If you know me from my extensive reviews of Evil Dead video games, then you already knowI'm a fan of the movies. I'm not much of a horror movie buff (I haven't seen any of the Friday the Thirteenth and Nightmare on Elm Street movies for example), but Evil Dead I have a soft spot for. With it's gruesome effects, hell-spawn summoned from an ancient book bound in human flesh and bone called the Tome of Eternal Dar-I mean, the Necronomicon, and of course, Bruce Campbell being Bruce Campbell.
The movies would go on to have a prominent cult status as a solid trilogy, even when each movie got more slapstick and campy, but still all the more entertaining. Which this movie is not doing, as it goes back to the straight up horror roots of the first one with a reboot of sorts. Reboots of other horror classics like Texas Chainsaw Massacre (also haven't seen the original or reboot) has happened before, but those...haven't had the best reception from their respected fanbases. Naturally, with those and the quality of most modern horror movies like the million Saw sequels sticking with tired tropes like torture porn, unlikable teenage/collage age main characters, CGI, cheap jump scares, ect, it was understandable to be concerned whether this would turn out good or be material for reviewers like Phelous to rip into.
He actually hasn't reviewed the new
Evil Dead yet if that's any indication.
However, I can safely say that this actually turned out alright as a re-imaging (and possibly even a sequel of the trilogy of sorts) and that it doesn't have the cliches that plague a lot of modern horror movies. Or at least most of them, and the few that do aren't bothersome. There's no CGI, save for touch-ups, none of the main characters are painful horror movie stereotypes, and the movie is pretty much dead (no pun intended) set on reliving the feel of the first Evil Dead while still doing a somewhat original take on it. It also helps that the movie is produced by Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert Tapert, who all worked on the original and approved of this. Hell, for years Bruce Campbell apposed a new Evil Dead because he knew fans would not like it. But for this, he seems satisfied, so we can take that into consideration. The movie was directed and co-written by Fede Alvarex, and Uruguayan film maker chosen by Raimi to work on the new Evil Dead. It was also his feature film debut as a director and that seemed to turn out well for him. It'll be interesting to see what this promising director will do next.
The film came into theaters in April, but I didn't see it then due to my general lack of seeing movies much at cinemas. But on Christmas I got the movie and it's the first Blu-ray movie I got after having a Playstation 3 for about...2 years. Yeah, you can tell I'm more of a game collector than a movie collector. Anyway, I'll just quickly summarize what I thought about it while not spoiling too much, because I do feel it's worth seeing even if you know what goes on in the original Evil Dead.
Oh, right, the PS3 can also play Blu-ray movies. Might
as well actually get movies on those.
The set up and characters are a bit different this time around, but we do still have a group of five people visiting a remote cabin in the woods. One character, Mia, suffers from a drug addiction and decides to go full cold turkey with her friends Olivia, Eric, and her brother David and his girlfriend Natalie to help her out. (Fun fact: each letter of their first names spells something subtle). This means there is no Ash Williams in the sense that Bruce is not in this film nor is there someone else doing a "new Ash." Which does work in the movie's favor even if fans might have been disappointed at first since there is no Ash. Because let's face it, Bruce is getting older and a new actor doing a new Ash wouldn't do it justice, so all the more reason why Bruce approves of this approach.
While staying at the cabin, the group soon discovers a foul smell from the basement, where some nasty things happened and comes across a covered up book (which is actually a different book called Naturom Demento, a variation of the original Necronomicon) and a sawed off doubled shotgun on a table. Eric, being curious and looking like someone from the 70s, opens up the book and despite the frantic warnings scribbled on the pages, deciphers and reads aloud words that summon a demon. This, of course, is when Mia starts seeing things and realizes that something is after her, but because she's going through withdrawal symptoms, everyone else doesn't believe her and thinks she just desperately wants to leave before the habit fully breaks. Panicking, she takes one of the vehicles, but comes across a vision of the demon and crashes. Then she gets possessed in a fashion very reminiscent of a certain infamous scene from the first Evil Dead. Hint: it involves branches.
