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Aliens: Colonial Marines


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Seems the long gestating Aliens: Colonial Marines by Gearbox is finally getting a full blown unveiling at this year's E3:

 

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A teaser has been released, along with a release window - Spring 2012. The game will be demoed at E3.

 

[youtube=hd]mbN1wDXvIV8

 

Not much to see in the teaser, but the setup is apparently you play as one of a group of Marines that boards the U.S.S. Sulaco after the events of Alien 3. Presumably it will explore why Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop (hibernating in their cryo beds at the end of Aliens) were ejected from the ship at the start of Alien 3. There is also going to be a trip to LV-426 (which the Sulaco is apparently in orbit around) and the colony of Hadley's Hope, which the teaser briefly depicts. I find that a bit odd given that it was nuked in Aliens, but I guess we'll see how it turns out in due course.

 

Also, it sounds like the play style is essentially Borderlands in space, with a focus on drop-in/drop-out 4 player co-op.

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I know this is somewhat wrong considering how much Halo borrowed from Alien on the first place, but the beginning of the walkthrough, while still on the ship, reminded me so much of the first Master Chief game.

 

I must say I'm really impressed with that walkthrough by the way. In less than twelve minutes the player went from a bad situation to a really ****ty one. And in that time length I felt overwhelmed thrice! Feels like no matter how big is your arsenal and no matter how powerful are your vehicles, you can't hope to beat the damn aliens. And I was just watching, as all of us.

 

Plus, the way these aliens move... It's not completely new and I'm not sure how much of it was preprogrammed, but it was very groundbreaking. And it feels like an Alien/Predator movie. The gory action, the funny character, the chuckles. This has just come from a nice looking game to something with seemingly GOTY potential. Well done so far, Gearbox.

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I'm not sure how much of it was preprogrammed
Quite a lot of it comprised scripted events by the looks. All the squad NPC deaths - getting pulled into vents and such - were obviously scripted. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing if used well. It's all part of the "cinematic" thing. I'd suggest it might take some of the tension out of subsequent playthroughs though.

 

but it was very groundbreaking.
I'm not sure I'd go that far. I seem to recall battling hordes of wall-running, vent bursting Aliens as a Marine many moons ago in AVP 1 & 2. AVP2 did the mech thing too, in the final Marine level, so there's nothing really revolutionary in what CM has shown so far.
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Another thing to consider is that this is also very early in the game where there tends to be a lot more scripted material to get the player started with the scenario of the story, etc. I'm sure there are quite a lot of scripted events throughout the game but this changes over the course of the game.

 

Just as long as they use these types of events to guide instead of dictate, then it should be good.

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They certainly made that queen look impressive. In the AVP games, she doesn't look very difficult, and of course, even as a Marine, it isn't that complicated to take her down(even the pistol can do it, provided you have the ammo). With this though, even just watching it, I likely feel the same worry that most will, either when she barges in the room(if that scene is part of the final game), or whenever she does appear.

 

The only snag this seems to have - if WY knew full well of what happened to Ripley and the others through their communications with the Prison planet, and the likely reports of the Medical team, why do they need a team to find out? Maybe it's a reason the game might not present so soon.

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Another thing to consider is that this is also very early in the game
Actually, I think he said it's in the second act. That gels with info that was released earlier which said the game starts out with the Marines boarding the Sulaco in orbit around LV-426. Judging by the very brief clip of it in that video, at some point shortly after it would appear the Sulaco (and possibly the second ship that the Marines came into the system in) crashes to the surface. Presumably beforehand some of the Marines at least get off via drop-ships and end up groundside in the remains of Hadley's Hope. It looks to me like the demo video starts not long after that, with you cut off from the main group and having to find a way to link up with them.

 

The only snag this seems to have - if WY knew full well of what happened to Ripley and the others through their communications with the Prison planet, and the likely reports of the Medical team, why do they need a team to find out? Maybe it's a reason the game might not present so soon.
It could be that they want to ascertain if the Alien source vessel is still intact and the whole Sulaco/Ripley thing is just a way of getting the Marines in there (I'm pretty sure we'll be making a trip to it in the game). Also, it's possible that this mission could be completely independent of Weyland-Yutani and purely a military operation. In Aliens it was mentioned that they could expect a rescue party to be sent out after they were 17 days overdue, so possibly this is that rescue party. I expect though that there must be some fairly long flight times involved on top of that (months at least) as there is no hyperspace/FTL travel in the Aliens universe.
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