Aliens Colonial Marines: In Space No One Can See Your Mediocrity

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/aliens-colonial-marines/critic-reviews

Currently holding about a 50 average on Metacritic, the recent revelation that Gearbox outsourced the single player component to another developer didn't instill much confidence.   

Here's a Gamespot article detailing the developmental hell this game went through:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/aliens-colonial-marines-development-was-a-total-train-wreck-says-ex-dev-6403761

Six years of development time and we get a subpar product that, by most accounts, isn't even worth a bargain bin purchase.

Consider this the first major disappointment of 2013.

Been around the web myself. Putting it nicely, people seem more than just upset. I would be too If I had anticipated something that long. The original Alien is one of my favorite films, and Gearbox does hold favor with me because of Borderlands 1/2, but I never thought Colonial Marines would be anything better than your average sci-fi shooter, personally.

This game would have been soooooo much better as an action/adventure game instead of just another generic testosterone-dripping shooter.  But of course Call of Duty sold a trillion copies so now all games must be shooters :roll:

This will be the first uncensored f-bomb I post on GS...

Euro Truck Simulator 2 currently has a higher metascore than this game. 

...Yeah. 

I was totally on board with this game up until a few days ago, and I feel like I really dodged a bullet. It really upsets me that multiplayer seems to be where the money and effort went. I've got it in my rental queue, but I'll never buy it.

I expect nothing good from the people who inflicted Duke Nukem on the world, so I'm not surprised. Yes, they make the Borderlands games, but that's some sort of freak accident. I've read interviews where Pitchford has claimed that Duke Nukem Forever is the modern Half Life 2.

http://www.destructoid.com/pitchford-duke-nukem-forever-is-exactly-like-half-life-2-231521.phtml

On the lighter side of the news the Wii U version of Aliens (which ships later) will reportedly be the best, a title akin to being the tallest midget.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-25-wii-u-aliens-colonial-marines-is-best-looking-version-because-of-consoles-more-modern-tech

I had hope for this, love Aliens, love Borderlands. Guess i'll avoid this one then.

Of what I played I am enjoying it.

I do not care about Metacritic. To me it is one of the worse site to look for a score.

I've been slowly losing interest the last few months in it. Each new section of gameplay they showed was looking more and more average, with mediocre gunplay and poor visuals. The reviews confirmed how it looked, so I'm not going to even bother renting it now.

This was going to be one of my most anticipated games of this year. It's not fair. Why did Gearbox do this? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

They created my favourite war shooter ever and Alien franchise is one of my favourite, should have been a match made in heaven. 

I hate life.

This was going to be one of my most anticipated games of this year. It's not fair. Why did Gearbox do this? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

They created my favourite war shooter ever and Alien franchise is one of my favourite, should have been a match made in heaven. 

I hate life.

Ilovegames1992

Problem # 1 - Gearbox didn't actually make the SP portion.

[QUOTE="Ilovegames1992"]

This was going to be one of my most anticipated games of this year. It's not fair. Why did Gearbox do this? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

They created my favourite war shooter ever and Alien franchise is one of my favourite, should have been a match made in heaven. 

I hate life.

Grammaton-Cleric

Problem # 1 - Gearbox didn't actually make the SP portion.

Oh. Well they seemed to be the lead developer, being the biggest name out of the bunch. So the blame falls on them. 

[QUOTE="Grammaton-Cleric"]

[QUOTE="Ilovegames1992"]

This was going to be one of my most anticipated games of this year. It's not fair. Why did Gearbox do this? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

They created my favourite war shooter ever and Alien franchise is one of my favourite, should have been a match made in heaven. 

I hate life.

Ilovegames1992

Problem # 1 - Gearbox didn't actually make the SP portion.

Oh. Well they seemed to be the lead developer, being the biggest name out of the bunch. So the blame falls on them. 

Although:

'Gearbox president Randy Pitchford said that "roughly 80 percent of the work on Colonial Marines is being done in-house at Gearbox, with the rest being done by outside developers."'

Interesting how Borderlands is basically the only franchise Gearbox has made that's any good. 

Interesting how Borderlands is basically the only franchise Gearbox has made that's any good. 

Vari3ty

Brothers in Arms?

[QUOTE="Ilovegames1992"]

[QUOTE="Grammaton-Cleric"]

Problem # 1 - Gearbox didn't actually make the SP portion.

Ilovegames1992

Oh. Well they seemed to be the lead developer, being the biggest name out of the bunch. So the blame falls on them. 

Although:

'Gearbox president Randy Pitchford said that "roughly 80 percent of the work on Colonial Marines is being done in-house at Gearbox, with the rest being done by outside developers."'

