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The Tragedy of Aliens: Colonial Marines (GVMERS)
- Thread starter King Dodongo
- Start date
I've had a morbid curiosity about playing this ever since it came out. Even bought it for £4.99 on Steam last year but got talked into refunding it by a friend before even booting it up.
I'm seemingly enough of an Aliens fan to want to play this regardless of quality, yet not enough of an Aliens fan to learn when to quit being burnt by this fucking franchise.
EDIT: Jesus. 30 seconds into this video and I'm just now learning we missed out on an Aliens RPG from Obsidian. FFS.
I'm seemingly enough of an Aliens fan to want to play this regardless of quality, yet not enough of an Aliens fan to learn when to quit being burnt by this fucking franchise.
EDIT: Jesus. 30 seconds into this video and I'm just now learning we missed out on an Aliens RPG from Obsidian. FFS.
Always killed me how fixing a few lines of code made the game apparently (slightly?) better on PC.
This game holds a weird place with me. and idk what it is but everytime i do like a rebuild on my PC this is the first game i install because i always tell myself i'm going to play it and finish it.... 8 years later and i've played an hour total.... i want to love this game and i think if i keep putting it off it'll be patched and a great game and such but no that isn't happening. :(
Great video so far, still watching, but this guy's voice is unsettling.. in a good way. Like, "new host for Unsolved Mysteries" kind of way.
Didn't someone find a line of code in this that basically told the AI to just charge the player instead of using vents and climbing walls and stuff...like literally a case of turning a 0 to a 1 and the AI was a thousand times better or something? Maybe I dreamed it.
Aliens: Colonial Marines’ xenos get a lot smarter by fixing one misspelling
Others confirm some improvement seen in 2013 stinker
www.polygon.com
Still hurts, I remember the ps2 colonial marines getting cancelled, and seeing the trailer for this got me so excited. Were we finally going get a good aliens game? At least we did get Alien Isolation.
The thing is, there's been plenty of good Aliens games. Plenty of good Alien FPS games. Granted, many of them usually have the Predators milling about, too, which ain't a negative in my book.
Like, Randy Pritchford lied to us and made a bad game, but beyond the hilarity of seeing a huge game by a big studio and bigger publisher and with a huge license get super low ratings, and the oddness of "they literally mispelled the one word that made the aliens not complete idiots"... I dunno if there's anything to discuss about it.
Like, Randy Pritchford lied to us and made a bad game, but beyond the hilarity of seeing a huge game by a big studio and bigger publisher and with a huge license get super low ratings, and the oddness of "they literally mispelled the one word that made the aliens not complete idiots"... I dunno if there's anything to discuss about it.
Yeah, Sega was going with them for a new RPG, and then (I imagine) someone reminded the board how atrocious Alpha Protocol's development process had been, that being the previous Obsidian RPG published by Sega. It's a really good game, but goddamn is it a mess, and its 4 year development hell cycle is sort of legendary.
To make matters worse, the decision to make an Aliens FPS also came out exactly at the big boom, when Halo, Gears, and CoD were selling so much that every other company wanted a piece of the pie. So again, (I imagine) someone on the board went "why don't we do a FPS instead? Why don't we hire those guys who made those amazing Half-Life expansions, the Brothers in Arms series, and now that Borderlands game a lot of people are talking about. It's a safe bet!". Narrator: it wasn't.
Then Randy Pitchford, expert conman, had an idea "I'm gonna pocket that money for my studio's own IP and make Borderlands 2", and thus the sordid tale of Aliens Colonial Marines.
God, I remember being a junior in high school and going over to my best friend's house to spend the night. We went to Walmart at like 10:00 pm to get this game because he was so hyped for it.
Got back, popped it in, and realized what a gigantic piece of shit it was. At least I did. He kept trying to convince me it was good but it was no use lmao
Got back, popped it in, and realized what a gigantic piece of shit it was. At least I did. He kept trying to convince me it was good but it was no use lmao
OP
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There are times when one doesnt want to admit when they screwed up.
Why? Genuinely curious about that. Didn't even know there was a WiiU version.
I always wanted to play it, despite its dev hell the final product still looks really interesting to me.
Is there a way to play this on series x via backwards compat?
Is there a way to play this on series x via backwards compat?
Pretty sure that version was canceled and never came out lol
I played it again about 6 months ago on PS3. I was never able to make it past the first area when it released, so this time I was determined!
Honestly, once I finally got past the first couple of *terrible* stages in the game, it just became aggressively mediocre but was far from horrible or unplayable. But damn, what a horrific start to that game.
Honestly, once I finally got past the first couple of *terrible* stages in the game, it just became aggressively mediocre but was far from horrible or unplayable. But damn, what a horrific start to that game.
What's crazy about all of this is that Gearbox of all companies couldn't get their shit together on getting a first person game in the Aliens franchise now I'm aware that the other studio did a lot, but Gearbox had experience in FPS games. Their Half-Life expansions were decent, Brothers in Arms is a very competent series and Borderlands exists. Yet the better game was made by Creative Assembly, who is mainly known for their Tactical/Strategy games. Not only is Alien Isolation the better game, but it was made on a lower budget and did a better job at portraying the universe. All Gearbox had to do was Brothers in Arms in space and they would have had it. I recall the earlier interviews about how they were such "Big Aliens fans", but were very quick to pass the work on to another studio while their attention was on another game. Creative Assembly love the series so much they did work without getting paid to produce a prototype to show to SEGA. Now that is a team that cares.
