Aliens: Colonial Marines

Zach Goodier

It’s been a few years since the Sulaco sent a distress call from LV-426, and now another company of marines, considerable larger, has been sent to investigate the Sulaco, which is now back in orbit over LV-426. You’re awoken from cryo to find that marines have already been sent over, and hostile contact has been confirmed. As you can imagine, there’s some xenomorph activity aboard, but how? And why is the ship back above the planet?

Free (face) hugs? Maybe a little love bite?

The story is a continuation of the classic Aliens movie (that’s the 2^nd movie, for those who haven’t kept track). The whole game tries to capture the feel of the movie, and put you in the roll of a colonial marine named “Winter.” However, there isn’t the same personality in your marines as you get from the movie, with everyone feeling more like a lame copy than an actual original character. There is an attempt to bring in talent from the original film, and that is one of the few things that make this story worth your time at all. Otherwise, most of it falls into a pattern of being sent into infested territory, where the human opponents from Weyland-Yutani feel smarter and tougher than the ultimate predator that we’ve come to fear, undermining the entire franchise.

Even with everyone here scoring hits, and your allies using a smartgun and shotgun pulse rifle attachment, That leaping xeno will take next to no damage, so you'll likely have to step in to finish it.

This is one of the biggest issues in this game: the AI. Xenos should be elusive, and attack from any and every way they can to get you, but the xenos all feel very simple, almost stupid, as they rush you under hails of smartgun and pulse rifle fire. Even more frustrating is the fact that it feels like the marines are firing BB’s all the time, because you can watch your squadmates fire on a xeno for 10 full seconds with a smartgun, scoring direct hits, and never actually kill it. Whether this was intended to give the player a feeling of superiority, or it was just overlooked, it becomes annoying, since it means you have to do nearly all of the work, even when you have 2 or 3 other marines helping you out.

You actually don't see a lot of this, it's far more likely this xeno would be stuck on a wall, or on a crate, or just running in circles.

Graphics are decent, with environments looking halfway decent, but character models feeling slightly dated. Both Wayland and xenos look fairly good, but a little rigid and lifeless in how they move most of the time. Also, the number of glitches I’ve found number fairly high, with aliens getting stuck on walls, fences, and other obstacles, and marines sometimes getting hung up on crates and the like. These are normally small issues that barely warrant mentioning, if they occur in other games, but these sorts of glitches happened far too often.

These guys killed me more than the xenos ever had a chance to.

Overall, this game felt like a lot of wasted potential. Voice acting was mediocre, graphics were mediocre, and still prone to all sorts of glitches, and the entire game feels like it belongs alongside 10 year old titles. The story has the potential to go places in sequels, but I don’t see that ever happening, at least not as a video game. The only part of this game that really works is as a concept, and as a small add-on to the Aliens story. Otherwise, this game is a technical failure on nearly all levels, and a game that might put a hurt on any chances of future Alien titles for a while. This wasn’t the worst game I ever played, but it certainly wasn’t any sort of success in my eyes. You can enjoy this game, somewhat, as long as you think of it more like a rail shooter in terms of enemy AI and useless allies.

Good:

-Story was somewhat interesting, with potential for future sequels that could be better than this game.

-Return of one of the original Aliens actors. While he doesn't get a huge role in this game, it's a welcome addition.

Bad:

-Animation and modeling felt mediocre.

-Horrible AI.

-Allies guns are “nerfed” to the point of feeling useless.

-The ultimate predators feel less threatening than a bunch of Weyland mercs with guns.

Scully Rating: 4.0 out of 10

Interstellar Marines (Early Access)

Zach Goodier

(Note: This game was played a couple months ago, so some info might be dated)

Interstellar Marines is an early-access first-person shooter which has you play an aspiring soldier looking to sign on as a recruit for the first marines to serve in space. It all sounds super cool, but for the most part, it keeps things fairly domestic, at least at this point. You can play competitive multiplayer modes and co-op against robot programmed to patrol and kill players, but the weapons themselves are modern. There really isn't a story to speak of aside from that, which is disappointing, but it seems that the actual story is going to be included in the main game. 

Weapons are modern, not futuristic.

The mechanics and movement are a little clunky, but for early access, everything looks pretty solid all around. Models are all solid and the guns feel realistic and the environments, while still on the small side, are well made. 

Monsters like this are, as far as I know, part of recent updates, but I only did a free weekend a while back.

Overall, this game still feels early in the sense that isn't a whole lot to do, but it looks like the focus has been on getting the mechanics and modelling right, and offering some entertaining challenges through unique game modes. I find the levels to be fairly short, and the general feeling to be generic. If they could really work on making this game look and feel like something unique, there could be a real gem here. Perhaps in later updates, and with the inclusion of story mode, this game could be a fun title. Until then, I wouldn't recommend jumping in with high expectations. Like a lot of early access games, there is always potential, but it's too early to tell how the final product will look.

Good:

-Decent mechanics.

-Some interesting modes.

-Solid modelling.

Bad:

-Lack of story.

-Nothing unique or exciting to hook you at this point.

Scully Rating: 6.5 out of 10