Mia getting possessed is when shit really starts hitting the fan and the movie gets into gear. This is where the effects of the movie shine and it's almost entirely practical effects; even the occasional CGI tweak is pretty seamless and not that noticeable. With these effects, the movie is quite violent as blood sprays everywhere, cuts and wounds are cringe level convincing, and limbs are dismembered with great detail. Needless to say, if you don't like seeing that stuff in general, then Evil Dead in general isn't for you. But if enjoy things like say, the modern Splatterhouse game (which I do and feel it's underrated by the way), then you can get some guilty pleasure out of it. It definitely harkens back to the original with it's gore and is never really torture porn levels of absurdity. The only thing I find a tad absurd is the endurance the characters go through. Especially Eric, who while doesn't lose arms, suffers the most injuries to the point where I went "how is he still alive?!" That, and people losing an arm or hand without going into shock when dealing with demonic possession.
It's only a flesh wound!Small cost to pay to avoid
demonic possession I say!
I won't explain what else happens in detail, but as a fan of Evil Dead, I liked it enough. There's enough familiar elements and nods to the original to please fans while the effects and new things are enough to be engaging on their own and be interesting takes of the original's elements. Is this better than the original? Eh...not quite. There were creative things Raimi and his team had to do in the original because of the small budget that gave it distinction. While the new Evil Dead feels more like a homage or if the original was made today and had a higher budget. Don't get me wrong, I'm relieved that this turned out the way it did and not like other horror film reboots, but it just felt a bit predictable. Which I guess is to be expected if you know Evil Dead, but the movie does use a lot of foreshadowing that will make you go "oh, I wonder if this will be used later on" kind of thing. Even so, the writing behind the foreshadowing isn't bad, and neither is the dialog, acting, and back story for these new characters. Save for Natalie, who doesn't have much screen time before things start happening, making her underused compared to the others like Olivia being a practiced nurse and David dealing with the guilt of abandoning his sister and their deceased mother and trying to make amends with this trip to the cabin. Also, the movie does throw in a "not really the end" twist to make things not too predictable.
As for is this being the most "horrifying movie you'll ever see?" Well, it might be the most shocking and unsettling with it's violence and possessions. If you've already seen the other Evil Dead movies and know the gist of it, then probably not, but for those that haven't, maybe. As it's more traditional shock gore horror than torture porn. It also doesn't just rely on gore as there are a couple jump scares (but not obnoxious or over done) and a few unsettling things like the look of the possessed characters. I'd say at least check it out if you like Evil Dead, violent/gory movies, or simply just curious. It's 90 minutes too, so it's not a long movie that drags out either. Hopefully that answers what I thought of the new Evil Dead movie. I enjoyed it and I look forward to more since a sequel and even potentially a crossover with the original trilogy is in the future since this did well enough despite some fans not quite liking it (but let's be honest, those that didn't like the idea of a remake in the first place already dismissed this). Does this mean we'll actually see Ash, albiet older, finally back on the movie screen? Who knows, but in the meantime, I can give this a bloody and "groovy" recommendation.
Sir Not Appearing In This Film. But did approve of it.
Playing video games can be a very passionate thing. While the average person may just see them as a fun diversion, someone who plays video games for several years like me become invested. Not just as an entertaining hobby, but as playing out memorable experiences and actually being connected with the more engrossing and complex games. It's not unlike a passion for a favourite movie/TV show.
Speaking of movies, while it's considered a general rule in gaming that movie based games will be sub-par, every now and then we get a rare exception. Most of the exceptions are actually games that use a movie license to follow after the events or even have it be a "what if" scenario. Such as the 2009 Ghostbusters game since Bill Murray refuses to be part of Ghostbusters 3 and the Scarface game where Tony Montana avoids his death respectively. And let's not forget one of my favourite movie licensed games: Evil Dead Regeneration.
Aliens Colonial Marines unfortunately does not meet that exception. In fact, I hated the game. HATED it.
I wouldn't be surprised if AM was the main programmer for the game
If anyone actually remembers my god awful Alien3 game review, then you'd already know I'm a fan of Aliens. I actually own a DVD set of all four Alien movies called the "Alien Quadtrilogy"that contains 9 DVDs and folds out to approximately a few miles. Aliens is one of my favourite sci-fi movies and I was patiently looking forward to Alien Colonial Marines. I almost wish I didn't now.