While heavily modifying the game and fixing the "tether" issue for the AI somewhat improves it, it still isn't the best game.
While heavily modifying the game and fixing the "tether" issue for the AI somewhat improves it, it still isn't the best game.
There are so many variables at play that made this the disaster it became but chief among them, always and forever, is Randy fucking Pitchford. I will never feel anything less than disdain for that man.
There is still not a "great" Aliens game. Isolation is probably the best one we have but it's still not the Alien game we should have gotten by now. I remember AvP on Jaguar being so epic though
clearly a downgrade, probably due to old hardware limitations, but still pretty close to the demo slice.
It's a pity it's not backwards compatable.
I actually bought this recently for a few dollars. Heard people made it a much better game(though not perfect) through mods. I guess I'll find out.
I really liked the AWP game that came out around 2010. Had a ton of fun with that. Especially in multiplayer.
I really liked the AWP game that came out around 2010. Had a ton of fun with that. Especially in multiplayer.
Imagine thinking working on Duke Nukem: Forever is a better use of resources than a new Aliens game. I'm so exasperated at the fact that Obsidian's RPG Alien game got cancelled and not this trash.
Man. For some reason it bugs the shit out of me how so many youtube media history videos are dubbed a tragedy. Like..
"The Tragedy of Colonial Marines"
"The Tragic Life of Nature Boy Ric Flair"
"The Tragedy of Stone Temple Pilots"
It bugs me just as much as the thumbnail image of somebody having a shocked look on their face. I've been purposely not watching videos titled this way, but I'll make an exception here. It's a good topic.
"The Tragedy of Colonial Marines"
"The Tragic Life of Nature Boy Ric Flair"
"The Tragedy of Stone Temple Pilots"
It bugs me just as much as the thumbnail image of somebody having a shocked look on their face. I've been purposely not watching videos titled this way, but I'll make an exception here. It's a good topic.
Let's make it worse. I've heard that SEGA was banking on using the profits from publishing this game to bring PSO2 to the West way back when. Then when it flopped they were left holding an empty bag with no backup plan. And therein lies the reason why it never released over here until more recently.
OP
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Yup, if they ever make an AvP game again, they should look at that one and improve it. Maybe add bots for offline multi.
I consider Alien Isolation a near-perfect game at being what it is. It's one of my GOAT's. But, there is still untapped potential in an Aliens game of the same quality, that makes good on the prospect of playing as the Marines. I firmly believe you can give the player a pulse rifle, up the action and still get an action/horror game that's as intense as Isolation.
What really pissed me off about this whole mess was repeated interviews where they stated that they had such huge fans, and had such huge respect for the original franchise, and they really wanted to set out to make a game that would be worthy, and would be everything that fans could hope for... all the time knowing that they had farmed it out on the cheap, kept most of the money for their own pet projects, and didn't actually give a flying fuck if the game even worked.
Alien: Isolation is what happens when those statements are actually true about being fans of the original and really wanting to make a game that's worthy of the name. And like Honolulu Blue mentioned, it scratches the itch of the first movie, but not the second. There's still a chance for somebody, somewhere, to pull this off.
There is a part of me that wants to go back and try it again, after fixing that AI typo, since I've got the game on PC. It's a shame that console players will never be able to get that fix.
Alien: Isolation is what happens when those statements are actually true about being fans of the original and really wanting to make a game that's worthy of the name. And like Honolulu Blue mentioned, it scratches the itch of the first movie, but not the second. There's still a chance for somebody, somewhere, to pull this off.
There is a part of me that wants to go back and try it again, after fixing that AI typo, since I've got the game on PC. It's a shame that console players will never be able to get that fix.
Fuck gearbox and pitchford.
Never bought a gbx game after ACM ever again, and never will.
Praise Alien Isolation.
Never bought a gbx game after ACM ever again, and never will.
Praise Alien Isolation.
I so wanted this game to be good.
And failing that, I wanted to spend a trashily entertaining 4-5 hours with it and then forget it forever.
Couldn't even make it all the way through the campaign. :(
And failing that, I wanted to spend a trashily entertaining 4-5 hours with it and then forget it forever.
Couldn't even make it all the way through the campaign. :(
You described exactly what I want and why Isolation doesn't hit the Mark for me. It's not scary enough to be as long as it is and the tedium of the endless obstacles starts to wear thin. More than anything it shows how much potential the Aliens universe has because isolation only flirts around the greatness introduced by Aliens and Alien 3 concepts and is still a fun game.
Eh, I was never hyped in the first place because it betrays the point of Alien and Aliens. The marines are not badasses, you should never play as a Marine. There's a reason most of them were wiped out at the start of the film. So, I just never got the appeal. Alien: Isolation is a more perfect representation of Alien, even if it is too spooky for me to play all the way through.
I agree with this assessment, though there are some other Alien games I really enjoy (I also think Isolation is the best of them).
It's overly short and has next to nothing to do with the movie, but I kind of adore that old Aliens arcade game by Konami. It's not "great" by any means, but I still play it all the time. Blowing up bat-wing aliens and zombie troopers is still (dumb) fun.
Capcom's Alien vs Predator is one of my favorite beat-em-ups. It's a shame the licensing problems (at least I assume) keep it out of all their collections.
I also remember playing that Aliens game on Apple II a ton when I was a kid. I, uh, I don't think it's held up all that well, haha. That theme song is still killer, though.
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It's crazy that Pitchford got away with this totally free and clear, dude even has defenders to this day
