So who wants to go to LV-426? Oh come on, don’t be afraid. Sure there are Xenomorphs, but in Aliens: Colonial Marines a Xenomorph is a lot like a common housefly. They’re all over the place, landing on your face and shit, and a good swatting takes care of them.
Okay, okay. Before I go all pessimistic on you, let’s start from the beginning. The story behind Aliens: Colonial Marines isn’t a bad one; before the pod containing Corporal Hicks and Lieutenant Ripley crash lands as per Alien 3, Hicks uses the radio to alert the US Marines about everything that has transpired on LV-426 (voiced by his original actor, who doesn’t sound too thrilled). Like a bolt of lightning, you and your group are dispatched to do some serious cleanup detail and try to rescue anyone who might have survived.
Hey, I remember this place.
You arrive aboard the Sephora just as the Sulaco is on its way out, right in time to catch Weyland-Yutani personnel on-site at LV-426 trying to do whatever it is they do when they actually manage to get their hands on all that Xenomorph stuff. I assume evil cleanup and sample taking.
We could gloss over the character you play, except to call him a character would be like giving a name to a tree stump. He goes by Winter, and he might as well be any generic grunt marine dude. He shoots guns, uses military lingo, and follows orders.
One thing must be said: While the team that made this game was either rushed or incompetent, they were at least fans. The sights, sounds, and feelings all match up perfectly with watching an Alien movie. Take any one screenshot, show it to someone, and they’ll immediately know it’s from the Alien universe.
Beyond the fan service, the faithful and often impressive recreations of LV-426 set pieces from Aliens, and very small other tidbits, playing this game is pretty similar to being clubbed in the groin with a medieval flail. The actual graphical fidelity comes straight from 2005 with few if any bells and whistles beyond some fancy film grain effects and overblown lighting. NPCs (and, uh, I guess everything) animate very poorly, nothing seems to flow. It’s all super stiff and never stops feeling awkward.
But can we seriously get to talking about how Xenomorphs went from being the perfect organism to trash mobs? Other reviews have touched on this, so we won’t waste much time, but it’s really goofy when these creatures just run stupidly at you with seemingly no thought, care, or strategy and are so eager to be mowed down. Of course you’ll gladly grant them this wish, because they won’t really take any more bullets than putting down human enemies. In fact, human enemies are generally more difficult to fight through the simple fact that they possess ranged attacks and the desire to not die. Perhaps Weyland-Yutani should give up trying to capture Xenomorphs and stick to their hired guns.
Uhhh…
Actually playing the game is a lot like riding a bull if someone was yelling in your ear and slapping your hands every time you tried to grab the saddle. Objective objects glow very slightly blue which blends into the already-blue tint of the overall game, meaning you’ll often be standing around or pacing through a room wondering if you’re supposed to be waiting for something or whether your fellow marines are actually just waiting on you to interact with a keypad. Controls are sloppy as hell, and aiming feels mysteriously like moving through molasses when you’re trying to aim quickly, but way too fast when you’re trying to aim slowly, undoubtedly because of some sort of mouse acceleration which cannot be disabled.
The game has some insane performance issues. Half the time you’re playing you’ll be fine, rolling through like a smooth criminal, and then you’ll walk into a room and be hit by 5-10 minutes of intermittent hitches and freezes while everything around you presumably is loading. It’s crazy, and it’s one of the reasons I quit long before I completed the campaign. Again, this is a head scratcher because the game doesn’t look like anything special. Looking for optimization? You won’t find it here. Git.
There just isn’t a lot to say here. It’s a completely believable movie tie-in that lives up to nobody’s standards. Remember that feeling you had when you played Enter the Matrix? It’s like that. Except worse.
For those who are desperate for additional play time out of their purchase, there is a fairly full-featured versus mode with half a dozen different styles ranging from your typical “Xenomorphs vs. Marines” team deathmatch to a few more complicated objective-based game modes. If you play as a Marine, you can select from 3 player-defined loadouts, and if you’re a Xenomorph you have 3 species to choose from each with strengths. As is to be expected, the versus mode is every bit as stiff and not-fun as playing the campaign… not to mention you’re playing with a lot of other people who also deeply regret their purchase.
There are no other options. How do we deal with a game like this? How could it have happened? Well here’s my plan, and I think you’ll like it. We’ll move in pairs. We’ll go step by step and cut off every bulkhead and every vent until we have it cornered. And then we’ll blow it the fuck out into space! Is that acceptable to you?
No shit, Hudson.