Aliens Colonial Marines is not only a game that is a pathetic follow up to the film, but the development hell curse is in full force, effectively reducing it to a sub par first person shooter that clearly wasn't finished. The sad bad fanfiction level of story writing fan pandering and the buggy, barely functional gameplay made me one angry gamer. It's about as bad as Evil Dead Hail to the King.
I wish I was exaggerating, because I do try and be a fair gamer. But even I have my limits and know the difference between when a game is truly bad and if I'm just fanboy whining. I tend to avoid being a "angry game reviewer" but this game set me off like no other. So prepare yourself as I vent with many words on why Aliens Colonial Marines is a mess. And just to warn you, I WILL be writing game and movie spoilers elaborating on the story bits and why they make me want to club the writers with my Alien DVD box set. Unless for whatever reason you want to find out on your own, don't read this, but I would prefer to explain things and save you the trouble. That and this game made me not give a fuck about spoiling things in it.
Gearbox didn't either
So because of the negative reviews the game got, I rented it, and I'm sure as hell I wouldn't pay full price for this. I knew of some things before getting in, but I guess you could say me playing this was almost a morbid curiosity or even as a sort of duty as an Aliens fan to at least play it. I also watched the special edition of Aliens before playing it to refresh my knowledge of the movie. And to make the wounds all the more fresher.
The game takes place 17 weeks after the events of Aliens, when a distress message sent by lone surviving marine Corporal Dwayne Hicks (who is reprised by Micheal Biehn) reaches Marine HQ and the ship Sephora (apparently all CM ships start with S) finds the Sulaco, the original ship sent to colony planet LV-426, back in orbit around said planet.
You play the role of Corporal Winter, a generic marine who could only be more of an empty shell if he didn't talk like other protagonists in some first person shooters. The other characters are just about as bland too. You have the captain of the Sephora named Cruz, who is the generic harden commander that yells at you to do things. Then there's Sergent O'Neal, a marine that looks more like a biker and goes with you most of the game being almost completely useless fighting enemies even when almost the entire game he uses a smart gun. There's Private Bella, a female marine that likes to go "Orah" a lot to remind you that they are marines who is actually impregnated from a facehugger right at the start of the game, effectively killing off any attachment you could have had with her knowing she's going to die right away. Oh, and her and O'Neil apparently have a thing, but you won't give two shits about that and the upcoming "tragic" death of Bella for O'Neal. You know your characters are lazy when Ripley and Hicks had better chemistry in Aliens, and they didn't even hook up at the end.
"Now just aim like that and pretend it's Randy Pitchford"
The only other characters worth mentioning is Bishop, or rather a different Bishop because they're androids (who is voiced by the original actor Lance Henriksen), and a drop ship pilot named Reid, who I usually just called Zoey Pilot because of her resemblance to the character in Left 4 Dead.
All the new characters are just weak and didn't get me invested at all. It's the most basic of characters that tag with you just so they can say or do things to move the game along. They try and say a witty line now and then, but does not in any chance hold up to the quotable marines in the Alien movies, which the game reminds us in the achievement names. They're some the most dis-interesting and boring characters I've seen in a video game.
O'Neal's face is as blank as his character
Also, the Sephora apparently has 300 marines that Cruz likes to remind you on board, but we never see more than a few others in certain points or the occasional marine body. And I swear Cruz is near obsessive compulsive in telling you how many marines you hardly ever see are left throughout the game. Which all presumably die off screen eventually anyway. Also, take a shot whenever someone says "leave no marine behind!" You'll be trashed half way through the game.
So during the investigation of the Sulaco, the marines get overwhelmed by Xenomorphs (big surprise) and Winters is sent in to assist. From there, we enter the hanger and see one of the many fanpanderings this game tries to throw at us Aliens fans, which is the first Bishop's severed lower half. As much as Gearbox is trying to "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" the fact they know the movie and want to make it as authentic as possible, I can't help but ask how Bishop's legs are still there when Ripley opened the airlock in the end of Aliens. We didn't see the legs fly out the air lock along with the Queen, but everything that wasn't tied down or holding on were sucked out and logically the legs would have been too. It's things like pleasing the fanbase without any other thought put into it that REALLY pisses me off in games like this.
