Aliens: Colonial Marines

17 weeks after the events in Cameron's film, you and your unit arrives at the Sulaco. Something has gone very wrong, and it's up to you to find out what, and take care of it. You'll face countless PMCs, some Aliens, and more than a few head-scratching retcons in this fan-fic of a story. Weyland-Yutani keeps trying desperately to tame the universe's most drooling killing machine. The villain himself is straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

It's important to note that this is no longer broken. Well, other than the occasional hiccup. They patched the crap out of this thing, and fixed almost everything. That they could, that is. Some issues remain and mar the experience greatly. Plot, characters, dialog, writing and execution(do *not* get me started on the acting and lip sync) alike are definitely lacking. And yet, there are definite glimmers of talent. You do sometimes care. The types can be annoying, yet feel like they belong here. And the banter almost all works. Even if it has a tendency to go one line too far, ending on a sitcom punchline. All it's missing is a "wah-wah", or possibly a "that's our (blank)!" This adds a *lot* of customization and compelling new abilities for both species. The numerous guns, while too similar and limited especially for sci-fi, can be changed in a good amount of ways. Silencer, a handful of alternate fire options, stat changes galore. Strong, unique Legendary weapons add replayability. For what they can deliver, and recognizing the markings. Hudson, Vasquez, Different types of Xenos, they're given ranged attacks, tons of improvements on what was there before, etc. The real issue is that you can't practice this at your own pace. You have to improve, and even just learn, via multiplayer. And you will get slaughtered early on. That's when you can even find a match. No players, no server list, limited matchmaking, and I could go on. In two weeks, I barely spent any time in any of the too-similar modes. I hate to direct anyone to 2010's AvP, but that one you can play anytime, gets creative in how you approach it, and lets you try it at your own pace in SP.

The AI is hilariously inept. Maybe that's why your offline buddies are impossible to kill. They will run right into your line of fire, leave you to die, teleport to you if you get ahead, and more. Enemies might freeze in place, or just randomly run around. Their use of wall-walking seems more like they're showing off than their having a reason for doing so. The lack of enemy variety in these is lessened, though the Crusher, a huge one that's not that different from the Queen, is pointless. One spits acid at you, with nice speed and accuracy. Another will kamikaze, exploding in their blood. Thankfully, they can't see you. Which means you have to crouch-walk past them. Or stand perfectly still when they're completely next to you! Did I mention you were weaponless in this section? And that they look like fossilized husks until they start walking, surrounded by actual ones, so you won't know which is which until they start moving? The DLC are a mixed bag. I wouldn't get any of this if it's not on sale. The obvious ones to leave alone, for now, are the ones that consist entirely of MP maps. You can't play them by yourself. And without them, there are 10 to start with, a reasonable amount. They add up to 20 total. Ripley's signature bad-ass rescue facilitator is worth the asking price. Note that anyone you can don the look of are all slightly "off" in the face. There are enough shotguns without the one you can buy separately, and they don't lack ammo, reload speed and the possibility of alteration. Bug Hunt is rarely played. The two energy attacks are worthless. The S.H.A.R.P. Sticks mix things up and are the most interesting part of your arsenal in this whole thing.

Stasis Interrupted deserves detail. You play as a few different protagonists, you really get into it, it clocks in at 2 and a half hours meaning almost half the core product. The plentiful time spent alongside, unfortunately never as, Hicks is sadly somewhat soured by Michael Biehn clearly not wanting to be there. Even if you hadn't heard about that interview, it's plain to see in his performance. And I say that as one of his biggest fans. Compare to Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon where he, as he also says, was having the time of his life.

Authenticity is through the roof. Everything looks, sounds and feels right. All memorable locations are not only visited, they're recreated in tremendous detail and every added section fits in so well, you'd swear you just didn't remember seeing that part in the films. The motion tracker finally works exactly right. You have all the equipment you see used. For some reason, you can carry every projectile delivery system, and even start out with a number of them from the beginning. Of course, you may not realize until after a while, and by accident, like it was for me. It's not common today to carry that many at once. And you can't cycle through them with any key. Oh, you can go back and forth between primary, secondary and which of the three pistols you have ready. As worthless as that is in the face of so much firepower that you basically cannot run out of ammo, no matter how inept you may be. You're stuck with the slow wheel which keeps you from moving, doesn't pause or even allow for it, selects whatever you were resting the cursor on even if you were just checking what had the most bullets left.

