Aliens: Colonial Marines Review

It is hard to remain objective on this subject, but I will endeavour to do so. I have erected a small shack outside my house which has been soundproofed and when I get a bit antsy over this subject then I go in there to scream and scream until my lungs vibrate and burst. I will be doing this periodically as I write this.

So, Aliens: Colonial Marines (ACM) is a game I have had on my game radar since I possessed a game radar. Fleeting hints have been dropped over the past 10 years over a co-op hardcore game starring the famous Colonial Marines from the James Cameron movie, Aliens. The game as it is was announced officially by Sega and Gearbox around 6 years ago or so. I was insanely excited, especially when Left 4 Dead came out and the ACM developers hinted that was the sort of Co-op that they were going to do. L4D with Aliens? Unlike Hudson, you can count me in. But then there were multiple delays on the game but I figured that you know, quality takes time and they were perfecting it for the masses of Aliens and gamer fans (a Venn diagram of interests that would almost completely intersect).

So it came out last week. I had pre-ordered it (of course) but the weekend before, I got slightly nervous and was wondering why there were no advanced reviews published. Basically, no gamer magazine had released a review. Now, I used to review computer games and I am well aware of the embargoes that are involved. But all of them? Not one? For a triple A game release? Not even the weekend before to build the hype for the following Tuesday? Well, it made me a little suspicious so I cancelled my pre-order but had the intention of reading the reviews and then was going to get it from a game shop on the day of release. Then, inexorably, as the world spun on its axis, on the evening of the Monday and going into Tuesday arrived, the reviews started to be posted. And boy, were they stinking reviews. Truly awful. There was a litany of bile and vitriol. But still, I hoped, they weren’t me. They couldn’t like the franchise as much as me. And I still intended to get it, but just not at the premium £39.99 that it was being sold for.

Then my colleague who had fluked an early pre-order copy told me about his experiences playing it. My malaise grew and grew. My colleague then got so fucked off with it he mailed me his copy when he hadn’t even finished it. Then I knew the game had to be tangibly bad. So last night, with extreme trepidation, I spun up the disc to play it. Whilst it was loading, I donned my USS Sulaco khaki t-shirt and my red bandanna to enhance the experience.

The game itself was truly frightening. Pure horror. It sent shivers up and down my spine. What frightened me so was not the contents of the game or the 20^th Century FOX signed-off canon script, of course. What is so terrifying is that this was a piece of code that had been certified gold to be printed onto discs. The game is broken. Fundamentally so. Technical people speak at length about things like V-Sync Tearing, framerate, colour palette, poor AI, major clipping issues. For me, it is the little things like being able to place current technology gun sights on iconic weapons. What? Isn’t it the future? Why do we have a chance to place crappy holographic sights on a fucking PULSE RIFLE? And make it red and flamey to show my ‘individuality’? No. Just no. The incredible warping sidekick that you have. Bitch, please. What we were shown in demos last year was an incredibly tight integrated team game with next gen graphics and fantastic plot. What we have been given is a COD clone in space with plot holes the size of an Alien queen’s fully dilated egg-popping cervix.

It feels wrong. It plays wrong. At least, for a triple A game release. If it was £10 then actually it would have been at least understandable but still shit. But then, if it didn’t have the Aliens licence this would never have ever even seen the light of day. Sega are going to be pissed. Ridley Scott is going to be pissed, as he was actually consulted on the game prior to the release of Prometheus. Gearbox trumpeted this story integration which of course made all the fanbois (myself included) spontaneously create inner pants conditions similar to that of an explosion in a Cadbury’s Creme Egg Goo factory.

But sadly, it was not to be. Maybe the movies’ creative spirit has been sucked so dry in the 25 years since it has been released by other movies and games that it is merely a dry husk and nothing further can be wrought from it? Maybe Aliens is better as a film and nothing else. Maybe guns and aliens and artificial tension can’t really sustain a full game. My final thoughts are that playing the game has made me not like the original movie as much which is a horrible and shocking admission and a testament to Gearbox’s toxic legacy. 

Sword and Gun Day

The tragedy of what happened to Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius’s girlfriend in Pretoria today (we of course don’t know the full details) is all too familiar to people who live in countries where gun ownership is the norm. There is a heightened expectation of murderous violence due to the insanely quick escalation levels. People are literally cavalier about their right to defend themselves. However, I can understand this from a personal point of view and I think most people would. If you were scared or were trying to protect a loved one from an unknown threat of menace you would lash out with the most powerful weapon you had before they struck at you. I certainly would. The issue is that we aren’t a nation of individuals, we live in diverse populaces where people all think differently and react differently to events that can transpire. We live in societies and we can only govern as societies, and not a bunch of individuals.

“Guns don’t kill people, people do!”

Well actually, technically speaking, the bullets do most of the killing and maiming. Maybe if we can’t control guns (I don’t really know about South Africa but I understand the high levels of gun ownership is mainly due to the appalling amounts of crime and specifically burglaries that take place) maybe we should endeavour to control ammunition? I fully and realistically concede that you will never be able to take away the hoards of guns that people fetishistically collect. But you could certainly regulate ammunition and only in the manner how prescription medicines or even cigarettes are sold would place some welcome sort of restriction and control. But even this half-hearted attempt at restriction would not have prevented poor Oscar Pistorius’s girlfriend and indeed the anguish that Oscar himself must be feeling. I feel for him, as no punishment the authorities burden him with (if any) will be able to make him feel as bad as he must currently feel.