After that reference, we go deeper into the ship and find someone named Keyes (don't get attached to him) cocooned on an alien wall and when we try and free him (with a welder torch no less, hope it doesn't horribly sever his limbs or burn him!) the first xeno appears and the game pretty much falls flat. As much as I will admit to fanboy raging over the story aspects, the gameplay has legitimate problems. The main one being the enemy A.I. is awful. Xenos will simply just rush towards you from scripted paths and try and smack you unless, for whatever reason, they just sit there while you blast away at them with your pulse rifle. Your ally A.I. isn't any better as half the time they won't even aim at enemies and just run off to the objective ahead of you. Thanks for covering my back assholes. But because the A.I. is almost non-functioning, the treat of xenos is gone, reducing them to gun fodder.
The only threatening thing about them that stays is their acidic blood, which can help to take away considerable amounts of health. The health system in this game is semi-regenerative that can recover up to the last remaining block of health and acid hinders the regeneration momentarily. Finding med kits restores lost health blocks and you can also find armor pieces for an armor bar against damage. Various pieces of armor restore different amounts, but I like to think that Winters just stacks multiple helmets over top himself when you find and pick up several small armor helmet pieces.
Yes, this was a thing. And by the creator of Tetris too
So after getting a flight recorder of the Sulaco, Winters and Keyes head back to the Sephora, only to have Keyes have a chestburster come out and then sacrifice himself with a grenade just so we can have a scene for the trailer. The airlock tunnel between the two ships breaks and it subsequently causes an explosive decompression at one end and Winters climbs his way back to O'Neal and the Sulaco in a non-interactive cutscene. Yeah, not only did Keyes pull a bonehead move by blowing up the tunnel, but he was caring the flight recorder. Which you gave to him for some reason even though YOU grabbed it out of the console. Then again, when you and Keyes get back to the hanger earlier, he throws a scripted grenade towards a xeno by some missiles that in turn causes a badly rendered, unfinished explosion, so maybe he was intentionally a dumb ass with grenades.
After that, Winters and O'Neal investigate more of the ship and discover (this won't be a shock to Alien fans) that the corporation Weyland-Yutuni took over the Sulaco and is breeding and researching the aliens. However, it would seem that xenos aren't the only ones here as when Winters opens a storage room's outer door to let a drop ship with Reid in, Mercenaries hired by Wayland attack. Yes, you heard that right, we now have to fight humans in an Aliens game.
Because that's what we want to fight in the game, right?
I can understand fighting Weyland and stopping their experiments on xenos and what not, but for nearly HALF the game, you fight the same masked mercenary clones. Hell, about a third of the levels are JUST FIGHTING WEYLAND FUCKERS. Why would you EVER do that? Oh right, because Call of Duty. Right down to the ducking behind cover and "snap-aiming" with the iron sights (though it's not as good unsurprisingly). Not to mention the rank system and challenges with experience points, which factor in single player too, giving me a Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City vibe. Because hey, if we don't cater to those people in every shooter, it won't hold their attention and sell as well!
Though the unlocks do factor in guns you receive and points for unlocking weapon customization and upgrade options for them. As you can have different rifles, shotguns, and pistols (for the two primary weapons and the pistol as a side arm) that you change alternate fire modes, aim/laser sights, and skins. It's a decent customization/upgrade system, but nothing amazing to even slightly change my dislike for the game overall.
As for the challenges, they're not implemented that well. You have three categories of challenges you can complete to unlock more things and get experience point bonuses, but the thing is you can only complete one challenge at a time in each category. So even if you do things that are listed later on in the game, you can't unlock it until you clear each challenge in that category one by one, which just drags the game if you try and get all the challenges. Plus, most of the challenges are just arbitrary or annoying.