I recommend this only to the biggest fans of the franchise, and don't go out of your way to get your hands on a copy. 5/10

Despite the negative reviews, this game is actually pretty good and worth playing if your a fan of the Alien movies. It takes place just after Aliens (the second movie) but has a new set of characters on a different mission, however Hicks and Bishop from the second movie both appear as supporting characters and they are both voiced by the actors that play them in the movie (Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen) which is pretty awesome. The plot is above average, but it is really just there so that the action has reason to play out. The action is great however and the gameplay and controls are good (despite what some users have said about messed up controls). The aliens in the game are well done and there are a good variety of them. The graphics are good but they could easily have come from a game made ten years ago. On the downside, there are one or two glitches every so often (however they don't prevent you from moving forward in the game) and sometimes the AI is a little buggy and it occasionally affects the gameplay in a negative way. Also the game just suddenly comes to a halt and just ends unexpectedly, in a weak and uninteresting way and it may make you angry. Overall, I would recommend this game because, despite its flaws, it is a lot of fun and the multiplayer is well thought out and very enjoyable. 6.5/10. (Additionally, the game does a good job of being scary; particularly when you get to use the Alien radar machine which detects Aliens closing in on you and makes a beeping noise which gets faster and faster the closer they get).

Beneath this games bad story and AI, mediocre gameplay and graphics plus the worst final boss ever is a neat little game.

The setting and tone of this game is often near perfect, yes it's horror underdelivers aside from the first mission but you truly feel like you are in there fighting aliens, it has amazing collectibles, great multiplayer (not anymore cause uhm no-one plays this game), weirdly enough extra DLC and fantastic customization plus fun new Aliens.

If for whatever reason you find yourself interested in this game or are just a massive fan of the Aliens franchise check it out and you might get surprised.

Once upon a time the awesome Alien franchise was born... When i switched on my Xbox 360 earlier this week and played this game i quickly realised that the franchise, specifically in respect of video gaming, is dead and buried. The graphics are too sharp yet ill detailed and not at all Alien-esque... The titles are also juvenile attempts at mimicking the movies and are awful. The levels belong on an original xbox or PS2 release and are dreary, tiresome, repetitive and ill conceived. The interface isn't innovative in any way and must have been designed on the back of the blank cheque that Sega wrote Gearbox to bring this high school project to fruition.

I've been playing video games for 30 years and not ever has a publisher spent so much dollar on promotion for such a bland, weightless, empty shell of a concept that has not materialised into any semblance of a 21st century hi-def title.

In conclusion its like playing a several year old platinum title that has no place being in the modern era of video gaming. A poor poor title that'll keep you happy (in anticipation only) for about 10 minutes (if you're a die-hard Alien fan) before the disc is on its way to trade in for store credit.

What were 20th Century Fox thinking?! PS. Give the trailer director credit for clever editing, tricking us all into believing that we were actually buying something of substance.

I'm not going to take this opportunity to again rehash the story of the development of this game, there are plenty of articles out there which do that. I'm just going to say that I reached the game, running though my Xbox 360 games alphabetically and playing before selling and I managed approximately an hour of this game, before the wonky control system meant that I decided to give up on it entirely.

As a result of that short play time, I'm not going to write chapter and verse about why the game doesn't work - it may well have clicked after a couple of hours - and I'll just never know. I gave up because I felt I couldn't trust the controller to do what I inputted - and it wasn't the physical controller, that's fine - it's just unresponsive and occasionally contrary coding. Combine that with just bad game design, like some areas where I'm not supposed to fight, and just run, but no real indication when I'm in one of those and, for me, still seeing the glitching Alien's occasionally just standing there for no reason - I decided that enough was more than enough.