Aliens Colonial Marines: Nuke your expectations from orbit

[Sparky]

Not that anyone expected it to be good, but I had to share this video it's magical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=8dPF8jpItCs

They really captured the movies slow shambling aliens half hardheartedly trying to eat you... oh wait I'm thinking of zombies.

[UnSub]

I've seen people get excited about this game and can't understand why. There are already several terrible Aliens games and at least one good one; this title looks like it is adding nothing to the mix.

[murdoc]

[KallDrexx]

This is going to be one of those games that are going to be the gift that keeps on giving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J8SzBhjqaQ&feature=youtu.be

[Sparky]

Tru dat
 
Aliens: Colonial Marines - Pacifist Mode
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5WwV9YoW_U

I wouldn't mind the shite graphics, short campaign or even the COD gameplay if they'd just made the aliens quick, stealthy and threatening

[Fabricated]

I watched a 2 hour long video of this thing on IGN determining if I wanted it or not, and it looks like 90% of the game's problems are the AI/Pathing and the awful animations.

The visuals are definitely AAA+ High End of 2006, with better textures and filters created over the agonizingly long dev time- but the game looked fine to me. Hadley's Hope actually looked fucking awesome IMO even if it did look boxed in at times.

If the aliens were more aggressive and didn't seem to just randomly path everywhere then stop for literally like 3-4 seconds to raise up onto their hind legs before attacking, this game would be scary. Well, that and if the friendly AI wasn't blindingly retarded and awful and poorly animated. What a shame that this thing is probably dead after whatever DLC they have nearly done, because I think you could patch the suck out of it and end up with a half-okay Left4Dead but Aliens thing. If you count the original L4D and L4D2 average runtime, added up from all the original scenarios you'd end up with a shorter game than this.

Edit: not that it would happen since like every part of this game was handled by some different team, but mod tools would probably save this game too.

[Mrbloodworth]

Natural selection 2. More aliens than Aliens.

[Fabricated]

In the HL1 mod I actually used a model pack that changed all of the weapons and marine/khaara models to Aliens equivalents. It was pretty awesome.

Sell the game to Unknown Worlds or Valve or something. I bet they could fix it.

[Fabricated]

[Megrim]

oh nice

[tgr]

Even the age-old alien quake was scarier, and it was killed off early in the alpha stage, I believe.

[Ironwood]

That's like the Amstrad version.  It was awesome for the time actually.

[Yegolev]

There are many complaints but somehow I co-op'ed this for way too many hours last night.  We aren't sure why we like it.  Maybe because we turned up the difficulty and we die a lot.

[UnSub]

I think A:CM may go down as one of the most hilariously ill-considered games of 2013, if not longer.

So terrible, it's meta.

[Fabricated]

From *ugh* Reddit, but funny if true.

    First off, due to me breaking NDA, I can't provide any proof that I'm not just talking out of my ass. But I figure you'd be interested in hearing what I have to say regardless. I've been on the project for around a year and a half, so some of the following are things I've heard from more senior guys.

    Pecan (the internal codename for ACM) has a pretty long history. SEGA, GBX and 20th Century FOX came to an agreement to produce an Aliens game around 6 years ago, after which SEGA almost immediately announced it, long before Pecan had even started production. The game has been in active development in the past, only to be shelved in favor of another project (Borderlands, Duke, etc), and each time it was resumed it would undergo a major content overhaul.

    SEGA, naturally, wasn't super pleased about the delays, but GBX got away with it for a long time and the contract between SEGA and GBX kept getting augmented to push the projected release further and further back. The last time it was resumed, GBX outsourced a good portion of the game to outside companies. Initially, the plan was for TimeGate to take the majority of campaign, GBX would take MP, Demiurge and Nerve would handle DLC and various other focused tasks. This decision was made mostly so that most of the developers at GBX could continue working on Borderlands 2, while a small group of LDs, coders and designers dealt with Pecan.

    Somehow the schedules for Pecan and Borderlands 2 managed to line up and GBX realized that there was no fucking way they could cert and ship two titles at the same time. Additionally, campaign (which was being developed by TimeGate) was extremely far behind, even as Pecan's Beta deadline got closer and closer. In April or May (can't remember which), Pecan was supposed to hit beta, but GBX instead came to an agreement with SEGA that they would push the release date back one more time, buying GBX around 9 mos extension.