Back with Call of Aliens, we go through the ship fighting white versions of Helghast from Killzone. Oh, and if you thought the alien A.I. was bad, the humans can sometimes be worse. They'll stand there, not be able to hit you half the time (but when they do, it does quite a bit of damage, hurr balance?), not take proper cover, bum rush you, etc. We also meet up with Dead-Meat Bella and continue through the ship. All the while the mercs apparently got the Sulaco's weapons operational and is firing on the Sephora. Why they didn't do this when the Sephora approached the Sulaco in the first place, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they were laying low to strike when the marines least expected it or they were too occupied/damaged from the xenos? I don't know, it's just another plot hole to throw in the chasm.
Oh, she finally died...whoop-de-doo
Despite reaching the bridge and turning off the Sulaco's weapon systems, the Sephora's reactor goes critical and explodes. In turn, the damage from the Sephora's own guns and now explosion critically damage the Sulaco and we need to GTFO. After running through the ship and infinite spawning mercenaries by the drop ship that we need to press square on more things to get out, we escape, but crash land on LV-426.
Now that we're on the planet, it looks...decent. I mean, the planet was already pretty grey and desolate even with the terraforming and the ominous smoke cloud and crater from the megaton explosion of the air processing plant is a nice touch. Wait, did I say "nice" in this game? Scratch that, it's just there to remind you that the whole place blew up in the movie. And while the Hadley's Hope colony facility is damaged, it's still mostly intact and even with power still. Bit of a plot hole, I know, but at least it gave us an excuse to explore the place Ripley and company were holed up in. It's still not the biggest offender of a plot hole, but we'll get to that latter.
This area actually has the most familiar aspects from the movie, right down to the layout and other details. Still a shame they put more effort in that instead of the actual game. You also find the turrets the marines in Aliens used and actually do take one and place it down near an ammo pile in the command center for a brief stand against the aliens. Which somehow brings the turret ammo back to 500. Sigh. Once that's done, we get the opportunity to use a smart gun. Which is basically an auto-targeting mini-gun. I'll admit using theses guns are cool, even if fighting the brain dead aliens in this game isn't that satisfying. That, and you only maybe use it for 5-10 minutes in the entire single player game. And I only found and used two of them, including the one that's given to you in the colony facility.
The smart gun is the only smart thing in the entire game
Well, actually there was a third smart gun I found: Vasquez's smart gun (the "let's rock!" marine).In some levels you can find "legendary weapons" the marines used from the movie. Not only do these special weapons have unique attributes, but are decorated accurately. Normally these are supposed to make you go "oh! It's *insert marine's weapon*!" but instead I went "how the hell did *insert marine's weapon* end up here?" as the guns you find are in completely different locations than where you saw them being used in the movie. Even if that's considered nitpicking, the legendary weapons are just special guns with names and details thrown on them regardless.
In addition to the legendary weapons, you can find other collectibles with dog tags (which either give you a movie character quote or how the marine died depending on whose tags you get) and audio logs from computers. The latter of which there are only a dozen of and are mostly just generic ramblings of people you don't know about what's going on or explain things anyone even remotely familiar with the Alien franchise would know. Oh, some doctor is explaining in a log that the aliens impregnate hosts and burst through their chests. NO SHIT. The only audio log that piked a small amount of interest is one with Newt's mother (complete with Newt in it too having a different sounding voice, how about that). So in the long run, the arbitrary collectibles don't amount to a whole lot.
Meanwhile with our lame fanfic marines, Winter and O'Neal are sent to look for Bella and Rein who were sent for...something or another (my memory is starting to not care). But once we enter an area that we can't turn on our flashlight or else it might show up in the cutscene, Winters gets pounced by larger Xenomorph. Well, so much for that, end of the game!
Okay, it's obviously not, as Winters wakes up cocooned with no weapons (and no facehugger since we can't have our main protagonist will all two of his dimensions die) and frees himself without needing assistance. The game now takes a bit of different turn since you have no weapons as you have to traverse the sewer level (because there always is). However, along the way are several husks of a strange new alien type, but then one of them starts to move, adding a bit of tense atmosphere. Buuut that tension is killed off when you actually see the thing walk around.