It's a cluster**** either way, but I was shocked to hear they outsourced the most crucial element of the game. (single player)

It's a cluster**** either way, but I was shocked to hear they outsourced the most crucial element of the game. (single player)

Grammaton-Cleric

Not saying i don't believe you but i imagine that single player would factor into this 80% of content? Is Randy just bullsh!tting?

I can't imagine them outsourcing such crucial elements.

saw that coming the day it was announced. will totally buy it when it's price is in the single digits in a couple months.

I'm not surprised that it's trash.

Sucks that Obsidian never got to make their Aliens RPG and this gets released.

Too bad they focused on Borderlands, and outsourced Aliens. :(

Too bad they focused on Borderlands, and outsourced Aliens. :(

mikeyMKII

This Is why you never Pre - Order a Game no matter how Good/Great it look's/Might be always wait for a few reviews to come out before putting down $60 on a game

Interesting how Borderlands is basically the only franchise Gearbox has made that's any good. 

Vari3ty

I'm actually enjoying it atm, been playing for 2 hours. It's funny how people praise CoD and Halo to death and yet when a different FPS comes along it just doesn't live up to their so called expectations (lawl). So far the only thing that I would actually call bad in ACM is the human Wayland AI which is just...ugh

Well, these days, there is an upside to BAD games. Because, BAD games = Funny as hell Angry Joe Review :PKevlar101

i cant wait to see his review lol.. he had high hopes for this game

I expect nothing good from the people who inflicted Duke Nukem on the world, so I'm not surprised. Yes, they make the Borderlands games, but that's some sort of freak accident. I've read interviews where Pitchford has claimed that Duke Nukem Forever is the modern Half Life 2.

http://www.destructoid.com/pitchford-duke-nukem-forever-is-exactly-like-half-life-2-231521.phtml

On the lighter side of the news the Wii U version of Aliens (which ships later) will reportedly be the best, a title akin to being the tallest midget.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-25-wii-u-aliens-colonial-marines-is-best-looking-version-because-of-consoles-more-modern-tech

CarnageHeart

Well they didn't really make DNF either, they just patched it up enough that it could be released, which is probably what really happened here, as this also had an extremely long dev time with many different studios working on it.

[QUOTE="Vari3ty"]

Interesting how Borderlands is basically the only franchise Gearbox has made that's any good. 

Gibsonsg527

Hmm, never really got into it. I may have to reconsider. 

[QUOTE="mikeyMKII"]

Too bad they focused on Borderlands, and outsourced Aliens. :(

gpuFX16

So the DLC for BL2 isn't that good? How does the dlc compare to say, Armory of General Knoxx?

Well, that's quite disappointing. Especially considering that even though they were not directly responsible for that mess, it's ost likely Gearbox's name the one that will be associated with the game.

Although the campaign is ok, the most disappointing part is how they falsely represented the game with the walkthrough demo with Randy commentating. The demo they show case is not in the final product and that was a HUGE turn off for me. I was expecting huge battles with a platoon of Colonial Marines by your side gunning down hordes of Aliens. It's kind of like how the Halo 2 E3 2004 demo left everybody disappointed when the final game released.

Sega now saying Gearbox was the main dev team for everything and they are simply trying to shift blame for this crappy game

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/sega-aliens-colonial-marines-sp-was-not-outsourced-to-timegate-studios/

dvader654

The plot thickens.

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2013/02/13/timegate-staff-estimate-50-of-aliens-colonial-marines-is-their-work/

However, a post on TimeGates own site by their Forum Moderator suggests there might be a bit more Gate and rather less Gears in the final product.

Messaged a few people in TG and found out that TG basically had a hand in everything. They are responsible for the weapons, the characters, some of the story, a fair amount of the aliens, and I dont mean conceptualization, they did the actual work of making said weapons and so on.

Technically they did work on the MP component, just not in the way I initially thought.

This said, the game underwent a lot of changes so TG doesnt actually know how much of their content is left. Some had the estimate that 50% of what you see in the campaign is their work, others wanted to see for themselves and would get back to me after playing the game themselves.

Now the interesting thing is that Gearbox have seemingly backed up this claim, If you take pre-production out of it, their [TimeGate's] efforts probably equivalent to ours.

I'm actually enjoying it atm, been playing for 2 hours. It's funny how people praise CoD and Halo to death and yet when a different FPS comes along it just doesn't live up to their so called expectations (lawl). So far the only thing that I would actually call bad in ACM is the human Wayland AI which is just...ugh

Ballroompirate

Neither COD nor Halo is my personal metric for what constitutes a quality FPS; I simply think this game looks far below average.

I'm sure it's playable but many of us were expecting far more than another average (or below average) FPS.

Anyone see this yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z2qVebxlUo

Demo VS final version. 

What happened?

Anyone see this yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z2qVebxlUo

Demo VS final version.

What happened?

EXEraserVS

Wow. That is a night and day difference.