!