Goofy walk aside, these aliens are actually blind and periodically move around, but will move towards you if you move too fast and make noise. Then you have to stay still if they're right in front of you until they go away or they'll blow up and kill you instantly. The bits where they're right in front of you are probably the closest this game ever gets to an actual Aliens game. There's also the parts after and even before were you get chased by the hunter xeno, the after part having you to unwield doors to get through then weld them behind you to escape. It's one of the better, albeit heavily scripted, intense moments in the game. I don't think a game has ever sunk as low as having the SEWER LEVEL be one of the better parts in it.
Soon after that you find Private Hudson from the movie. Can you guess what happened to him after getting pulled down through the floor in Aliens? He got cocooned and chest bursted. Gee, it only took 27 years to find that out...Also, Hudson is still looking pretty good for a 17 week old corpse. I guess the aliens like to preserve the bodies (lazy fucking hacks).
When we get past that lazy pandering, we meet up with Dead-Meat Bella again and go rescue Zoey. But not before having to run away from the hunter alien again. Fortunately you do eventually take on the big xeno with an exosuit cargo loader that just happened to be there because the game said so. You actually do get to use one before, but only once back on the Sulaco for a few seconds to open a door. Amazing. I guess you guys can just check that off the list of things from Aliens in the game.
You'd think that this obvious homage to the end battle between Ripley and the Queen would be fun, but it's not. All you do with the loader is press the L1 and R1 buttons to smack him with each arm. That's it. Not even a torch/flamethrower is available like in the trailers. So naturally with the wonderful A.I., I just smacked the guy into a corner and hit him over and over until the game felt like grabbing the head of the xeno during set amounts of damage until the final grab eventually happens and it dies. And so did a part of me.
"Get away from the Aliens license you bitch!"
After pointless arguing and fixing a communications thing so Cruz can tell his precious surviving troops to go to Hadley's Hope, the marines return there as well and discover that Weyland has a research facility by the Alien ship from the first movie. Winters, O'Neal, and Bella decide to go there in hopes they can save Bella from the alien chest burster (spoiler alert: they aren't able to because even removing the alien kills the host). Along the way, we're finally introduced to another alien type that spits acid from a distance. Yeah, with the exception of the "boilers" from earlier and only one charging xeno as a boss (I guess?), there are only three main alien types: regular soldiers, lurkers, which are just faster aliens that try and sneak up behind you, and the spitters. Absolutely pathetic.
So we go through the research lab, Bella dies, O'Neal tries to emote, kill scientists and mercs, blah, blah, blah, someone from the Sulaco is still alive-wait, what? Yeah, apparently a marine from Aliens is still alive and being held by Weyland and we need to go rescue him. Which we do so by turning off the facility's power that somehow prevents the APC carrying the captured soldier to get away (huh?). And of course turning off the power causes aliens to run amok and cause a cluster fuck of xenos vs. mercs, or as I like the call it: the battle of dumb A.I. That, and we see a Queen (of course) attempt to escape from her captivity and kill a bunch of scientists. If the game had an unexpected prediction meter it'd be flat lined the whole game. But what comes next is perhaps the most aggravating twist that will make the newly invented prediction meter, and possibly heads, explode. I'm warning you, this is what set me off the most about this game.
You eventually go through the mercs defenses, avoiding APCs and having a crane drop a box on one, which you can repeat the button prompt for by the way, good testing guys. Eventually we rescue the marine and...it's Hicks.
Yes, Hicks is still alive. In what is one of the WORST retcons I've seen, Weyland boarded the Sulaco and because Hicks was the only marine, was brought out of stasis when intruders were detected. He then sent the distress message shown in the beginning of the game and has been captured and interrogated by Weyland for information on the xenomorphs ever since.