    About 5 of those 9 months went to shipping BL2. In that time, TimeGate managed to scrap together 85% of the campaign, but once Borderlands 2 shipped and GBX turned its attention to Pecan, it became pretty apparent that what had been made was in a pretty horrid state. Campaign didn't make much sense, the boss fights weren't implemented, PS3 was way over memory, etcetcetc. GBX was pretty unhappy with TG's work, and some of Campaign maps were just completely redesigned from scratch. There were some last minute feature requests, most notably female marines, and the general consensus among GBX devs was that there was no way this game was going to be good by ship. There just wasn't enough time.

    Considering that SEGA was pretty close to taking legal action against GBX, asking for an extension wasn't an option, and so Pecan crash-landed through certification and shipping. Features that were planned were oversimplified, or shoved in (a good example of this are challenges, which are in an incredibly illogical order). Issues that didn't cause 100% blockers were generally ignored, with the exception of absolutely horrible problems. This isn't because GBX didn't care, mind you. At a certain point, they couldn't risk changing ANYTHING that might cause them to fail certification or break some other system. And so, the product you see is what you get.

    Beyond gameplay, the story has been raised as an issue several times. I can't really comment without feeling bad beyond saying that the script was approved by 20th Century FOX, and that the rush to throw a playable product together came at the cost of the story. Campaign does a pretty bad job of explaining a lot of the questions raised at the start of the game, and so hopefully there will be DLC to flesh that out a bit better.

    I'll answer some questions, but I have to run soon, so it may take a while for responses.

[Paelos]

Wow it's like a how-to book on fucking up a business timeline. 

[Ratman_tf]

Wow it's like a how-to book on fucking up a business timeline. 

My first thought was that thread is a good example of how to get blacklisted from testing. But I tend to be paranoid regarding NDAs.

[Paelos]

Honestly, more of this stuff is going to come out as companies continue to shit on their consumers and pretend the internet doesn't exist.

The bad timelines, the overworked staffs, the ridiculous management, the conflict of interests between PR and gaming journos, the blantant lying to customers, the bolted on costs, and the stupid DRM schemes? These are things that have only been really getting horrific in the last decade, which in the history of anything is small.

There's a consumer backlash coming, if not already starting, and the industry leader that's prepared for it will win. An article like Table full of Doritos would never have been published in 2003, but games like ACM were allowed to die back then, or were called turds by all, and we moved on with our lives.

[murdoc]

The demo and the final product look a little different to say the least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z2qVebxlUo

[HaemishM]

Wow. 

[Fabricated]

This would sour me on Gearbox if Borderlands 2 honestly being pretty blah in the end hadn't already.

[Yegolev]

The demo and the final product look a little different to say the least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z2qVebxlUo

This just lends lots of credibility to the Reddit story.

[Paelos]

They are still advertising the crap out of this thing on Adult Swim.

[Mrbloodworth]

Adult Swim already got paid, why would they not?

[Merusk]

It's more like, "They got paid so they're contractually obligated to." 

[Mrbloodworth]

Have you seen the shows they themselves create and promote? Why would you think they would take the moral high ground? 

[Paelos]

I wasn't shocked that Adult Swim is running the ads. I'm shocked that ACM dumped money into advertising to have it run this far after the cow left the barn.

[Maledict]

What's interesting is that Sega and other leaks have come out and basically said that the above Reddit post is bullshit and just GBX trying to shove the blame off themselves onto other companies.

Either way its a complete failure of a game and a further bad indightment on the company.

[koro]

If the Reddit post is some attempt by Gearbox to deflect blame, it's not doing a very good job of it.

[Yegolev]

Maybe finger-pointing was the plan, but it shows a poor job of vendor management by Gearbox.  I can easily believe that ACM was developed by a different set of people than Borderlands1/2.  The set of flaws of BL and ACM do not intersect.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Either way, the buck stops at gearbox, outsourced or not they dropped the ball big time.

[Hoax]

This would sour me on Gearbox if Borderlands 2 honestly being pretty blah in the end hadn't already.

They should never have been forgiven for the multiplayer in BL1 and the general disrespect of pc gamers. Even though BL1 was a fantastic game they are clearly shitheads as an entity with incredibly talented people working for them.

[Kail]

Either way, the buck stops at gearbox, outsourced or not they dropped the ball big time.

You're talking about the company that released Duke Nukem Forever, remember.

[Lantyssa]

Well, they did release it at least...

[tgr]

Well, they did release it at least...

I'm thinking not releasing DNF would've a better choice compared to the drek they did shovel out.