That's all fine and dandy, expect for one small litte detail. HICKS DIED IN ALIEN 3!!!! Oh, but the people who wrote this garbage have the reason why. Weyland simply REPLACED Hicks with another body to cover things up. Um, excuse me? BULLSHIT!! WHY WOULD WEYLAND DO THAT BUT NOT BRING RIPLEY AND THE OTHERS OUT OF STASIS? THEY KNOW RIPLEY ENCOUNTERED THE ALIEN CREATURE AND WOULD ALSO HAVE VALUABLE INFORMATION FOR THEM! SAME WITH NEWT! SHE WAS THE ONLY COLONY SURVIVOR! FOR FUCK SAKES BISHOP WAS DAMAGED BUT STILL FUNCTIONAL ENOUGH THAT THEY COULD HAVE EASILY DOWNLOAD INFORMATION FROM HIM BECAUSE HE'S AN ANDROID WITH HIS BRAIN INTACT! OH, THE ALIEN INFESTATION TRIGGERED THE POD EJECTING THEM ANYWAY?! BUT WHAT KIND OF FUCKING RETARDS WOULD WEYLAND BE IF THEY TOOK THE TIME TO REPLACE HICKS BEFORE THE POD WAS JETTISONED INTO THE NEXT MOVIE WITHOUT TAKING THE OTHERS AS WELL FOR VALUABLE INFORMATION?! THIS ISN'T A PLOT HOLE, IT'S A RIP OF THE SPACE TIME STORY CONTINUUM! HOW DO YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS AWFUL RETCON?! HOW DO YOU GET AWAY WITH TERRIBLE FANFICTION STORY QUALITY AND GET PAYED FOR IT AS A PROFESSIONAL WRITER?! WHY DID FOX APPROVE OF THIS AS ACTUAL STORY CANNON?!
Okay, sorry about that, but a movie retcon hasn't made me this mad since fighting Annie from Evil Dead 2 as a boss in Evil Dead Hail to the King. In all seriousness though, it's still really dumb and I'm almost insulted. But we still have a bit of game go to, so let's just get this over with.
The gang return to Hadley's Hope where we have an anti-climatic stand against aliens with a few other marines. Yawn. But we do discover from Hicks that Weyland has a Faster-than-light ship and that it's leaving soon. So Cruz orders and all out attack from with the remaining marines (with a bunch of APCs and dropships pulled out of their asses) to attack Weyland head on and get to the ship in order to escape.
Naturally, it's just fight more aliens, more mercs, occasionally see a few more marines despite the cutscene showing a lot of them, take out anti-air guns with conveniently placed RPG guns that only show up here, the usual crap. However, you do confront the alien queen after stopping a Weyland drop ship from taking it. But all you do is avoid her until the game script says she leaves. DUH, I WONDER IF WE'LL SEE HER AGAIN AT DAH END OF DAH GAME?!
Then we finally get to the ship only for it to take off. But the team get in the shuttle and Zoey Pilot blasts the cargo bay doors open and crashes inside (she certainly crashes a lot, might explain the crash course campaign in L4D). Everyone gets out fine except Cruz, who is stuck in the cockpit (wait, Reid wasn't in the front seat?) The others go to secure the ship and close the emergency blast doors before the ship reaches space, but Winters needs one last drinking shot for "not leaving marines behind" and stays to try and help Cruz. Oh, and the Queen is here, but you would figure that by now. The "final boss" just involves running away and hitting switches to bring a launch platform back, then launching the Queen away, who comes right back anyway. Cruz fortunately gets the Queen's attention and sacrifices himself by launching the dropship into the Queen and out the ship for good. Yay.
The rest of the gang then confront Weyland himself. Funny how there doesn't seem to be no one else on the ship. Guess it's either automatic or lazy writing. O'Neal wants Weyland dead for all the shit he's caused, and after more pointless arguing, Hicks shoots Weyland in the head, revealing he's an android too and not the real CEO. Bishop then is able to download the information Weylanddroid has (even though it was shot in the head and most likely brain) and says we have everything. The End. No really, it ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. And given the poor reception, a follow up to this isn't likely going to happen unless the downloadable content somehow shines more light on this. Which most people won't bother by the time the DLC campaigns come out anyway.
I hate everything.
The first A:CM would have probably been better
I haven't been this upset and disappointed at a game for a long time. And this is coming from someone that actually didn't mind Duke Nukem Forever for the most part. I'd even go as far to say that's a better made game than Colonial Marines. The story sucks, the campaign is not all that fun, and the console graphics are a poor port, complete with loading-in/pop in textures and screen tearing. Not to mention have things like the lighting colours change in some areas and even while aiming.
Is it the worst game I played? Eh, maybe the most OFFENSIVE, but probably not the absolute worse. I do own Daikatana on N64 after all just to name a potentially worse one. The settings and some levels of CM can be vaguely interesting and have good attention to detail from the movies, and sounds are authentic, though anyone can easily put in movie sounds and music. And...um, the motion sensor is kind of cool I guess, even though you can't fire your gun while using it, which is pretty counter-intuitive gameplay wise.
There's also the online multiplayer modes which are...average. You have 6v6 Team Death Match, 6v6 Extermination which is pretty much attack/defend zones, Escape which is a 4v4 Left 4 Dead vs-ish mode with Marines and aliens, and 4v4 Survival which you try and hold out for the set amount of time all the while completing simple objectives to increase your score and chances for survival. Each mode has you play one round as marines, then the other as aliens (or vice-versa if you start the first round as a xeno) which you can choose custom load outs for marines and the three main xenomorph classes (not including the two special alien types, the boilers and chargers, you can find and play as). Both of which you can make custom appearances too after unlocking the options.
While some modes took me a long time to find and connect to a game (possibly due to the already dying online console community and/or my internet connection) I had an okay time outside of waiting forever to join matches. The surivival/escape modes actually feel more like an Aliens game than the single player and playing as the nimble wall climbing xenomorphs can be a little fun. But the lasting appeal for these four modes aren't that long and I was barely able to find any matches for anything besides team death match. Plus, I was never that much into multiplayer "rank up your Dorito XP games" anyway.
There's also the up to four player online co-op (two split-screen) but didn't bother with that since no one I knew at the time had the game too and I didn't want to play the campaign again, let alone share the tedium with someone else.
But even with the duable multiplayer, it does not do anything to make a dent in the colossal iceberg disaster of a game.
My distress message would be: "RUN! Get as far as possible from this game if you're an Aliens fan!"
This was also one of the most buggy (no pun intended) and glitchy games I ever played, the only other game I can think of that's more haphazard is Sonic 06. I guess the QA just made sure the game can run without freezing before dealing with the other issues. I mentioned some before, but I've seen enemies and items load in, floating/dropped items out of nowhere, dead enemies and things getting stuck and hung up, Bella and Reid still being in the area when they're suppose to be somewhere else, the list goes on. Plus, despite a mandatory install on the PS3 version, there's still a moderate amount of load times (though not as bad as console versions of DNF) and the game even has "Metroid Prime doors" now and then that take a while to open while the level loads. Which make a noise as if the the doors doubled as copy machines. The quality of this game is so poor that it's astounding.
Considering the development hell it went through shouldn't be a surprise either, as Gearbox clearly half assed and rushed this version out after scrapping who knows how many versions before it. Not only that, but they had to get TimeGate Studios and Nerve Software to outsource single player aspects and multiplayer respectively. Yeah, because why work on the game yourselves when you can be lazy and just get the guys that made Section 8 and ports/multiplayer modes of games do some of your work for cheap? There's also the alleged fact that Gearbox apparently took some of the publishing money from Sega to help fund Borderlands 2. Guess you should have thought of not doing that before Sega had enough and demanded the game out by now huh?
I've played a bit of BL1, but this and CM make me not want to play 2...
One thing I should mention is that there was a Wii-U version, but was pushed back, but who knows if that will ever come out now. I hate to admit it, but the sensor with the tablet would be kind of neat, even if just a novelty.
Finally, I should mention that because of the terrible A.I., it's not very difficult and I managed to beat the whole game in the hardest "ultimate bad-ass" mode, which not only does more damage to you, but removes your HUD images. I certainly didn't feel like a bad-ass playing this though.
You're better off playing any of the Aliens vs. Predator games, even the 2010 one. Hell, just get both AvP classic 2000 and 2010 for cheap off of Steam. The marine campaigns are much better in those than this. Though I'm still not sure if the four Alien3 games I have are better or still worse than Colonial Marines. Maybe I can just call that a draw. Hope you somehow enjoy me actually get mad at a game getting flak for once. Take it away contorted Weyland merc!
